Egypt vs. Algeria Part 1

If you live in the US, you are probably completely unaware of the recent Egypt/Algeria soccer game, but here it was an extraordinarily big deal. I tried to get a ticket to the game but was unable to do so. But that was probably a good thing, because even though I am quite adventurous about going out and mixing in with down to earth Egyptian life, I think (in hindsight) being with 100,000 crazy soccer fans on Saturday night at the Cairo stadium would have been more than I wanted.

I did spend the afternoon before the game downtown and it was like one giant tailgate party. People flooded the streets honking horns, waving Egyptian flags, painting their faces, and getting the good seats at the cafe hours before the game started. Here are some pictures from downtown the afternoon of the big game.

I have no idea who this is posing with me. I asked a western couple on the street to take my picture (they were from France, I think) and this guy just worked his way in. I'm wearing the Egyptian jersey, so I guess he thought I was just part of all the festivities.

Boy--my hair is getting long!

Here is a scene on one of the main streets downtown (Talaat Harb). Keep in mind that this is all spontaneous--there are no traffic cops, roadblocks, etc. There are policemen everywhere (there always are in Egypt) but not exactly a lot of oversight on the streets.

I took a video of an impromptu parade up Talaat Harb street. this was at about 3PM in the afternoon.

Here are a few more scenes on the street. Everybody was out waving Egyptian flags or flying them on their car.

Here is a young man who noticed my camera and jersey, so he struck up a conversation. His English was about 80%, and my Arabic is about 2%, so we understood each other about 82% of the time.

I have also learned to be wary when people approach me downtown. There is a typical game downtown--the locals spot a Westerner looking around, come up and say "Hi! Can I help you find something." And if you ask for directions they will tell you they know exactly how to get you there. So you follow them and you just happen to end up right by their shop, where you can buy lots of lovely perfume, or pictures, or pyramid statutes, etc. I've also learned that the better their English, the more likely they are just trying to hustle you into their shop. So since this guys English wasn't that great, I wasn't too suspicious. I think he just thought it was cool that I was wearing the Egyptian team shirt.

On that note, I do find the hustlers annoying, but in terms of language they are pretty amazing. They almost always start in English, but they can switch to Italian, or French, or Spanish if they need to. It seems a tremendous waste of talent.

Once, I was walking downtown at night looking for a particular restaurant called Tabula. I knew it was near the American Embassy but not much beyond that. So I walked down the street by the Embassy where there are a lot of policemen stationed around. The address of the place was on South America Street, so I tried to ask one of the policemen in Arabic if this was "Sheera Latinya Amerikeya. " He looked at me and answered in English "Are you looking for Tabula?" Evidently, most Westerners on that street are heading for that restaurant. But the language thing threw me off, and for some reason, when I got flustered in Arabic my brain reverted to Spanish (go figure) so I answered him "Si, si." So then he started speaking to me in Spanish, I think giving me directions, but after a minute he noticed the blank look on my face, so he asked me, "English, or Spanish?" To which I replied, "English--please!" So he gave me directions to Tabula, in English. So Dr. Williams, professor at the American University in Cairo, walked to that restaurant feeling quite humbled by the traffic cop working the post in downtown Cairo.

That same afternoon downtown I took some pictures of the places and things most familiar to me in downtown Cairo. Here is a Cairo staple, the black and white taxi:

How they keep some of those running I have no idea. They mostly seem 30 years old and held together with bailing wire and chewing gum, but they find a way to keep them working. There are newer cabs around, but you haven't lived until you've been in a rickety, shaky old black and white cab in Cairo and smelled that lovely exhaust.

Here is a picture at Tahrir Square. The Cairo Tower is in the picture, with the Nile Hotel to the right.

Below is the Semiramis Hotel, which is my favorite place to go to the bathroom downtown. Public toilets are difficult to find in Cairo, but as a Westerner you can stroll into any 5 star hotel just like you own the place.

This is the Mogamma building, which is the center of bureaucracy and red tape in Cairo. Thankfully, the university takes care of my visa, etc. so I don't have to deal with this, but I have heard that it is quite an experience to have to go here and find your way through the system to get your visa renewed, etc.

The picture below is one of my favorite squares downtown, Talaat Harb. The square has a great bookstore with lots of books in English, Groppi's (a bakery), several clothing stores, and nearby is Cafe Riche, where you can have Stella beer and a snack, and Felfella's, a reasonable place to eat dinner, and lots of other bars and food places are close by.

By the way, Egypt won the game 2-0. That means they will have a playoff at a neutral site (in the Sudan) Wednesday night. The winner will advance to the World Cup in South Africa next year.