Today I decided to spend most of the day pretending I wasn't alone and scared in Cairo. I went to the City Stars shopping mall way over the other side of the city. It's the biggest mall they have, and was pretty nice. They had all stuff I recognised, and no one bothered me at all. Not an Egyptian experience at all, but that wasn't what I wanted anyway. So far I'm not super keen on this whole Egypt thing, and there's supposed to be some more problems tomorrow, so I'll probably just hang around close to my hostel for the day.
I did have one 'you're in Egypt' experience today, and that was my taxi ride back from the mall. There are no seat belts in the back seats of cars here, so you have to brave that, and the traffic is crazy. Then I realised that my taxi driver had a tv for a rearview mirror and was watching 'The Avenger' while driving, and smoking, despite the big no smoking sticker on the front window. He also had some sort of gangster rap/dub step CD playing rather loudly, and then proceeded to get lost in the streets around my hostel and drive around asking for directions. Which cost me like an exta $3! I'm feeling a bit sick now from the driving and smoke, but I'm ok. On the bright side I got a couple of nice new clothes, and some moisturiser. I don't know what's in the water of these countries, but it's harsh!
So, what else is going on? I'm inching day by day closer towards booking my tickets to the US. I think I'm going to fly direct from Cairo, but book myself a niceish hotel in a nicer area for a couple of days instead of a hostel for the time between when my tour ends and I fly out. Just to preserve my sanity.
Here's five things for Thursday:
1) I had Starbucks. It was good. I'm not sorry.
2) I had a good look around a huge Egyptian supermarket. There wasn't much weird stuff, sadly, but it was interesting.
3) I survived two taxi rides through the city. It really is best not to look.
4) I actually bought something while I was shopping :)
5) I felt safe today.
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