Downtown Cairo

Today's adventure consisted of heading downtown to the government buildings so we could get our one year tourist visas. I must say, the Metro subway gets a whole lot busier when you get closer to downtown! It was hot, stinky, and crowded... and that was before we got to the government building. When we got inside the government building, it was worse than inside the Metro! Everything was so intense that it seemed like something out of a movie. First we walked through a series of metal detectors and security checks. Then we dove into the seas of people surging from every direction. After climbing some stairs, we arrived on a floor that was one huge corridor of windows decorated with crowds of people fighting to get to them. Behind each window were government workers providing various tasks for everyone. In order to get my visa, I had to get a bunch of stamps from one of the windows. In North America, you would simply form a line in front of one of these windows and wait to be served. Not here in Egypt! Egyptians do not understand the concept of lines. I had to jump into a group of stinky, yelling men so I could fight my way to the window. I found the method that worked best was to stick out my chest and elbows and make myself as tall and sturdy was possible so that I intimidated everyone around me and kept them from budding in front of me. Eventually I made it to the window (the whole time other men were still shoving their money through the window, demanding service) and got my stamps. At first the lady didn't give me change, so I kept standing there and asked for my change. She tried helping a few other people to get rid of me, but after I stood there for a while, she grabbed the rest of my change for me. They always try to shortchange you in this culture. After waiting for an hour or two, we finally recieved our passports back. We were quite glad to get out of that dark, depressing building.


This is a picture of what I eat for breakfast each day. I think it's kind of funny.



This is part of downtown Cairo. I got reprimanded by a government official for taking this picture because I was standing on government property when I took it.