Around the World in 60 Days

Adventures, misadventures, characters, unsolicited opinions, observations, and images from eight countries, eight weeks, and an array of architectural treasures.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Day 25. Cairo.


I am watching Looney Tunes in Cairo. One of those "best-laid plans" situations- I got a phone call, in my cab, from my carefully-researched pension, telling me I was staying somewhere else tonight, and moving tomorrow. I'm not sure why- I was struggling with my cab driver's bluetooth thingy- but, when you get cab phone calls of this nature, really, you just go with it. Plans of an evening to re-group, do laundry, catch up on correspondence- on hold. This place is super sketchy. The streets around me are pitch black at 6 pm, and I'm looking at the back side of a giant row of billboards onto a superhighway. Thank heavens I have earplugs. I made it as far as the corner store for water, and some kind of sweet flaky unidentifiable bread. I am a relatively bold traveler, but striking out from this particular locale, in the dark, is a Bad Idea.

The great news? I have 378 channels. What are the odds, really, in a place that doesn't have a sign on the street? I mean, faucets are dripping and I just heard an epic catfight, actual caterwauling, from the airshaft below me, and it's a "provide your own towel" kind of place. Again I say, 378 channels. Now, I wasn't born yesterday, and I know that even in a foreign language, 300 of those channels will have nothing decent on. But still- I am simultaneously watching Looney Toons, and the Simpsons Movie, and old Bradley Cooper/Jennifer Garner movie, and about 6 soccer games. I have BBC, CNN, and an Arabic MTV, where fully-covered women are doing solid-gold dances. I have both Nickelodeon, and Al Jazeera Child, which looks like a version of the Muppetts. Al Jazeera itself has just done what can only be described as a loving and sentimental tribute, in English, to the New Orleans Saints and the passion behind their Super Bowl win. I have TV Korea, TV Jordan, TV Saudi. And I'm not making fun, really, but so far there are 3 channels of camels.

I feel sure there's a B-movie or two in my future*- our most mediocre films, the kinds featuring Vin Diesel or the Rock, seem to be showing up a lot here. But tomorrow: Pyramids, Memphis, Saqqara. More soon!


*addendum to this post, immediately after writing I flipped to a Billy Baldwin movie. But I settled on Once Upon A Time in Mexico, because who doesn't love a good shoot-out involving Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas?

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