My Wednesday Evening Off - Part I

This Wednesday Evening, our regular youth activity was cancelled due to the October 6th Holiday (I think that's the actual name of the holiday). So, with an evening free from slavery, er... youth, Rob (my little brudder... that's Dutch accent for 'brother') and I finally made our way to the Wednesday evening service at St. Mark's Cathedral. St. Mark's Cathedral is the head of the Coptic Church where the pope (Pope Shenouda) resides.

To get to St. Mark's, Rob and I had to take the metro. Usually this is a fairly simple and uneventful process... but we're in the middle of Ramadan here, so nothing is as it should be. Our adventure began as we entered the metro station and saw that there was nobody at the ticket booth to sell us our tickets. The reason for this is that we were trying to get onto the metro shortly after 5pm, which is when daily Ramadan fast ends and everyone goes to eat a big feast. The metro is set up so that you purchase a ticket, then put that ticket into a little turnstyle type thing. It turns and lets you onto the metro station platform and then returns your ticket. After riding the metro, you leave the station the same way (by putting your ticket into the turnstyle), only this time it doesn't return your ticket. Well, as I said, nobody was there to sell us our tickets so we weren't quite sure what to do. We didn't want to sit there and wait for the ticket salesman to return because we didn't want to be late to the church service. So what did we do, you ask? Well, the natural thing, of course! We left the money on the ticket salesman's counter and hopped over the turnstyles. Shortly after hopping onto the metro we realized what a terrible idea this was. Sure, there was nobody at this station to sell tickets and to police the turnstyles, but after riding the metro for 45 minutes there would no doubt be people at the other station we were headed to. Well, I sat there slightly nervously, slightly worried that I would get imprisioned if I was caught without a ticket. After 45 minutes of sitting there we arrived at the station we needed to disembark at. We got off the metro, took a look around, and realized how unbelievably lucky we were. This station happened to be under renovations, which meant that the turnstyles were not in use. There was simply a guy sitting beside a garbage bin, who cared little about whether or not people had tickets. I discreetly picked up a ticket on the way out and showed it to the man. He waved us through and we were good to go!

The trip home was also pretty hilarious. Well, I thought it was really funny and entertaining... Rob, however didn't see the humor in it. We bought our tickets, just like normal, and walked onto the metro platform (the one under renovations). To get onto the platform we just had to hold up our ticket for the guy by the garbage can to see. Rob, for some reason, thought that showing this guy his ticket was all he needed his ticket for, so he threw it into the bin of discarded metro tickets. Immediately after doing this, Rob realized that he still needed his ticket to get out of the station that we were headed to. So I had a good laugh while Rob stood there kicking himself. In my pocket I found the extra ticket that I picked up off the ground when we first arrived at this station, so I handed it to Rob to keep him from committing suicide. In the end, the ticket I gave him didn't work and he had to hop over the turnstyle anyways, but nobody arrested us. After getting home I found out that the fine for not having a ticket is only like 15 pounds... 3 or 4 Canadian dollars. Pshhh, and here I thought I was going to have to give up my firstborn child if I got caught without a ticket! Stay tuned for Part II of this post where I tell you about our expierience at the Coptic church service...