Wow...amazing day...
I woke up at 9 because I was meeting Nathan to go see Coptic Cairo. Since I had stayed up till 4 talking, this was quite a challenge. Still, woke up and got ready, then took a taxi to the Sadat Metro Station (Mohandseen isn't close to the metro) then took the metro (one pound any direction) to the Mar Girgis (trans. St. George) station, which is right across the street from the Coptic Museum. I met Nathan, and we waited for one of Nathan's new Egyptian friends, Romany. Nathan lives with an Egyptian guy, and Romany is his best friend. Romany is cute. Actually, Romany is very cute...and presbyterian...and translates material for the Christian churches in Cairo...and is very cute.
We toured the Coptic Museum, I was more amazed at the ornate woodworking on the walls of the museum than all the artifacts. After a while, I have come to realize, everything starts looking the same. Sure, it's amazing to be close to things that are so old but...they stop looking unique after the hundredth one you see... All three of us stopped on the third floor to rest...and get into a long political conversation about the state of the world. *sigh* Cute boys that like to talk politics...I'm in heaven.
After walking through the museum for a few hours we went to the Hanging Church, which was a few feet away. Romany insisted on taking pictures while I got to see the church without looking through a camera lens the whole time. The result? Pictures of me, and lots of good pictures that only Egyptians can get away with. Egyptians have a lot more free reign than tourists. They let Romany take a picture of people praying, and the nuns didn't mind at all.
After the Hanging Church, we walked to the Greek Orthodox Church down the street, more good pictures of tons of gold inlay and leafing. St. George's Fountain was very close, so we walked down into it. Romany got some pictures of me walking around in it, and we even took our shoes off to go into St. George's cell. People go in and put his neck shackle around their necks and pray. By this time it was around 2 in the afternoon, and none of had eaten anything all day. Nathan was craving Chili's. I was craving Chili's. Romany didn't know what Chili's was. We went on a quest to find one. This, of course, led us to the most Western part of town, Sadr City. Romany was bouncing happy to be going to Star City, the biggest mall in Egypt. That's where we found a Chili's.
So we're sitting in a giant mall, eating very Western food, having a perfectly normal conversation in English about world politics. Like I said. Best day ever. After that Romany insisted that we go see a movie. "The theater here is amazing. We must go." Ocean's 13 came out today...I was all over that. We watched the movie, and at intermission Romany insisted on buying us all pop and candy. Egyptians love making everyone fall in love with Egypt. That means inviting us places, spending all day showing us around, feeding us WAY too much food...Romany is very Egyptian.
Side note: Everyone kept joking that I shouldn't run off with an Egyptian guy...it's been two weeks and I've considered it more than once...
After the movie we traded cell numbers and took a taxi back to Sadat Metro Station. Side note: one other perk about having an Egyptian with you...lowest cab fares ever... At the Sadat Station I took a taxi back to Mohandseen and flopped down here. Exhausted.
I decided to upload all my pictures to my laptop and then upload them to Facebook. I'm going to go back and put the links to the Facebook albums after the entries in my journals.
Okay, talking online now, and recharging all the batteries to the various electronic things I own. My U.S. cell phone's battery runs out in a matter of hours...and I only use it for an alarm clock...wtf?
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