June 10th.

Cairo, the City Victorious.

Actually, I feel victorious right now - I just successfully made it across the street to buy minutes on my cell phone, then down a block to the pharmacy by myself. Now if I could only figure out how to put the minutes on my phone...

Important life skills I learned in Cape Town: Crossing the Street

Right now I am exhausted. It is an absolute fight keeping myself awake right now - I slept for a good seven hours on the flight, but I am still completely jet lagged and worn out. After checking into our Hostel in Cario, Jake and I wandered around the city for a few hours. The last hour was looking for Radio Shack - which we never ended up finding. We also walked along the Nile for while.

While in Cape Town, I easily blended in, here I am obviously American -- which is partially a handicap and yet the easiest way to make friends. Granted, these are friends that just want our business, and I feel like I am becoming well versed in ways to walk out of shops and avoid following people so they can just give us their 'business cards.' I don't really think any of these people even have business cards - and when they see us standing on the street corner looking around, I want to ignore even their "what are you looking for? could I help you?" to avoid following a man down the street so he can show us his shop...

Also, I get a few words out in Arabic and who ever is speaking English to me. I know that things take longer when I am trying to find the right verb, but let me use my Arabic. I reply in Arabic to the men on the street trying to sell us things - but they still continue to bother us in English. The thing that kills me is that I am even using the Egyptian dialect. I guess everyone knows an American when they see one, though.