The Cairo Gyro

Assalaamu `alaykum from Egypt :)

The city of a thousand minarets…*sigh*. There’s so much to take in and so much to learn the moment you first set out to explore Egypt. Taxis, streets, signs, minarets, sounds, smells, people, food, shopping: all of it whizzes past you as you’re on board a typical black Egyptian cab car. Amidst all of the chaos and distractions you suddenly hear something so soothing that brings you right back to reality and echoes from every corner of the city taking your mind through flashbacks of history as you imagine all the people of the past who heard it too. The athaan. Masha’Allah : )

Alhamdulillah we arrived safely in Egypt…but our luggage did not. For two days the airlines has been saying over the phone that they’ll deliver it to us but so far we haven’t received anything. Even when we insisted to them that we’ll just come around to pick them up the guy kept saying, “No, no, we will deliver it.” So that’s it, today in a couple of hours we’re planning to go down to the airport and get our bags ourselves, insha’Allah. 

It was late afternoon when we arrived in Egypt and let me tellllllllll you, we were deceived by the weather. SubhanAllah when we walked out of the airport we were saying, “Wow the weather’s pretty nice, not too hot..” Hah! The sun is scorching hot in the day time. In fact it’s so hot that right now, I was just eating yogurt with a metal spoon and the spoon just bent all the way backward- it must have melted from the heat! We’ve discovered it’s a good idea to carry a bottle of water with us whenever we go out because real mineral water is not always easy to find when you’re thirsty. Why mineral water you ask? The tap water here is loaded with Chlorine, the moment you put on the faucet you smell it. One sip of that stuff and you feel like you just swallowed pool water. 

Cairo certainly is a sight to see. I kept thinking how beautiful it seemed even without the lush greenery I’m used to seeing in Florida. The historical landmarks give the panorama a rich story to contemplate as you look out onto a view of the city. Since we arrived on a Wednesday we had the next two days to rest and sight see since Thursdays and Fridays are considered weekends here. We got a taste of materialistic beauty at City Stars (Egypt’s biggest and nicest mall) and natural beauty at Al-Azhar park. Photos to be uploaded soon, insha’Allah.

Alhamdulillah we’re finally here and loving it!