Meeting Egyptians is easy
At the end of my first day in Cairo, we found a tea house in a small tree-lined street. We stumbled across our desire for some tea and a sheesha pipe, and our host was happy to oblige. Seeing the late afternoon sun turn the leaves on the tree translucent, sitting around with old mates I hadn't seen in two years, I got my first feeling feeling of perfect satisfaction on this trip: Well, if this isn't nice, what is?

By the third tea I felt the need to share this satisfaction with our gracious host, so I looked up my first word in Arabic in my phrase book -- thank you. When he came to stoke up our sheesha, and I inadvertantly ordered another (oh well) sheesha, I broke it out: "Shukran", I said, beaming ear to ear. He was quite surprised by my obviously novel grasp of his language. He chuckled to himself and said that I was welcome, I assume. He went to serve the next table, and, still slightly bamboozled by the experience of me brekaing out some Arabic, he spoke to the guy and pointed back at us, spouting off a bit of Arabic. We agreed that he said "Those crazy foreigners over there just said Thank You to me!" The other patron seemed to agree that it was quite noteworthy.

Just later, two kids walked by trying to sell telephones to people, can I repeat, trying to sell telephones to passersby on the street. They came up to us and started advertising their wares to us in what, even to my untrained ears, was clearly kid-speak gobbledegook. They blabbered at us for a while, we smiled, they smiled, they offered their telephones to us one more time just in case we did want to buy one, then they were off.

Train to Aswan
After stumbling around, enjoying ourselves despite Cairo, we got on the overnight train south along the nile to Aswan. Despite our budding awareness of how 'without personality' Egypt is, we had high hopes for an opulent experience on the train. The price alone -- US$50 per person -- is a shirt-load of money in Egypt. My sources tell me that you can organise military coups for only a little more. As well, the posters advertising the service gave us misty-eyed visions of mahogany panelled cabins and deep red curtains, our beds being turned down at night while we ate roasted pheasant next to Hercule Poirot, then a discreet knock on a secret panel revealing a small yet servicable harem. You know, how it used to be in the olden days.

Instead, we had a squeaky couchette with seriously over-microwaved food. I got the short straw and shared with Cam, who had at that time been vomiting for several hours and was eyeing the distance between his pillow and the sink. I decided to make the most of it and gamely ordered an Egyptian red wine with a very nice label. It was pretty brutal, perhaps it'd been mixed with paint thinner, but just like the train it got the job done.