The first day of my stay here has been by far the most intense day of my life. Stepping off the train station in Alexandria (Mahatat Sidi Gaber), I was once again immediately swept up into a taxi, which took me to my hotel, Hotel Egypt, in the heart of the city (Midan/Mahatat Ramla).
The first cultural peculiarity I noticed of the incredibly eclectic, identity-confused city that is today’s Alexandria is that almost all of the taxis here are very old German models, painted yellow and black and seeming to date back almost to the mid-20th century. I have heard that this is so because they are very simple to fix and operate, and parts are easily found. I imagine that the fact that Middle-Easterners don’t have to worry about gas prices like other parts of the world also plays a big role. Still, it’s incredible to think that the standard £5 cab fare that can get you from one place to the next in the city is less than $1 in American currency, which really starts to put into perspective the standard of living here.
The second thing I noticed is that the city is packed with towering buildings of European designs that must once have made Alexandria look more like a scene from a movie than a real city. They are still breathtaking, but there are layers upon layers of soot, damage, and rickety add-ons that have given the entire cityscape a darker tone with only outlines of what must have been some 80 years ago. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame anyone if he thought this city was born of cosmopolitan Europe and abandoned on the doorstep of Lower Egypt.
When I was dropped off at the entrance of the hotel I would be staying in, I was nothing short of terrified. I was dropped in a dark, dilapidated alleyway, in front of a massive two-door entrance with faded, peeling red paint, reaching around 15 feet (4.5ish meters) tall. From the dingy darkness inside the entrance came a very short old man with a slightly hunched back and a lame eye (I promise I’m not making this up) who took my bags and escorted me to the elevator. Do you remember those elevators you’ve seen in black-and-white movies, with the gate and two doors that you have to manually shut? Well, this bayside building was constructed in the early-20th century by an Italian architect when Alexandria was regaining its title of cultural center of the Mediterranean, and somehow the elevator made it to today (though it and everything else look quite afflicted). When the elevator reached the third floor, I was incredibly surprised to find the lobby of Hotel Egypt; brightly lit, lavishly decorated and incredibly tidy, I was completely taken aback by its presence in midst of the first few floors.
The hotel attendants very eagerly welcomed me and showed me to my room, which was very, very nice for a mid-range hotel. In it was a private bathroom (albeit not as nice as those we are used to across the Atlantic), air conditioning, and a queen-sized bed. The only thing that wasn’t available was internet, which was available in the lobby. A one-night stay in Hotel Egypt will run you about $50, which is incredibly fair, even when you take into account that this is Egypt and that everything tends to be a bit cheaper.
Before I was even shown my room, though, I ran into my friend Dave, who was leading a group of friends I met at Sahara Challenge (a conference on Christianity and Islam) just a week earlier. We had planned to meet up, but I was surprised to see him sitting in the lobby as soon as I got in! Throwing my luggage into my room, the group and I immediately went out to dinner at the flat of some friends who live in Alexandria. Once we finished dinner and talked for some time (this was about 10 PM), we ventured out into a part of the city called Mansheya.
No amount of words could possibly suffice in describing Mansheya. A region of Alexandria stuffed with all sorts of shops selling knock-off items (literally packed to the rafters with every sort of good, from clothes and every accessory imaginable to groceries and livestock, to luggage, home furnishing, and the like), we found ourselves being almost literally pulled into shops the minute storekeepers realized we are Americans. Some would even follow us around for a time, trying very hard to convince us in broken English to buy this or buy that. In a haze of night lights and dust, we ventured from alleyway to alleyway enjoying this incredibly unique atmosphere.
And all this, everything written about Egypt up to this point, was my first day. Sleep-deprived and culturally overwhelmed, I was more exhausted than ever before when I finally went to bed.
