Saturday, April 02, 2005

A nightmare called Cairo

Some facts about Cairo:

Cairo is one of the largest cities in the world with 20-22 Million people living and working there (including day workers)
Along with Bombay and Rio de Janeiro, Cairo is the worst city to drive in.
An average taxi ride costs 10-20 pounds.
Getting ripped off is the norm.
If you are a girl in a Taxi, there is a 75% chance that the reason why the taxi driver keeps looking at you it's because his hand are in his pants, giving himself some "pleasure".
The amount of veiled girls/women and bearded men makes you feel like you are in an Iranian movie.
The color blue does now exist: the Nile has a brown color, kind of like the color you see in the toilet when you have diarrhea. The sky is gray as it is covered with a thick layer of Fog.
There is no correct accurate map of Cairo.
Crossing the street is an adventure that is as life threatening as jumping off the Himalaya Mountains.

And finally,,,,
Cairo is going to be my home in the very near future

13 comments:

Assem said...

i can argue about the validaty of some of your points but i wont!

All i have to say Cairo with all its ups and downs is still my favourite city to live in and i am positive that this applies to millions of Cairens.

GOOOO CAAIROOOOO :D

Kait said...

haha,
and i miss it so :(

the one that bothered me the most:

'no correct accurate map of cairo'
it was hard for me to learn that i had to accept that i didn't know where i was and no map would help.

oh, and the taxi driver thing......

Superluli said...

kaitlin are you speaking from first "hand" experience?

Bowman said...

Come on Luli, you know you love it...
Cairo may be all those things, but as I was telling Lina and Salma during our 19 hours in Jeddah airport coming back from Kenya, Cairo actually feels like home. At least after two weeks in Kenya, anyway...

Kait said...

Haha,

Haram, Louly, Nice. I would expect nothing less from you :)

As the story goes, I believe you left 2 naive girls in a cab after they had been in a new country for a week.

K said...

Louly, as much as I love you (and clean air) Cairo really is not as bad as you've described. Putting Alex-Cairo disputes aside, and the fact that I'm clearly biased after living in Cairo for 3 months, I remember actually being surprised with how safe I felt there. I took the undergound metro to work almost everyday, and taxis several times a day, and not once was I ever worried about my safety, grabbed, groaped, or been exposed to indecent acts of "pleasure", as some Alex people we know have. True, for the first 4 days I couldn't breathe and crossing the street could be compared to walking through a stampede, but think of it as an everyday adventure. If it doesn't kill you, it will only make you stronger. =)

Now at the opposite end of the spectrum, ciao from Vienna!!

Holly said...

Graphic, as always Louly.

I think in your case Kasia- people were frightened of your bright blonde hair. Us "Egypt blondes" are not so intimidating, therefore more grope-able, whether our location at the time was Alex, Cairo or anywhere else.

Superluli said...

i can deal with all those stuff, but the smell of the sea, and the view of this big blue sea along with the warm sun and blue sky. it's breath-taking (except in jan and feb)
i have no idea how i am going to wake up everyday and not see my favorite kornishe.

Kait said...

Wahashtiny Corniche : (

MA- Importing Egyptian Boys is quite easy. I'll send you the guidebook if interested.

Tamer Zikry said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Tamer Zikry said...

Cairo simply rocks!!!
I have lived more than 16 out of my 20 years in Kuwait but then I moved to Cairo to go to uni, and I just fell in love with this noisy, polluted and dusty city...I was asked so many times if I would return to Kuwait and I decided that I want to spend the rest of my lifetime here with some breaks for doing interesting things in other places...
The amount of life, energy and humanity I see in Cairo just simply overwhelms me....

Cairo, i will live and die here...Love you Cairo...

Superluli said...

maybe all i need is time
but alex still ROCKS!!
maybe a little bit boring...
okay a LOT boring

Anonymous said...

That is soo mean!! really yukki louli!!! come on, cairo is fascinating, everyday is an adventure, this year is my 9th year, and i have never had the situation with cab drivers, you make me feel like its the norm...

anyway cairo is magical, i believe the pharoahs have a spell on it...n :)