A Day In The Life

Yesterday Mohamed, our driver, picked Jacob and I up at 10 am and took us to the Alfa Market. The Alfa Market is located on the corniche, which runs along the Nile. It's sort of like a Wal Mart in a third world kind of way, but it has a decent amount of things so I guess it's pretty nice, although I'd be lying if I didn't say that the smells from the meat area don't gross me out (think carniceria).

Anyway, we needed a few things which ended up taking forever because I didn't know where anything was. Also, I haven't been able to find nail polish remover anywhere. I have no idea where I can find that, maybe the pharmacy? Hmmm.

When I was checking out I managed to slice my finger on the plastic mop bucket I just bought and soon I had thick red blood gushing down my hand. The cashier saw this and wasn't at all fazed and when I asked for paper he just shrugged. I ended up ripping open the package of paper towels I had purchased and wrapped it around my finger.

As soon as we exited the store we stood around for a few minutes awaiting our driver. In true typical Cairo fashion, there were all these men standing around, horns honking, cars trying to squeeze into the parking lot and the spaces and just a lot of chaos in general. Alfa Market has these older men who act like parking attendants, they try to find you a space or help you back out safely in exchange for some baksheesh, which means tips in Arabic. One of them was in the middle of the parking lot standing around and ended up getting hit by a car. The force threw him on smack on his back. The attendant jumped up as if nothing had happened, the driver sped off without even noticing, and all the men standing around didn't seem to care. Jacob and I were the only ones who were even the least bit alarmed. Only in Cairo!