First Wedding Shoot

Egyptian Wedding – Cairo, Egypt – April 30th.

Night and Day in Cairo – Sunset to Sunrise

The bus ride home from campus the other day was accompanied by an absolutely gorgeous sunset. It almost allowed me to forget the reason the title of this post also includes the word “sunrise”; the midterm I had on the following day. See some selects below and check out the full gallery on my flickr.

I think it was rather appropriate that the next time I saw the sun was also in a pretty spectacular show, this time from the East. Check it out:

Start your morning right - With Red Bull!

Bombing in the Egyptian capital

It’s been an interesting week.

I had a post prepared for crashing the Egyptian wedding, but you really never know when spot news will come along.

Monday morning headlines read “Tourists hit by Cairo bomb blast” or some variation of that. The body of the articles probably differed as well. What most sources agree on is that there was a bomb explosion near a café near Khan el-Khalili, the largest and most tourist-packed of Cairo’s markets. The blast went off at 6:30 PM EET (so 11:30 AM EST) leaving 1 dead, and 2 dozen or so injured. A second bomb was found in front of a mosque nearby and it was disarmed (/control detonated) when officials arrived.

I went to the bomb site a few hours after the explosion and it was still pretty chaotic. The entire Khan el-Khalili area was closed and policemen by the dozens blockaded every road that led to the square where the blast took place. After circling the area I was amazed to find myself within sight of the café. The area was swarming with journalists, armed with microphones, cameras and video equipment. Policemen and guards armed with face shields and riot sticks warded the crowds back. Behind the yellow tape, officials investigated the situation. Outside the perimeter, in front of Al-Hussein Mosque, the floor was splattered with blood.

All of this was visible from behind the yellow tape and the line of policemen–no rules broken. What happened next, however, might be considered otherwise.

I noticed a photographer was on an upper floor of the building where the blast took place. We made our way to an alleyway where we found a few sheesha pipe shops and a staircase leading somewhere. We were about to go up when the shop owner stopped us. He spoke rapidly in Arabic and we tried to explain that we wanted to go ‘up’. He seemed to understand, pointed out that the stairs we were looking at led to an upper level cafe–not where we wanted to be–and then pointed us in the right direction.

I’m smacking myself for not having a speedlight as well. Damn you equipment gods!

The next 30 seconds where completely unreal. We followed the man’s directions through a dark alley, passing some poorly lit shops and shadow enshrouded figures. We found a staircase, littered with trash and appearing to have been built for hobbits, but completely functional. We came up onto a landing and there we were; situated directly over the café where the explosion took place.

We met two friendly British fellows and chatted for a while as we watched the events unfold below. A crowd of men surrounded a bright light and I was told it was the second bomb. Several journalists found the same staircase we had and eagerly pointed their cameras at the American students for interviews–Okay, that’s an understatement, it got obnoxious. I had to push them out of the way to get out.

I took a bunch of photos. One gentleman said to me, “the government will kill you” if I posted them somewhere. Why did I post them anyway you ask? For one, I think he was exaggerating; it would probably be some jail time, no big deal. Second, I guess I’m a bit reckless; why go through all that madness to keep the photos for myself?

Way too much to do…

Yes ladies and gentlemen… it’s the second official post on this blog. After days (weeks? months? how much time has it been?) with only a single, lonely blog post (and that other one that doesn’t really count) I’ve finally found it a companion.

What have I been doing with my time, instead of blogging you ask?

I finally moved into my permanent residence for the next few months; an apartment on Talaat Harb street in downtown Cairo. It has three bedrooms with balconies overlooking an alleyway (I know, it sounds gnarly but it actually helps with the noise from the street). One of my room mates is an American grad student studying Arabic at AUC. The other is British and his job, believe it or not, is as the narrator for movies/documentaries. So… when you watch that video documenting the annual migration of now-nearly-extinct migrating fish, he could be the guy telling you about it. He’s THAT British guy–I love it. At least that’s what I gather. He was here a day before going back to the UK for a month. Despite the hideous shades of pink and purple my room has been painted, it still has become “home” and will remain so for the next few months.

