Hey! While I am currently blogging from Cairo, I spent the entire day in Alex today visiting family. The trip started really early this morning with a train at 9:00 AM (meaning I had to be up at 7:00 to catch it on three hours of sleep...cue in the sympathy please) from Ramsis train station in down town Cairo.
This train was direct to Alex and made no stops on the way there spanning about two hours and a half of traveling time...aka Columbia- St.Louis or Geneva-Lausanne. It was the first time I'd travelled with the family in a while so it was nice to catch up on almost a year of stories and such. Hilariously enough, we also got to hear everyone else's stories...As background info, those of you unfamiliar with Cairo, it's a huge city with almost five downtowns and insane traffic that you would find in any city of that size. There was a man on the train with us who was on the phone speaking with someone and complaining that he had a flight to Saudi Arabia from Alexandria at 3:30 PM. His problem? He has the wrong passport. He has the new passport that contains his Egyptian visa (surprisingly, since he spoke perfect Egyptian Arabic) but the old one contains his Saudi one. And he's on a direct train to Alexandria that will arrive at 11:30 AM. What should he do?
Whoever he was speaking to decided the fastest way would be to get off, take a train back to Cairo, fight downtown rush hour traffic, get his passport and take the next train back. Terrible idea. Luckily for him, Egyptians are very helpful in their nature and the entire compartment shouted out ideas to get this passport ASAP. The final solution was that this man's friend would take the passport and give it to the driver of the next Greyhound heading to Alexandria. I don't know if this worked, but I sincerely hope it did.
Otherwise, the train was filled with tourists all heading to see the legendary Alexandria library renowned for once containing all knowledge available to the ancient Egyptians including the mystery of the last standing wonder of the world. Now, the largest library in the Middle East, it stands tall, modern and a tourist magnet. I saw Brits, Germans, Americans and Asians reading tourist books and getting ready for their visit.
Moving on: at 11:30 AM, we arrived in Masr train station in Alexandria and hailed a cab to my grandmother's place. We hung out with family, talked and caught up. The highlight? Dinner.
Alexandria is on the coast, one of those rare places that can be a summer resort as well as a lively city, and so it's infamous for its fish. I guarantee you, you've never had fish as amazing as it is in Alex...and that's a promise. Our trips over there usually include a fish-based dinner and so I was super excited. There are two kinds: grilled and fried. Just to be clear, they take the fish as it is, add a mix of spices and herbs to it (a different mix to each kind) and then fry it or grill it. I'll be honest: I'm a bigger fan of the grilled but they were both, as always, simply delicious. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long since the last direct train left at 7:00 PM...so, in our last-minute nature, we were hailing a cab at 6:35 PM.
Was traffic smooth and lovely? No. Did we make it? Yes. Did the drive over there include some serious speed limit breakers and other James Bond moves? Of course.
We spent the ride back reminiscing and talking about our last visits to Alex as well as the highlights of the day. It was a good one!
Tomorrow? Roaming around Cairo and New Years partying. Stay tuned :)
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