After a long stay in the south of Egypt seeing the ancient sights, we spent about a day and a half in Alexandria to rest up before our journey out to the Siwa Oasis, far into the desert to the west towards Libya. Besides a little sightseeing, we took the opportunity to take a little break from Egyptian culture. On our first day, we had some KFC for lunch then saw the movie Chaos with Jason Statham and Ryan Philippe. Not the best movie ever, but entertaining enough. We had plans to walk around and explore a little, but we passed out in our room around 7 pretty much until morning. Unfortunately our room had a million mosquitoes in it, and I woke up with several bites. Upon close inspection, the walls were covered with smeared mosquito bodies from previous guests! It was so gross.

The next day we set out early and bought our bus tickets for Siwa for the next morning. Then we ventured through several back streets to find the ruins of the old city and some Roman catacombs. We went through some small markets, squeezed by donkey carts and taxis, dodged livestock poop, and held our breath by the butchers. It was the Friday afternoon call to prayer, so we walked past a handful of mosques blasting passages from the Koran over loudspeakers and groups of men outside praying. It made it difficult to walk and hear each other, so we were pretty glad to find our destinations. The ruins weren’t very impressive, but the catacombs were cool. They were discovered only about a hundred years ago when a donkey fell through the ground into them. Inside the tombs were beautiful carvings from both ancient Egyptian and Roman death/rebirth myths. After a tiring morning we treated ourselves to Little Caesar’s pizza for lunch (Who knew Little Caesar’s was still a company, let alone operating out of Alexandria) and made our way down to the waterfront to the new library of Alexandria. It’s shaped like a discus half-buried in the ground, and the roof is covered in skylights. A letter from every known alphabet is written on the walls. It was pretty fancy inside. Lots of students do work there, but it also houses art exhibits and hosts important events.

After a tea and a waterpipe on the waterfront, we walked down to the Fish Market, the most upscale seafood restaurant in town overlooking the eastern harbor. We picked out some fresh fish from a glass case and told them how we wanted it cooked. Then they brought it with bread, rice, and nine bowls of dips and salads! Most of them were delicious and we were completely stuffed trying to make a dent. The fish was priced by weight so were scared about our bill, but it turned out to be about only 20 US dollars! Afterwards we went to the fancy Grand Cafe outside and had some Turkish coffee and a nice waterpipe. The atmosphere was lovely and it was good place to people watch. It was such a stark contrast to the other side of town we saw earlier, and we wondered if any of the rich, attractive, and well-dressed Egyptians in the Grand Cafe made their way over to the other side, or vice versa.

We hopped into a cab toward the center of town and caught the 9:30 showing of the Departed with Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, and Leondardo DiCaprio. It was a much better movie than we saw the day before! The theater was packed with mostly young men, who were pretty loud and boisterous. So many times guys would answer their cell phones during the film and chat away. I noticed, too, that during any scene with a woman that was slightly sexual, most people giggled or made loud comments. I guess they just couldn’t handle it. Anyway, it was a pretty fun Saturday night!