Travelling: Alexandria

A friend of mine, one of the 5 Muhammeds with whom I regularly work with, comes from Alexandria. He constantly tells me how wonderful the city is. When my colleague visited there and also highly recommended it, I decided to explore the city myself.

I arrived at Cairo railway station early Saturday morning. I bought a ticket to 'Al Iskandria', as the Arabic-speakers call it. All the first-class tickets had been sold out, so I booked a seat in the second class later that morning. Another colleague had advised me to admire the Nile delta scenery along the way. According to her, the train ride is the best part of the journey. I studied some history of the cities and the map along the way – Benha, Tanta, Damanhour. Vast corn, aubergine and sugar cane field extended on both sides. I saw cows, watering channels, electric water pumps and more green fields that I had seen during my whole stay in the massive sand box known as Egypt.

I had 24 hours to explore the highlights of Alexandria, so I wasted no time hiring a cab to the Kom al-Shuqafa Catacombs. These tombs named as 'hill of treasures' date back to 2^nd century AD and house underground library and tombs. The taxi drivers fight vigorously for clients. The first driver didn't agree on the price I offered, and when another taxi picked me up, he informed the second one how much I would pay. But this was not an issue for him, so off we went.

Qaitbey fortress used to face one of the ancient seven wonders of the world, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, but the latter collapsed in an earthquake in 1303 AD. However, the sturdy Fort still stands, posing against the brisk winds and mighty wawes of the Mediterranean. I climbed to the top of the fortress to capture a panorama view towards the city and the sea (picture). Then I sat down on the wave breaker near the sea, nibbling cotton candy and watching sea shell seller lure clients. The day before my journey a friend of mine told me how he had sat on the same spot as a kid, watching the waves pound the rocks.

What suddenly stroke me was the absence of tourists, or any kind of foregners even at the most popular places of interest. Flocks of locals; young families with children, and couples walking hand in hand milled around the fort and the promenade, but I spotted only five other foreigners. I was keenly aware of the Egyptians peeking at or directly staring at me, a white woman travelling alone. A group of young lads followed me while I captured snapshots, and made some comments about me. They were quite astonished and amused when I responded to them in Arabic. I was growing weary and annoyed to being noticed everywhere, even though the friendly and naive interest that the Egyptians show towards foreigners is common everywhere. Here they obviosly were not used to us. When I said Good aftenoon in Arabic upon entering a shop, the girl clerks gave a shy smile and giggled with each other.

I took a ride on the minivan-microbus to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The bus driver was confused because I didn't understand if I had given him too much or too little change, and he didn't charge me anything when I exited. The original library doesn't exist any more, of course, but the new one, inaugurated in 2000 and featuring 8 million books in 11 floors, could rightly be called one of the modern wonders of the world.

On the way to the hotel we passed Stanley bridge, another symbol of Alexandria. The taxi driver slowed his vehicle down so I could make some sunset snapshots. We drove along the coastline lined with sandy beach and parasols, and high-rise hotels on the other side. I felt like I was in Riviera. Finally we arrived at huge park, featuring Montaza Garden & Royal Palace. My hotel, Helnan Palestine, was inside the park, nestled in a sandy harbor. The Neo-Gothic summer palace is one of the presidential residences.

I had gotten sick during the overnight voyage because of freezing air conditioning. All I wanted was to get some rest and soothe my flu. There was a big surprise waiting for me in my hotel room... I was been given a special room from the top floor, with a fruit basket and all the trimmings. It was such a treat... The view from the balcony was gorgeous. On the left side I could see the president's palace, the Mediterranean sea stretched straight ahead, and a small islet and the lighthouse appeared on the right. There was so much beauty gathered in one place that I could only take a deep breath, watch in awe, and then bounce for joy like a child for discovering it. This became one of the top 10 the places in the world where I want to return.

Our landlord

This is Abdullah, our landlord. He always wears his traditional cotton dress called galabeya. It is very comfortable and has handy zippered pockets, where one can easily slip his Nokia phone, money and keys. He is always smiling and helpful.

One of the most important tasks of the landlord is to keep unwanted guests away. In other words, Egyptians of opposite sex. People in groups and foreigners are okay. On the bottom floor Abdullah has a small room, equipped with a mattress, and he constantly peers the people who is coming and going, even at 4 am.

He also has spare keys to our apartment. But here's the catch: If we forget the key on the inside of the lock, the door cannot be opened from the other side. This happened to me once, on my birthday, late in the evening after a long day at work. My neightbor wasn't home, so we had to wait for her to arrive, because the only way to get back inside was to climb into my balcony from hers and get inside through my balcony door. I climbed, but of course the balcony door was also locked. Then Abdullah climber over the balcony rail in his galabeya – on the height of 5th floor. He cracked into my room with his tools and then fixed the door. Voilá, I was back at home.

Landlord's other tasks involve supplying us with the household equipment that is included in the rental contract. We received the ironing board and laundry lines in due time, within a week after our arrival, but the balcony furniture never showed up, and the shower curtain was installed punctually in the middle of the bathroom – two meters from the shower itself.

However, we concretely discovered the meaning of Egyptian time concept while waiting for the bed covers. Officially, the expression goes, 'bukra, insh'allah' (Tomorrow, the Lord willing'). This roughly means the same as 'mañana' in Spain.

We started asking for warm blankets in the end of October, when the apartment started getting cold at night. Abdullah does not speak many words in English, but he made most of it. The first few times the answer was 'tomorrow'. After several inquiries, apparently aiming to calm us, he then promised to bring them 'after ten minutes'. I came back after two hours, but there were no blankets, neither the next day. (Those who have lived in exotic countries can probably relate. It was no helping the case that I was going through culture shock in other ways, too.)

We really needed to get the covers, so my flatmate and I took turns asking, but the answer was always the same; either ten minutes or one hour. However, it didn't make any difference. After few more weeks of this I called my Egyptian colleague and asked him to interpret for our landlord, that we couldn't risk becoming sick, because it was freezing cold at night, and we didn't have the promised blankets that were supposed to be there when we had arrived. Calmly Abdullah walked into the laundry shop in front of our flat and said the guy working there something in Arabic. He produced two blankets. They were clearly used, but our landlord explained that they had been washed. Actually we were supposed to have new blankets, but after all the hassle and waiting I was more than glad to have them.

Miraculously, after another month the new king-size covers and even more pillows arrived. Our boss had found out that Abdullah had actually visited the household store, but it had been out of stock for a while. Anyway, now I know what 'five Egyptian minutes' stands for.