day 1

I can easily say yesterday was one of the craziest days of my life. Arriving at 9 am with little to no sleep, I was wisked away by a man with no voice into a sweaty Audi. He blared the quanic recitations from his radio, and wasn't phased when the signal would go out for minutes upon end. Ramadan is something that can be felt all around. On the billboards I passed on my way to Zamalik, my current home, western soda products asked their consumers to break the fast with their drinks, an interesting 'clash of civilizations.' Everyone here can't drive, or at least in my conception of the verb, to drive. Good ol' driving instructor Jack Stack wouldn't be too happy to see hundreds of thousands of cars honking as they tailgated each other with only a few inches to spare. People walk so closely I could scoop them up with my arm out the window. But I've yet to see an accident or any indication that someone doesn't know what they're doing. The history and culture truly is all around, although sometime it's just hiding behind the glaring lights of a new store. The island I'm staying on was supposedly inhabited by the British during their colonial days, and not even the king could enter. Many countries have their Egyptain embassies here, housed in old villas. State police guards are everywhere, protecting everything from the Chinese military attache of their embassy to a local hotel buried in an alleyway. I suppose in a country where a vast array of jobs cannot be found, police work is as good as it may get. I now head to the Pyramids (after some shawarma, however), where I feel it is my western duty to parouse during my first real day :) Damnit, no spell check. Judge my writing with this in mind.