Ah, sleeping in til 9am - who knew I'd be able to do that on this trip? Not me! Not only did I sleep through the typical 7-8am breakfast, but I also kept going straight through the geography class work time from 8-9am. It was glorious. One of the geography groups is actually giving their presentation right now, so I learned/remembered the name of the super duper important mosque we saw yesterday, the Al Azar Mosque. I forgot to mention yesterday that, because of the filming that was going on, we weren't able to use flash inside, so I don't have too many pictures of that one. I got a few of the courtyard and a handful of the film crew, but you guys might need to use your Google skills if you really feel strongly about seeing what this mosque looks like.
I don't have a whole lot of time until this presentation is over so I'll try to give you a concise rundown of what else happened yesterday. I use the word "concise" quite loosely, of course., but we'll give it the old college try.
The Khan el Khalili bazaar, or simply Khan as locals refer to it, is one of the largest, if not the largest, such bazaar in Cairo. It's as if all the back alley shops in Chinatown were condensed into about a half mile in each direction, occasionally two stories high, and filled with every remotely Egyptian souvenir item you could ever imagine, plus more feral cats than people. Throw in some unpleasant smells, calls of "Hey, lucky guy!" to any male walking with more than one female, and one of the coolest coffee shops I've been in, and that's Khan. This place I do have tons of pictures of! Do you want tunics, dressed, scarves, or tshirts? Knick knacks, shot glasses, bottle openers or keychains? Handmade leather goods, jewelry, copper and brass items, new or old? The cafe where Naguib Mahfouz wrote parts of his Nobel Prize-winning Midaq Alley, nestled within Midaq Alley itself? Khan has it and then some. I bartered like a pro for items for myself and a few of you. I'm quite proud of myself and you'll see why once I'm home. I'm still looking for an antique tea or coffee pot for myself. I saw quite a few beautiful pieces, but I'm having a harder time parting with a large amount of pounds than I thought I would. I keep having to remind myself that 100 pounds isn't all that much money for an item that's hand crafted and at least twice as old as I am. We have another day and a half, so hopefully I'll get over that mental block and come home with an amazing souvenir with a great story.
I didn't pick up as many items as I had planned, but I definitely had an adventure in the process. This was the first time we had been able to split up into smaller groups and explore on our own, so I adventured with a group of three other students, Kayla & Doug from Clarion and Seth from SRU. I started as the lead in our group as I was the one who wanted to get the most shopping done. Kayla & I pushed Seth to the front after we made it about ten feet and had been approached by at least 6 different vendors asking what the beautiful ladies wanted, here, you break my heart, take one for free. (They use the term "free" about as loosely as I use "concise".) Seth was also ordered to take the lead when one of the vendors, after being asked if we could see tunics, began to lead us out of his shop and up a stone staircase that about as old as it was creepy. If the place didn't remind me of Chinatown already, it certainly did after that. Seth joked with the vendor who seemed incredibly amused by our hesitance to follow him. Past the top of the stairs, we passed an alley (yes, the bazaar is so large that there are alleys on the second floor) where the Catman of Cairo must live. This little old guy looked like Jafaar from Aladdin. Not regular Jafaar, but the Jafaar in disguise in prison with Aladdin with the crazy teeth and too-skinny limbs. Yeah, you know the one. That guy was just chilling on a step a few feet into the alley, eating some bread and sharing it with at least a dozen cats. Mind you, this alley is about four feet wide, so it doesn't take long for the number of cats to look excessive. Kayla and Doug are both insanely allergic and Kayla is now constitutionally offended by the sight of cats, so we scurried in and out of the shop room upstairs as quickly as possible.
Since the kids are wrapping up, I'll hit the last few interesting items at Khan: I was told more than once that I could be Egyptian. A shop vendor began speaking to me in Spanish, and he looked shocked when I answered him in English. The vendors will do anything to keep your business, even if they aren't selling what you're buying. More than once, students watched a vendor leave only to come back with the desired item from another store. This even happens in the cafes and restaurants. We ordered "Egyptian pizza" at a cafe near Khan and the waiter came back with a stack of boxes from the Gad location a few blocks away. I took a few pictures of the meat, and later dessert, "pizza" to better explain it. As Yasser put it, it's like American pizza but completely different! Made with filo and stuffed with your choice of fillings (not toppings) and plenty of grease, this stuff is delicious. I also have some food and drink photos from the Mahfouz cafe on Midaq Alley. The strawberry orangeana was clearly made of the freshest orange juice and packed with huge bites of fresh strawberry and banana, and the strawberry ice cream.. Oh. My. Goodness. The strawberry ice cream! It was more like a sorbet in that it tasted like they picked a few dozen strawberries this morning, blended them up with a little sugar and froze them into the shape of a perfect scoop of ice cream and placed it in front of me with some chocolate sauce, whipped cream and a few of those mini pirouette rolled wafer cookies. So. Good! Kayla tried the chocolate ice cream and had similar rave reviews. I know I could tell more stories about Khan, but I feel that would give away some of the fun things I'm bringing home, so I'll hold off on that.
I'd love to give you a preview of what I'm about to see today but, like I mentioned last night, we don't like itineraries here in Egypt, so even if I had an idea about what we're seeing, it probably wouldn't be accurate. But hey, maybe we'll get a real dinner today! Off we go!
*For my choir kids (and maybe a few other people), I hope that song is stuck in your head now. I know it is in mine!
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