Greetings from Egypt
I arrived in Egypt on Thursday evening after traveling for 26 hours. The trip was uneventful and enjoyed spending the four hour layover in the Dubai airport. The Dubai airport is a state of the art facility. For the most part, you wouldn't know you weren't in a American airport, the stores and food are mostly brands you would recognize. The main difference are the men wearing long white robes and a number of local women have their head covered. There is lots to see and the architecture of the facility is amazing. It is a great design, when you get off you flight you ride escalators to an upper floor and walk to the exit, you are looking over the waiting area where people are waiting for the departing flight at the gates. This way the arrivals and departures arn't mixing. I have seen one other airport with this arrangement and makes a ton of sense to keep the traffic flows separated.
The hotel I am staying at is on a island in the Nile river and there are lots of international people staying there. Most of the embassy are around there, the hotel is between the Mauritius and Swedish embassies. It feels very safe there and lots of people milling around.
The hotel is run by Hebba, a women who has a German father and Egyptian mother. They cater a lot to German guests because of her heritage. The hotel has a ton of old world charm and is decorated with lots of old stuff, including elevators from the 1920s that aren't much bigger than a phone booth. The hotel sent a car to pick me up from the airport which is good because at the airport is a chaotic place. From the street I doubt I would have guessed this place was my hotel. If the driver hadn't told me this was the right place, I probably wouldn't have guessed I needed to ride the ancient elevators to the top of the building. My first morning I couldn't get hot water out of the shower. I called the front desk and he said to let it run for a minimum of three minutes first. The hot water comes from the roof from a solar heater. I couldn't imagine it would be that hot, but sure enough, after several minutes water hot enough to scald you came out. It is the most unusual shower and requires a moderate amount of athleticism to climb in and out. Hard to explain why they designed it that way they did with the spot you have to stand being about 18 inches square. This is after a step up about three feet to climb in. I keep meaning to ask Hebba about they design of the shower.
The weather here is amazing with a high around 80 and low humidity. Really enjoying it so far.
The hotel I am staying at is on a island in the Nile river and there are lots of international people staying there. Most of the embassy are around there, the hotel is between the Mauritius and Swedish embassies. It feels very safe there and lots of people milling around.
The hotel is run by Hebba, a women who has a German father and Egyptian mother. They cater a lot to German guests because of her heritage. The hotel has a ton of old world charm and is decorated with lots of old stuff, including elevators from the 1920s that aren't much bigger than a phone booth. The hotel sent a car to pick me up from the airport which is good because at the airport is a chaotic place. From the street I doubt I would have guessed this place was my hotel. If the driver hadn't told me this was the right place, I probably wouldn't have guessed I needed to ride the ancient elevators to the top of the building. My first morning I couldn't get hot water out of the shower. I called the front desk and he said to let it run for a minimum of three minutes first. The hot water comes from the roof from a solar heater. I couldn't imagine it would be that hot, but sure enough, after several minutes water hot enough to scald you came out. It is the most unusual shower and requires a moderate amount of athleticism to climb in and out. Hard to explain why they designed it that way they did with the spot you have to stand being about 18 inches square. This is after a step up about three feet to climb in. I keep meaning to ask Hebba about they design of the shower.
The weather here is amazing with a high around 80 and low humidity. Really enjoying it so far.
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| View from hotel (in other words not much of a view) |
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