A weekend on the coast

This happened awhile ago but I thought it was worth writing about so

here it is.....a two month overdue post about our trip to Alexandria.

In an effort to escape the heat and the intensity of Cairo and to take advantage of the a few days off before school starts (a vacation that occurs at the end of Ramadan) we head to the coast of the Mediterranean. Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, is the second largest city in Egypt and historically was super important. It was the capital for nearly a thousand years and home to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It does still have the catacombs, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. Anyway enough of that...

We took the metro to the train station. Fasting was about to end for the day and as the time approached we saw people running around handing dates out to everyone so that everyone would have something to eat. I remember thinking that it was so beautiful and so rare to see everyone come together like that. On the train, Billy, my Arabic speaking American teacher friend befriends this man (who speaks no English). Billy spent the three hour train ride in a very intense discussion about Islam while having smoke blown in his face. Little did we know, this conversation would later save our whole trip.

So turns out this man, Ali is friends with a taxi driver who is coming to pick him up from the train station. He offers to drive us to a hotel and so we agree. We arrive and go to check in and....well I am not proud of this next part but in my defense let me make a few statements: we have been living in Egypt long enough now that we don't really feel like tourists and apparently this means that we don't think about requiring a passport and also normally when you travel

you don't have a home so you have everything with you - so you don't think about the fact that you are asked for your passport when you check into a hotel. Plus, we were really only leaving the city....I think about needing a pas

sport to leave the country. Yes, ok so we did not bring our passports. All three of us. Yes it is true. I would not tell this story out of sheer embarrassment but unfortunately it is necessary for the rest of the story. Anyway so our first thought is "ok we will go back to the train station and take the next train back to Cairo" BUT of course we just got off the last train of the evening so this isn't possible. We then think "ok well we will wonder around the city all night or sleep on the beach and take the next train back in the morning". Of course we are not thrilled with this option but we try to be as optimistic as possible. Our buddy Ali and his cab driver friend Ayman are still with us at this point and they suggest that we hire Ayman to drive us around and then we can see some of the sights (albeit in the dark), have somewhere to leave our bags,

and somewhere to nap if we want. So we agree to this - sounds better than the alternative. Then Ali starts making calls and buzzing around in Arabic and then announces that he has found us a friend of his who rents out his apartment and we can rent it for the weekend. Hmmmm sounded suspicious BUT keep in mind that we were pretty desperate at this point and we justified it by saying that it isn't like he offered this sketchy deal right from the beginning - he would have been perfectly happy to leave us at the hotel (if w

e hadn't been so dumb!) Anyway so as we drive there we decide that if their plan isn't to kidnap and rob us and if this is all a legitimate attempt to help we will stay no matter what...it could be an empty filthy room with just a floor and I would sleep there.

So we get there and we nervously climb the stairs and open the door a

nd immediately are hit with this beautiful ocean breeze - oh wait, it is coming from the most amazing sea view you can imagine.

We step out onto the balcony (see picture taken from this balcony above) and I decide right then that I could live there forever - even if their master plan has something to do with kidnapping the foreigners. We can only imagine what they are planning to charge us for this beautiful, furnished, full kitchen, two bathroom loveliness. We all sit down and everyone lights cigarettes and they ask us how we like it - we express our delight at the place in broken Arabic. Then they get serious and the bartering begin. Ali, it turns out is a master negotiater. It was an intense round of negotiations and on more than one occasion I thought Ali was going to get up and hit someone or throw something and then he would be laughing and poking the guy in the stomach in this sweet playful manner, like you would do a toddler. And the man would giggle. Very odd. Anyway, I am lost and just sit there like a fool totally enthralled by this interaction. Then Ali turns to us and t

ells us a price (I can't remember what it was now but something in the vicinity of the equivalent of like 25 dollars each). What?! Yes please, and by the way, can I stay forever?! We don't have passports so Ali puts up his I.D for us (keep in mind that this man just met us) and the place is ours! It h

as now been hours since Ali should have been home and he travels for work and had not seen his family in 15 days - and yet, here he is bartering for these strangers he met on a train. We didn't ask for any of this kindness! It was remarkable!We try to offer to buy him dinner or to do something for him but he insists that he does not want that

- instead, he says, when we go home to our countries and people ask what the people are like, he wants us to tell people that Muslims are kind and that they are not terrorists, as some people in the West think. I was deeply touched by his kindness and saddened that this was was his one wish- not to be misunderstood by my part of the world. We saw him several times w

hile we were in Alexandria - we would meet at night and drink tea on the beach (see below). It was lovely.

We went with him to his home and met his daughters - a lovely lovely experience. I could not have been happier that the three of happen to be idiots who left their passports at home. We hired Ayman to be our driver for a few days- in part to repay the kindness both men showed us

that night and also because he was a great guy and we enjoyed his company.

My travel companions: Billy and Ryan (the other Western teachers at my school)

and our new friend, Ayman.

The trip was nice - we saw some sights: the catacombs where a guide explained all about the

process of transporting the mummies through the tombs and the makings and statues and what they meant, a fort made partially from the remains of the lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) that was destroyed, where we stood and watched the waves crashing on the shore and marveled at the beautiful view of the city, ruins of the ancient city which has largely been destroyed because it was a constant war site for so many years...anyway a lovely visit. For me it is nice to be out with the two male American teachers that I work with. Being with a man changes everything in this part of the world. While the harassment does not stop, it frees me up to experience the people in a way that I can't alone. We stopped and had tea with a man who was sitting out on the street in front of his seafood shop which looked to me like he and his employees were the sole customers, with a mountain of fish and fishbones (and no plates) piled on top of newspaper on a fold up table. I would never be able to do something like this alone - I can see how different of an experience it is to be a man in this country. Anyway, it was a great little getaway that left us refreshed and ready to meet the little ones.