*** Friday, 09Jun06 ***
The first day of my weekend consisted of getting cheated of one Egyptian pound (about 12 cents), visiting four cemeteries, one mosque (very old), three metro stations, four Metro stops, and walking through one distinctly uninteresting veggy market. All-in-all, not much to report.

The Bride.

I noticed a sign in the lobby of the hotel that said there would be a wedding there at 9 P.M. I found my first wedding by coming in late and hearing the very boisterous sound. This time I resolved to be more proactive.

I dressed up and went to the second floor at 9 P.M. but clearly things had not really started yet so I came back at 11 P.M. and hit the big time. The bride, dressed in a white, Western-style wedding gown and carrying a bouquet of while flowers was conducted down the steps by her father who turned her over to the groom and they walked to the lobby led by a bag piper (in an Egyptian outfit) along with the eight or more musicians who made a huge racket.

I could hardly believe my eyes or ears. There were no dancing candelabras this time but a bigger collection of tambourine players shaking bigger tambourines along with a trumpeter and someone playing that strange horn I saw -- and heard -- before. It was a noisy business and everyone loved it; the crowd often sang along with the music. I still couldn't tell if it was a Moslem or Christian wedding.

*** Saturday, 10Jun06 ***
I took the Metro to the Attaba stop and walked to the Khan Al-Khalili market and toured Islamic Cairo. There are ancient mosques on almost every block and small shops everywhere.
I saw a most unusual sight. I passed a shop that was a laundry and a man was ironing a shirt. He did this with a larger than standard iron and kept the pressure on by applying his foot to the top of the iron along with his hands. The ironing board was low to allow him to do this and he presented a strange sight indeed. I wanted to photograph him but I could tell that I would have been refused so I just walked on. The batteries in my camera were dead anyway.

I took a cab back to Tahrir (Liberation) Square and had a plain double cheeseburger at McDs. After that I went to the pool and got some sun.

On of the most delightful things about the pool is that they chill it to the temperature that comes out of the ice water dispenser on my refrigerator. You jump in your temperature drops by the millisecond -- a really wonderful experience. It reminded me of a Maine beach in June. Oh, bliss! Oh, joy! Oh, rapture!

If you have a high-speed connection to the Internet, check out

http://web.mac.com/daddyknowsbest/iWeb/CairoCourier/TheCairoCourier/TheCairoCourier.html

and click on Cairo01. This is a six minute video of sights and sounds (do pay attention to the authentic local sounds) from Cairo -- plus more pictures.

As you can guess, I am quite proud of it. Be sure to have high-speed access!! If you don't, email this URL to a friend who does have high-speed, visit them and use their DSL. Be creative but see it.

Sorry, but you may need to install QuickTime (free) so if you can't see the (wonderful) video, install QuickTime from

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Friends tell me that the wedding celebration in the video was a Moslem one but that it was more Egyptian than Moslem. Actually, I am not sure if Moslems even have a wedding ceremony the way Christians and Jews do. I will have to ask into that. So far my impression is that the couple go to a mosque and "register" their wedding and then a party ensues. Actually, I am not sure if the registration is before or after the party.

*** Monday, 12Jun06 ***
Paul, Than, Sheena and I went to the Taboula for dinner and had a nice time. Paul provided a continuous stream of conversation but the rest of joined in and we all had a good time. I had the steak with pepper sauce. The steak was mediocre -- a bit chewy -- but the pepper sauce was out of this world. I loved coating my French fries in the sauce and eating them -- the fries were not chewy. It makes me salivate to write about it.

*** Wednesday, 14Jun06 ***
I realized this A.M. that my tickets to the safari in South Africa had been stolen. I was crushed.

I was sure they were stolen from my hotel room because I never took them out of the room. I left them in an envelope in a stack of miscellaneous and, I thought, very nondescript paper that I thought of as safe -- at least for airline tickets.

But now I couldn't find them. I never moved them so they had to be stolen. I vaguely remembered having looked at them when they arrived from the States.

I wasn't sure what to do so I wrote -- in despair -- to the travel agent who had arranged for the tickets. He had to put a lot of extra effort into my tickets because I was originally scheduled to go Boston-NYC Kennedy-Madrid-Johannesburg but had to reschedule and re-ticket for Cairo to Johannesburg. He did all the re-ticketing without complaint and even saved me about $350. What a guy!

Now, all my hopes were with Jim Hansman (wanderlustadventures@juno.com) and he really came through in the pinch. He checked the facts and told me that my tickets were electronic and not paper (as I had assumed) so all I needed was passport and an itinerary. Rescued!!
Moral of the story: If you are going to be deeply confused (overseas or in the states), make sure Jim is your travel agent.

I am torturing a staffer to find an Egyptian birthday card for a person close to me but he is not good at it. I had to ask him to ask his wife. Why do I have to solve all the problems?

A friend of mine whom I will see on my safari trip offered to bring me some goodies from the States. I wrote: "Hmm. How about a really spicy pepperoni sausage? The kind you have to slice -- but only if it will give me indigestion. I dream about indigestion from pepperoni pizza, I dream about the best things in life." So you can see that I am dreaming of a wonderful safari.
Actually, I asked for pepperoni from two friends. What does that say about my needs?

*** Thursday, 15Jun06 ***
The 4:05 A.M. Call to Prayer woke me. The morning call usually wakes me (I think that's why they use loudspeakers) but normally I turn over and go back to sleep. This time I couldn't get back to sleep so I got out of bed and fussed around, getting ready for work hours earlier than usual.

English As She Is Written
From a column titled "red-handed" in The Egyptian Gazette for today: "It was in a room where files are kept in Taha Hussein School in el-Tahrir Street, Imbaba, where they both worked, that the crime occurred."

Such a sentence being able to write by a native speaker of English can you imagine?

The setting sun.