hitting the streets

Well today Connor was ready to do some driving! We headed out a little before 9am to cruise the route from our hotel in Heliopolis, northwest of downtown, to Maadi, the town to the south where we are planning to live. In total it was about ten miles. We strategically chose Friday morning, as it has the least amount of traffic by far. We set out in our rental car (a Toyota Corolla!) with an old-fashioned map as well as cell phone GPS in hand. The ride down was a breeze; we were even the only foreseeable car on the road at times. We found ourselves in the center of Maadi quickly. Maadi, however, is a labyrinthine collection of tree-lined streets that jut out at odd angles from each other. An Egyptian colleague of Connor's said that Maadi, a major haven for expats, was set out deliberately to confound any local burgler so that he would not be able to escape before the police nabbed him! While this is probably an urban legend, the amount of taxi drivers who have to ask for directions repeatedly in this part of Cairo is pretty high. We got a little tangled up among some roundabouts and one way streets, but with the help of good old sat nav we made our way back north onto the highway. To be fair, the streets are mostly numbered, which is helpful, and there is a much higher percentage of labelled streets than anywhere else I have encountered so far. We're looking forward to the day when we can wind our way around the roads with stealth and precision! Connor did a truly masterful job at interpreting the maps and I tracked our little moving blue dot as well as possible.

initial impressions, observations, and thoughts

Well we've been here in greater Cairo for about a week. I am having trouble getting started with my very first post, so I might just kick things off with some bullet points of the interesting things I have noted in the past seven days...

• the watermelons in Egypt are the deepest, rosiest red I've ever seen
• people drive very daringly except over speedbumps, when they slow to 1 or 2 mph at most
• on a related note, neither traffic nor driving conditions have not been *too* bad so far, but I am fully prepared to eat my words
• I saw a woman get into the pool with a swim cap covering her hair but a torso-exposing bikini...really--what's the point then?
• after having seen about 30 apartments in two days, bowwabs (doormen) span the whole spectrum of friendliness
• it's not overwhelmingly hot--we walked around for about 2.5 hours straight yesterday at midday (high: 100 degrees fahrenheit) and while we were ready for some AC, it was certainly bearable
• coming from Colorado, we're the only people we know who think it's humid here
  
• Maadi, the area of town where we are planning to live, has a laid back, leafy green vibe
• at Spinney's, a Target-esque store right next to our hotel, you can find all the typical toiletry brands that we use in the States--makes me feel a bit sheepish for the massive quantities of Pantene I stocked in our air shipment
• we're enjoying ourselves!