Sangria, late night at Giza

I headed out Friday evening for dinner at Sangria downtown. I wasn’t sure exactly where the restaurant was, but I knew the general area so I took the subway downtown and walked up the Corniche. Corniche is a term used all over the arab world (at least that I know of) and indicates any street running along a large body of water. In my case, of course, that is the Nile river, but in Alexandria the Corniche runs along the Mediterranean Sea, and I think the term is used for roads by the the Red Sea in other parts of Egypt. I guess the word comes from all the French influence in this part of the world. It is strange how there is a mix of British and French influence here. Napoleon was famously here, although things didn’t turn out so well for him, but the French influence in Algiers and Morocco is quite strong. It seems like most of the influence in Cairo is British (they basically ran the place in the early part of the 20^th century) but some French influence lingers.

Anyway, I walked up the Corniche looking for the Conrad Hotel, because I was told the restaurant was across the street from the hotel. Along the way I saw this beautiful Coptic church, and I stopped to take pictures.

Some locals saw me taking pictures and came out to talk to me. I knew just enough Arabic to have a brief conversation, but I didn’t understand them most of the time. One of the guys kept asking me if I had something, and I heard something like “bwutoth” and I kept saying “mish fahim,” which means I don’t understand. He finally pushed a few buttons on his cell phone and showed me the word “Bluetooth” in English, and I said “Aha!” now I get it. I guess he wanted me to send him the pictures of the church that I was taking, but I don’t have Bluetooth. I took some pictures of the guys and told them I would put them up for the Americans to see.

A few blocks down and I found Sangria. It was a nice dinner, and I enjoyed the company. I met some really interesting folks there and had a nice time. 

After dinner, I was invited out to the Cairo Jazz club, which was nice but way too loud (because I’m getting old). So I only stayed a brief time at the Jazz club. That is a misnomer, by the way, it is really more of a discotheque most nights, and only has jazz one night a week. I’ve also noticed something about Cairo society: the “hot” places to get into are carefully controlled by large beefy looking men at the door. If your name isn’t on the list, you don’t get in. Unless, of course, you happen to be in the company of a tall, beautiful, blonde hair blued eyed German girl (and fortunately I was) so we were allowed right in. Sometimes it is nice to be a foreigner.

The German girl and I left the Jazz club and wandered around downtown Cairo for a brief while. Claudia knows her way around downtown quite well and showed me Garden city and the entrance to Dokki, which I was unfamiliar with. She mentioned that she once saw the pyramids in 1996, but she hadn’t seen them since. So we decided to jump in a cab and go see them. So here is a picture of the Giza pyramids at about 2AM Saturday morning.

Here is a picture of Claudia in front of the pyramids, but it was so dark my camera didn't work so well.

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I'll have to get a better picture of Claudia for the blog. She teaches at a German school here. She is another one who has traveled all over the world (she told me she has been on every continent save Antarctica)  and she is fluent in German, English, Spanish and Portuguese.

While writing this blog I had my first experience with Otlob. Everything in Cairo is available via delivery, and good food is no exception. Otlob is a web site where you can log on, choose your restaurant (everything from McDonalds to Chillis to high class local places) order from their menu and for a small fee it will be delivered within the hour. So I am now enjoying pizza from LaRosa's delivered for 40 pounds, which includes a 5 pound tip. That's $7.20 for a delicious large pizza brought to my door. Hum di lilah!