December 4 -- First Day in Cairo (Lou)

There are those who prefer new travel destinations, and those who enjoy returning to familiar places.  I suffer from a kind of Reisenangst brought about by a sense of travel inauthenticity should I want to return to a favorite destination.  Apparently I’m succeeding at working my way out of this condition as here I am once again, back in Cairo, and guilt free no less.  Why I’m back is a long story and perhaps we’ll touch on it as we go further into the blog but for now, it’s safe to say that this incredible city pushes all my buttons and did so from the very first.  Of course, I’m back for the museums, the arts, sights and sounds, but alas, more pedantic things as well.  This trip is essentially being paid for by my tooth or, more to the point, my chipped crown (think dental cost in US then divide by 10) which will soon be replaced.  And lest I come across as shallow or depthless, I’ve already met with the tailor, bought replacement clothing for that which was deliberately unpacked, and even had my beard trimmed within mere hours of arriving, all and more essentially paid for by my tooth.  See where some of the angst is coming from?

Alitalia may have flown me to Cairo but my actual transport was brought about by Timeshifter, a science based anti-jet lag App that feels ever so slightly science fictional. Feed in the details of a particular trip and it custom designs a plan of attack to free one of jet lag.  It really works.  However, it was not Timeshifters fault that I neglected to input the detail about Rogers 1am arrival at the hotel courtesy of Delta.  My earlier, more civilized arrival gave me a chance to chat with the folks who run Pension Roma, which Roger discovered on our first time in Cairo.  Everything and everyone here at the old Roma seemed the same but change in the rest of the city is surely inevitable.  Slightly higher taxi fares, new management and prices at our favorite eye glass shop were one of several things but, the notion that the venerable Windsor Hotel was closed took some time to wrap our minds around.  We’d enjoyed many lovely times at the Windsor, in its WWI British officers bar decorated with souvenirs from around the world; home of the Suffering Bastard, an anti-hangover concoction developed during WWII, and source of our favorite martinis accompanied by fantastic hummus and pita. And with us always coming to Cairo in December, we’ll miss its valiant effort at displaying a Christmas tree, ever so Charley Brown that it was.  The Windsor survived fires set during the 1952 riots but it struggles to stand today, its foundation weakened by subway construction.

The Roma is in the heart of Downtown Cairo.  Downtown, as Roger aptly suggests, should be made a world heritage site for its 19th & 20th century architecture.  Laid out on a grid and square street pattern filled with mostly French architecture from classical to baroque to Islamic to art deco, this district cityscape is simply astounding.  The 1952 riots and end of colonialism saw the area fall into decay (think Havana) and other than sporadic restorations, the overall effect of the entirety is of faded elegance.  For those who love architecture, it’s a photographers and walkers paradise and from the first moments of our first day, we rediscovered favorite haunts.  To our delight, we remembered which of the tiny alleys off of the broad boulevards we wanted to find, which shops, which coffee houses and all in spite of the DarkCity effect.  In the 1999 science fiction movie, aliens called Strangers exert memory control while shifting whole elements of a city at various times.  That is often how Cairo seems.  A long meandering walk somehow still leaves you a mere 2 blocks from the hotel.  Over and over again that happens.  A change in the time of day while walking past familiar streetscapes and you’re confronted by a structure that is completely new to you, materialized as if out of nowhere.  Fortunately, we’ve not lost our ability to navigate crossing wide busy boulevards where many cars drive at night with headlights off and consider traffic lights as suggestions only.  We’ve remembered to walk like Egyptians.