Alexandria

I have been out of reach of reliable internet for a few days so let's catch up.

Remember the good time I had in Cairo? I thought it was a great city: dirty and exotic and lively. Well Cairo was good but Alexandria is Fantastic.

Originally built in 332 BC by Alexander the Great, there is an antiquity to the city. The ancient library held a half-million volumes and was the center of learning throughout the Mediterranean. The city still exudes a scholarly feel. It is metropolitan and varied with influences from Greece, Italy, France, Turkey, and the Middle East. There are bookstores everywhere and coffee shops galore. In fact it feels a bit like home. One wants to just grab a book and sit in a cafe all day long. And so that is what I did. Well, a book and my trusty computer - where Ive been writing emails, mostly to Julie. We've had a rough weekend - trying to express ourselves across 7000 miles. Dont worry: mostly better now.

I'm in a lovely (somewhat dilapidated) hotel on the waterfront. These are from my balcony:





Yes, the street below is a bit noisy but the waterfront view is fantastic and for $7 per night, I'll take it! So I have watched the football matches with a bunch of foreign tourists, with a crowd of Egyptians at the coffee shop, and last night with the hotel owner and his entire family. There were 12 of us; all crammed on three couches around the tiny black and white set watching Egypt win against Sudan. The two elder sons translated between me and the rest of the family and we had a lively time.

The biggest hit is not me, but my little computer. It has made quite the stir in the neighborhood and everyone wanted to play. I could have sold 10 of them by now since they are impossible to find in Egypt (I have looked).

I can understand why; it's a great little machine. I've named mine Toto to help me remember that there's no place like home... Here is a picture of Toto (and the little bluetooth fold-away keyboard Julie gave me for Christmas) as I write this Blog.

pic

Let's see, back to Alexandria. They have built a new library (possibly on the ruins of the ancient one) and it is stunning. I sat inside and read The Koran and then a book teaching myself Arabic: 26 consonants, 2 consonant/vowels, and 1 glottal stop. Plus 3 diacritic short vowels. So I have a way to go before I'm fluent but I am learning...


Alexandria Biblioteca

In the market here was a used book area. Probably 10 stands selling used books in Arabic, English, and French. All jumbled together with no rhyme or reason and priced something like $1 for paperbacks and $4 for hardcovers. It made me fairly positive that they didn't really know what they were selling. Especially when I started to look through one pile: Wuthering Heights, Julius Ceasar, Handbook on Erectile Disfunction, the textbook to my EE210 class at U of I, Studies on Gastro-intestinal disease, and David Copperfield.

The other excitement has been the food. I have probably gained 10 pounds in pastries here. Everything is delicious and cheap. Kong, you'd love it -- I had a huge ice cream for 80 cents!

Tomorrow I take a bus 9 hours into the desert to the Siwa Oasis near the border with Libya. So there should start to be better/more pictures soon. I'm picturing the classic grove of palm trees surrounded by miles and miles of golden sand. We'll see.

From there, I may attempt a deep desert crossing. Think 4WD jeeps in a caravan making our way across absolute nothing, no roads, shifting sands. Wow.