The American Embassy in Cairo cautioned us against a number of things. One of which was walking to school the same way every day. If I hadn't ignored that warning this morning's walk wouldn'tve been as awesome as it was.
Its HOT, even in the morning, and as I was plodding through the 20th minute of the 25 minute walk to the Center for Languages Alexandria (that is a direct translation from the Arabic, in case you couldn't tell) I was asking myself why I didn't don't take a cab for the equivalent of one dollar. And then I got to the last big intersection where there is a Radioshack, a newspaper stand and a police officer who directs traffic (as you know, there are no traffic lights in Alexandria, and if there are, they're irrelevant or ignored). So I stop at the corner to wait for the traffic. The newspaper stand proprietor gave me a look of sound recognition and said good morning (SabaH al-CHeir) to which I responded in kind (SabaH a-Nur). He grinned and was about to sit back down when he thought better of it and called to the police officer across the street. I don't know what he said. I really don't. But the police officer promptly stopped traffic, told me that I speak "Arabi Quais" (Good Arabic) and let me cross the street. Rock on, ME. The picture next to this story is from right before I went swimming in the Nile. Despite the fact that I wasn't Walking in Memphis, but was walking in Alexandria, this is the song of the post, and the video is Cher voiced over. Kind of funny.
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