Cairo, Egypt

Today was shockingly a beautiful, blue sky day. I say this because the air pollution here is usually unbelievable. I know it sounds dumb saying this when it's a well known fact, but I will make a point of saying it because it's like nothing I've ever experienced. I always bragged that being from the LA area I could not be bothered by the smog anywhere, and I was not impressed with the infamous air quality of Mexico City. But this is something different, and I can't imagine what the air in Beijing must be like if Cairo is this bad. The city is very disorienting. There are many skyscrapers that in theory you should be able to use as landmarks, but in reality you can't see them most of the time because of the smog, even if you are very near them. It's that bad. I honestly am impressed. I saw the Egyptian museum yesterday, which was surprisingly boring. Trust me, that famous funeral mask of King Tutankhamen is not that impressive in person. I was like "that's it? that's that thing that's on every postcard from Egypt? moving on now." Believe it or not, I have been able to get a hot shower every single day so far. However, the last two hotels I stayed at did not provide towels, so I have been air drying. Although this is an Islamic country, you can get alcohol. It certainly isn't widely available and I only had it once, at a fancy restaurant in Alexandria. I had a Sakkara, which touted itself as "Egypt's Quality Beer." It was 10% alc/vol. The thinking is that if you're going to hell, you might as well REALLY enjoy it. I went to some of the expat areas to stock up on food for a long bus ride, and I saw one store called "Drinkies" which specialized in selling alcohol. Then in the supermarket, there were shelves stocked with alcohol with a sign in Arabic and then the English translation saying "Don't sell for youth less than 21 years."