Classes started and for the first time in my life I can say I go to school in the middle of the desert. The campus is gorgeous and completely worth the two hours a day of commutes.

I ate pigeon–an Egyptian delicacy–and it was delicious. See my National Geographic Glimpse blog.

I went on a class trip to a town called Tanta, which is a couple hours outside of Cairo. Technically we were there for a ‘cultural awareness’ workshop but we found time to see a church and a mosque. Oh, and I almost forgot, we crashed an Egyptian wedding. [There are a couple of albums on Facebook. I'll get an album on Flickr soon for those who haven't sold their souls to the Facebook-gods yet.]

I finally saw the pyramids [during the day] (long story)!
We went to Giza and saw the  sphinx and the pyramids everyone knows about. We also went to Saqarra to see the step pyramid and to Daushour to see the red and bent pyramids.

I’ve given some brief descriptions of what I’ve been up to. I’ll give some more detailed accounts and more photos in the days to come. Let me know which one you’d like to read in about in comments and I’ll do that one first!

New theme, new header… and a new direction?

I’m so indecisive about design decisions… I’ll probably change the theme again in a few days. The same goes for this new header. I like the image, but it makes my blog look like the account of a lonely man, confined in solitude in his lonely apartment. It’s supposed to be just the opposite. The chair is empty, so maybe it can symbolize the fact that the resident is out enjoying the Cairo air? Or maybe he just got up to get a Coke, or a warm Stella… who knows?

Stay tuned for a new direction to this blog; color and life!

Here’s a preview:

It’s the streets of Cairo — You never know what you might see!

Blogging from the worlds most polluted city…

I read today that Cairo is (arguably) the dirtiest city in the world and judging by the weather today, I’d believe it.

The view from the Mosque of Mohammed Ali. Mmmm…Delicious.

Today marks the end of my third day in Cairo and I think it’s safe to say, I haven’t even skimmed the surface of this place. I’ve never been to a place where there seems to be so much chaos yet the citizens remain cheerful and friendly. New York city might come close, then again, I’ve never had a New Yorker introduce themselves to me on the street; this has happened to me 3 times today. I know what you’re thinking, “these people were trying to scam me”, and it’s partially true, some of them approached, appeared to be giving me directions, and next thing I know I’m standing in their papyrus shop. On the other hand, several people have approached me, welcomed me to Egypt, and, after finding out I’m American, started praising Obama.

On a side note, and I know this is old news, the night I arrived in Egypt happened to be the day (because of the time difference) of Obama’s inauguration. I had just stayed up all night, hopped on the tube at 6 am, flown for five hours, and gone through the most exhilarating/terrifying 2 hour taxi ride of my life. I walk through the door with all my stuff, and, just in time, Obama is about to take the oath. I passed out after that. Go America.

Back to Egypt, I’ve never been to China, but this sort of reminded me of photos I’ve seen of it:

Mine is the one with the two air-conditioners.

Only joking–that’s our freezer.

I read somewhere that Cairo has 20 million people–that’s insane. That’s 2 and a half New York cities in less than a fifth of the space (thanks wikipedia).

Took this shot last night. Nothing special about it. The call to prayer was happening as I took it, and it seemed interesting at the time. Text time I’ll have my sound recorder so I can better recreate the moment.

And a few more shots from today:

The mosque I mentioned at the beginning of this post.

The Mosque of Mohammed Ali.

Not the boxer. A different guy.

The Nile by night with Zamalek island and Cairo tower in the background.

Again, the smog. I should probably just rename this blog, “More Smog from Cairo”

And finally, an image I thought was semi-visually-interesting. I am, after all, here to make pretty pictures.

neon boats

Definitely more to come.