Evening in Alexandria

The Austrians and the pension owner, whom we will call "Hossein," delayed their trip to the duty-free shop to take me to my room. I had already agreed to take it sight unseen, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that it appeared to be clean enough. On the second night, I found a human toenail (the whole thing, not just a clipping) embedded in the blanket, so my first impression may not have been correct. I did at least recognize right away that the toilet down the hall was filthy beyond any further mentioning, but that's about par for an Egyptian pension. Paying the equivalent of a few dollars for a room, I had no right to expect anything more.

Safely settled, I tagged along to the duty-free shop. The poor Austrians weren't at all sure why they were going to the shop in the first place. They had been told that the trip was somehow related to Hossein's sister's wedding, but had no idea how, or what role they could play. Twenty minutes later, we found ourselves on the ground floor of a store selling heavy appliances. As someone for whom "duty-free" is synonymous with inexpensive alcohol, I was a little disappointed. At least, that is, until I was escorted upstairs where I found a full range of beer, wine and spirits. And the prices! A bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label for less than $10 seemed to good to be true. A closer inspection of the label confirmed that it was. Too many glasses of "John Waler" makes a man go blind.

Hossein mentioned that he might want to add a thing or two to the tab. Subsidized by the Austrians' freshly issued entry visas, which allowed them to make duty-free purchases, he added nine cartons of cigarettes, eight bottles of whisky and six bottles of vodka. As soon as we walked out, he started distributing all this treasure to a crowd of men that had gathered around the shop. What Hossein's relationship to these guys was I have no idea, but I started to suspect that this might not be wedding-related shopping - or if it was, I wanted an invitation. I bought six cans of Sakara Gold because I wanted to get in on the illicit action. Unfortunately, at LE 6.5 each, the beer was no cheaper at the duty-free shop than it was anywhere else in town. My black market venture was a failure, but I could at least drink my inventory.

The Austrians and I then went out for a shawarma and a wander. I usually don't hang out with strangers - even among my friends there are only a handful of people that can stand to travel with me. There are advantages to being friendly though, in that fellow travelers may have some local knowledge that you don't, and they might lead you to try something you'd never otherwise consider. The other thing is that when you're with other people you can get ice cream. I always want ice cream, but I also think that there's nothing more creepy than a single man in his early thirties eating an ice cream cone while surrounded by children. You look like a sex offender fishing for victims.

The Austrians fit squarely into the "making me do things I wouldn't normally do" category. We walked over to the beautiful 18th century Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi mosque (would do) where we found a children's carnival (wouldn't do). The carnival spread over the streets and alleys directly to the east of the mosque and featured hand-powered rides, along with smoked yams: the Egyptian equivalent of corn dogs and cotton candy. Among the merry-go-rounds and the swings, we spotted an ancient bumper car installation. Andrea, the female half of the Austrians, was keen to try them out, and I have a hard spot in my heart that loves bumper cars, so I was game too. I chose a car with a tortoise painted on the front, which wrongly suggested both that my car was slow and that it had a hard outer shell capable of protecting the soft, vulnerable body inside. The governors seem to have been removed from the cars, because so long as you kept your foot on the pedal, you went faster. The only thing that could stop your continuous acceleration was smashing into the wall or another car. This wasn't advisable because the "bumpers" on these brightly colored death traps had long since worn away. "Bumper cars" was a misnomer for things that were really nothing other than small cars without seatbelts, and in this ride, as in real life, accidents hurt. I was done being aggressive after a couple teeth-shattering head-on collisions and the name of the game became avoidance and preservation. This was also smart because, other than the Austrians, the other drivers were all part of the under-ten set, and their parents didn't look like the type of people who were going to forgive if I knocked their kid onto the track.

Back at the apartment, we divvied up my six beers and watched a David Carradine movie that was maybe the worst thing I have ever seen in my life. I just went to IMDB to find the title, but it looks like Carradine was in so many bad movies over the years that we may never be able to single out which of them this was. Hossein, who hated the movie more than I did but wouldn't change the channel, refused to accept an entire beer for himself. He instead had a little tea glass which he would clink against your can whenever he needed a top-up. In return for the beer, he shared his sheesha. I'm not a big smoker, but waterpipes really are a gentle way to enjoy tobacco. "Gentle" was not the Hossein way, unfortunately. At one point, pretending like he wanted me to watch how to use a sheesha, he grabbed my nose and when I gasped for air (and because I was sort of shocked), he blew an enormous puff of smoke into my mouth. This did not sit well with me in any sense of the phrase, especially since almost all the smoke had gone into my stomach. About twenty second later, I kind of got a little bit sick on the floor, spoiling the party for everyone.

As I lay in bed, listening to Hossein cough and wheeze in the next room well into the next morning, I made a mental note to conduct a little research on tuberculosis transmission. I also started to think of how best to tell Ms. C that there was a very strong chance that I was going to die of consumption. I ultimately decided that it would be best to casually mention it in a blog post.