It’s time once again for 12 of 12!  This 12th of July, I’m in Cairo, capitol of the Arab Republic of Egypt.  I’ve been out of the US since June 29 — I was in Turkey for 10 days and flew down here on the 9th.  (For the record, and if you’re interested, there are photos from Turkey here).

I’ve been in Cairo many times — I studied here for a year in university — and it’s one of my favorite places in the world.  This is my first visit since 2006. I’m here on a combined business / vacation trip.  Although today is a business day (the work week in Egypt is Sunday through Thursday, since Friday is the communal day of prayer in Islam), I didn’t have any meetings scheduled, so it was kind of a fun day.

7:52 am: Skyping with Ray

I’ve been waking up kind of early since I got here, and I caught Ray up late at home so we talked by Skype for a bit.  Mocha was in the picture for a bit, but she never quite looked at the camera.  Sorry, Mocha fans, there are no photos of her this month

10:00 am: Errands

After pretending to go back to sleep for a bit, I finally wandered out around 10 o’clock to go pick up my laundry from the place down the street.  The laundry is in the same complex as the supermarket, so I stopped in to pick up some water and soda first, and then carried it all back to the hotel.  It was warm in Cairo today (102 F/41 C), and unusually humid.  This is, lamentably, still cooler than it is at home in Austin.  Tomorrow it’s going to be cooler – by Tuesday, it’ll be 91 (36).

1:56 pm: Christian Cairo

I met up today with Tarek, our junior professor in modern Arabic literature, and we went down to the so-called Christian quarter.  It’s in the oldest part of the city, which actually predates the city of Cairo by 300 years.  A little-known fact: around 10 per cent of Egypt’s population is Christian, belonging to the native Coptic Church.  In an area of town called Mar Girgis, there are a number of churches and one of the few synagogues remaining in the country, all clumped together.

Tarek and I first hit the Coptic Museum (no photography allowed), and then wandered through the rest of the complex.  Although it’s a tourist draw, most of the people there were Egyptian, which was OK by us.

2:11 pm: St George’s Cemetery

That’s Tarek taking a photo of the mausoleums in the Greek Orthodox cemetery behind St. George’s Church.  There are a bunch of mausoleums and family plots back there.  I was a bit surprised to find the tomb of someone with the same name as my grandfather — how many Neoklis Triantafillides’s could there have been in the Greek speaking world?

2:16 pm: Water from the Holy Well

Although it’s not spelled out in the Gospels, the Egyptians have an entire itinerary set out for exactly where the Holy Family (Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus) traveled during their flight into Egypt.  In the cemetery is a crypt built over a cave where the Holy Family is said to have sheltered and drawn water from the well above.  As Mary (as Meryem) and Jesus (as ‘Issa) are both revered as prophets in Islam as well as Christianity, you can see adherents of both faiths making pilgrimages at these shrines.

2:51 pm: … you crazy, adorable fool

The oldest known synagogue in Egypt still in existence, the Ben Ezra Synagogue, is in Mar Girgis as well, although, once again, no photography allowed.  Tarek and I got the royal tour, and were shown to the ‘Ayn Musa, the spring of Moses, located behind the synagogue.  This is said to be the spring where Pharaoh’s daughter drew the baby Moses from the Nile (the synagogue is said to be on the place where Moses pleaded with God to stop the plagues inflicted on Egypt).

3:12 pm: Off to Lunch

OK, by this point in the day it was really hot in the sun and time for lunch.  Tarek and I had made plans to meet up with some students who are here for the summer, so we set back off for the area where I’m staying and several of the students live.

I am routinely asked by people if I feel unsafe traveling to Egypt as often as I do.  The answer is no – I have been coming to Egypt for 15 years, and I’ve never hidden the fact that I’m American, nor that I’m Christian (I don’t mention the part about being gay, however — that’s one barrier I’m not willing to cross here).  I’ve never been greeted with anything but kindness by people here.

The one place I do feel unsafe is on the road, however.  Egyptian taxis are built like tanks, but it doesn’t stop me from flinching often when riding in them.  Cairo is horrifically congested (by most unofficial estimates there are 20 million people in the Cairo/Giza/Shubra el Khayma metropolitan area) and it can take ages to get anywhere.  The Metro, wisely, is more for local use than tourists (it’s also not air conditioned), so we decided to cab it.

3:44 pm: Decisions, Decisions

We met up for lunch at Abu Sid, a local upscale Egyptian restaurant.  You can get just about everything they serve on the street, but without the nasty side effects afterwards

5:38 pm: Towel Art

Back on my own, I headed back to the hotel — a small, unassuming place run by a lady who governs with an iron fist.  I had forgotten that I’d hung my socks on the towel rack to dry after handwashing them in the sink this morning.  Hence, the guy who cleans the rooms at the hotel got a little creative with towel placement and left me a duck!

8:05 pm: Sunset

In my food coma haze, I checked e-mail quickly and read while half watching episodes of the less successful Law and Order franchises (Trial by Jury; Trial by Fire; and Parks and Recreational Petty Crimes Division).  I lose track of the time until I hear the call to prayer wafting in through the window, meaning that it’s sunset.

8:45 pm: Evening Traffic in Zamalek

I wander out, mostly from sheer boredom, and it’s traffic as usual in Zamalek on a weeknight.  Cars and pedestrians going every which way.

10:06 pm: Dessert before dinner

One of the students calls to see what I’m up to and invite me to tag along to dinner (they eat late here).  I’m not that hungry, but first we stop in at a local bakery/sweet shop that I’ve frequented since my student days.  They churn out really nice baked goods–baklava, basboussa, kinaffeh–and ice cream as well.

For the record, we didn’t actually eat this stuff until after dinner (the shop was on the way to where we were going).  That would have been totally crazy … *innocent look*

And that was my 12.  How was yours?