One of the things that I really love about Cairo is the beauty of everything. Sure a majority of the buildings are falling apart and the word maintenance really does mean that much here whether you apply it to buildings, sidewalks or vehicles; yet everything here is full of character. The walls may not all be strait but they have their own life, it makes for a lot more uniqueness in everything. It also helps me to really realize the luxuries that we so often take for granted back home. I find myself extremely excited when I go to dinner and they serve you water and don't charge you for it or even more so that when you order it at a place that does charge they actually give you an option for which size you want as opposed to just giving you the most expensive one on the menu. I find myself thankful that now having been here and getting to know places with friends and those places getting to know us that they no longer give us a "white" tax with our meal. (Cairo sunset below)
However to get back to the first point, what I find most beautiful here is the sunset; which even that as with everything else here you have to take with a grain of salt. The sunset here is incredible and practically everyday. My favorite place on earth to watch the sun go down is atop Brockway mountain in Copper Harbor Michigan yet dusk here gives Copper Harbor a good run for its money. Copper Harbor is wonderful especially in Autumn because the sun drops all the way down until it is swallowed by the lake and the brilliant colors seem to ping pong off of the lake, the clouds and the ever changing leaves on the trees covering the rolling landscape for miles.
Cairo's sunset on the other hand has the most brilliant and rich colors of red yellow and orange I have ever seen. They ricochet of the windows of several million cars and the rubble of so many deteriorating buildings. It really is its own kind of beauty and takes its own form of appreciation. Where the grain of salt comes in is that here in Cairo the sun literally sets before it actually hits the horizon. Why? Not due to buildings, its due to smog. The smog and pollution here is so bad that it actually blocks out the light of the sun before it hits the horizon. However the CO2 paste in the air does lend its hand to colors that would make some of the great artists of the world cry.
(Somg at right)
In addition to making those great artists cry it would also drastically increase their potential for lung cancer. I have heard several people mention different statistics so don't quote me on the following but I have more or less extrapolated that living here in Cairo for a year is roughly the same as smoking a pack a day for about two years. No matter where you go in the city you are always breathing second hand smoke. 99.9 percent of the locals here smoke and they do so a lot. They are like walking chimneys. That has been one of the hardest aspects to adapt to.
On the health note, in my last blog post I wrote that I got sick and had suspected the water. While I have so far avoided the water on tap since then, unfortunately I was the victim of some very unpleasant sickness again this morning. Last time it caused me to miss a class but this time it caused me to miss my camping trip out into the black and white desert this weekend. I am pretty bumbed about that because I was really looking forward to it. I hope that at some point down the road I will be able to get out there though.
Although I did miss out on the desert this weekend, today Katie, Sheehan and I decided to head on over to the Cairo museum. The Museum itself is a pretty neat building and the stuff is pretty cool however it is not exactly organized very well and a lot of displays are not labeled well...if at all. I did enjoy it though. There really are some impressive displays of large stone works and lots of ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The three of us and a couple other people capped of the evening with dinner at an Indian food place a couple blocks from the dorm. The food was really good but I still find myself fishing for the cheapest options on menus here even with the wonderful exchange rate. I come some kind of rice, almond and raisin dish for an expensive by my standards 20 pounds. Honestly that actually is the higher end of an average meal when it comes to price but realistically when you convert it to dollars it cost me about $3.80. I feel like I am spending way to much money when I put down 50 pounds or more a day between food, taxis and buying things at the store but I constantly have to remind myself that all in all everything here is cheaper. I have a feeling its going to be hard when I return home. I am going to go to the store and see something listed for 10 dollars and say to myself, "yea right, I wouldn't pay 10 pounds for that." All the while keeping in mind that the dollars is worth over five times as much as a pound. My degree of value has changed a little bit and it is going to be a rough struggle to change it back. Until that time I just keep reminding myself that I can two full meals a day and groceries for less then 10 usd a day, and I love it.
However to get back to the first point, what I find most beautiful here is the sunset; which even that as with everything else here you have to take with a grain of salt. The sunset here is incredible and practically everyday. My favorite place on earth to watch the sun go down is atop Brockway mountain in Copper Harbor Michigan yet dusk here gives Copper Harbor a good run for its money. Copper Harbor is wonderful especially in Autumn because the sun drops all the way down until it is swallowed by the lake and the brilliant colors seem to ping pong off of the lake, the clouds and the ever changing leaves on the trees covering the rolling landscape for miles.
Cairo's sunset on the other hand has the most brilliant and rich colors of red yellow and orange I have ever seen. They ricochet of the windows of several million cars and the rubble of so many deteriorating buildings. It really is its own kind of beauty and takes its own form of appreciation. Where the grain of salt comes in is that here in Cairo the sun literally sets before it actually hits the horizon. Why? Not due to buildings, its due to smog. The smog and pollution here is so bad that it actually blocks out the light of the sun before it hits the horizon. However the CO2 paste in the air does lend its hand to colors that would make some of the great artists of the world cry.
(Somg at right)
In addition to making those great artists cry it would also drastically increase their potential for lung cancer. I have heard several people mention different statistics so don't quote me on the following but I have more or less extrapolated that living here in Cairo for a year is roughly the same as smoking a pack a day for about two years. No matter where you go in the city you are always breathing second hand smoke. 99.9 percent of the locals here smoke and they do so a lot. They are like walking chimneys. That has been one of the hardest aspects to adapt to.
On the health note, in my last blog post I wrote that I got sick and had suspected the water. While I have so far avoided the water on tap since then, unfortunately I was the victim of some very unpleasant sickness again this morning. Last time it caused me to miss a class but this time it caused me to miss my camping trip out into the black and white desert this weekend. I am pretty bumbed about that because I was really looking forward to it. I hope that at some point down the road I will be able to get out there though.
Although I did miss out on the desert this weekend, today Katie, Sheehan and I decided to head on over to the Cairo museum. The Museum itself is a pretty neat building and the stuff is pretty cool however it is not exactly organized very well and a lot of displays are not labeled well...if at all. I did enjoy it though. There really are some impressive displays of large stone works and lots of ancient Egyptian artifacts.
The three of us and a couple other people capped of the evening with dinner at an Indian food place a couple blocks from the dorm. The food was really good but I still find myself fishing for the cheapest options on menus here even with the wonderful exchange rate. I come some kind of rice, almond and raisin dish for an expensive by my standards 20 pounds. Honestly that actually is the higher end of an average meal when it comes to price but realistically when you convert it to dollars it cost me about $3.80. I feel like I am spending way to much money when I put down 50 pounds or more a day between food, taxis and buying things at the store but I constantly have to remind myself that all in all everything here is cheaper. I have a feeling its going to be hard when I return home. I am going to go to the store and see something listed for 10 dollars and say to myself, "yea right, I wouldn't pay 10 pounds for that." All the while keeping in mind that the dollars is worth over five times as much as a pound. My degree of value has changed a little bit and it is going to be a rough struggle to change it back. Until that time I just keep reminding myself that I can two full meals a day and groceries for less then 10 usd a day, and I love it.
(I did not take the pictures of the sunsets, I got them offof google images because I dont actualyl have any pictures of it yet but I thought the pictures of it would be a nice aid.)
It's a funny kind of trade-off isnt it, beautiful sunsets, or, cataclysmic pollution??? it's a toughy.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll adjust back pretty quick with money stuff. although, hopefully you aren't like me, stuck (to this day) with about 24 bucks in foreign currency because you flew home on Thanksgiving and all the exchange kiosks were closed.....