-Each country has it's own unique customs which I enjoy so much learning about. For example Turkey had me laughing when I found out that the sign to flip someone off is the same thing that we do to children when we say "Got your nose"!! In Egypt making the pinky swear with someone is a way to tell them that you are mad at them.
-The similarities differ slightly like in Turkey you would find women in the streets selling tissues for money while wearing Louis Vuitton hajabs, but in Egypt they wait until the evening when they go to the mall to spend their tissue money to put on the designer wear.
-Another unfortunate similarity is the "Democratic" system that they both have in common. Interestingly enough Egypt's president "won" the election...again with a 95% majority. However, during the voting time my friend went to cast his vote like many other citizen only to be turned away at the polls with any number of excuses the police could find to not allow its citizens to vote. I asked my friend what the people of Egypt do with a president who leads his country like a monarch. He said the same thing they have been doing for 20 years: wait for him to die.
-The layout of the streets and the navigation of them has definately left it's dizzying impression. There are no left-hand turns so in order to go to a location you must pass it several times and that is assuming that everyone else follows the general unspoken rules of the road...which they don't!! Horns are used to indicate turns, to tell another driver you are there, to say hello, to let someone know you are backing up, to tell people you are about to drive the wrong way down a one-way street, etc. It is deafening, but if that doesn't get you and the u-turns have left you with something to be desired, then the multiple brushes with death will surely keep you on your toes. With lines in the roads as mere "suggestions" of lanes and cops as corrupt as I've ever seen it is beyond me why they have no public transportation. The most comical part of all was going to the mall and paying a guy to "watch" you car as he double parked it in front of his shop, (for a small fee of course), making sure to remind you to leave the car in neutral so he could push it out of the way in case the owner of the car you parked in came back. He waves as he puts a large rock behind each of your back tires so it won't roll backwards into traffic!!
-Many of the things I observe are funny and definitely worth mentioning for a laugh, but now being in Uganda (one of the poorest countries in the world) I can say that the city of Cairo is worse off than here. Cairo is unjustifiably poor!! Not that there is a justifiable poverty, but one is able to string together logically the causes or contributor to the lack of wealth. But in the case of Cairo they are the home to two of the seven wonders of the world including the Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza. These tourist traps bring in untold amounts of money that the Egyptians never see. That saddens me more than anything and it makes me upset that though they have tried, they just can't seem to shake corrupt government, democratic or not.
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Cairo is one of the cities I'd most like to visit. Sorry to hear it's so poor and shady. Would you go back there or no?
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