So it just hit me.
This Cairo move might just require some practice.
So as I walk downtown in my town of 18 thousand people, I try to imagine a city of 17 million. So for every person I meet in my town, I need to add 944 people to that person.
Ok. That didn’t go so well.
I try to encourage people in my town to honk like crazy, ignore all traffic rules, and drive in multiple lanes going in every direction.
That didn’t work too well either.
I just read that flying ants and big butt spiders are par for the course in Cairo. Yuck!
But no polite request to my ant hill in my front yard results in any flying ants so I am out of luck there as well.
Apparently sand coats everything and constant sweeping is required to get rid of that gritty feeling on the floor.
I try to get my dog to bring in some dirt but she just looks me and goes back to sleep. So nope that didn’t work either.
In Cairo you haggle and bargain for a lot of goods such as fruit and veggies in the market.
I try to negotiate with the clerk at the grocery store and she looks at me like I have 3 heads. That didn’t go down too well.
I have read that I will need to lower my expectations when running errands. I guess one errand per day in Cairo is a lot.
Yay! Finally I meet with success. I am totally capable of running only one errand a day. That sounds just like me!
Oh? You say that one errand can take all day to complete and tons of patience? And maybe some Arabic thrown in? Darn! I knew there would be a catch.
So much for the training. I will be winging it I guess, along with the flying ants!
(On the bright side, Cairo has a delivery culture where almost everything can be delivered… so maybe we will just stay inside with the sand, the flying ants, the big butt spiders and have everyone come to us instead. That would make for a very exciting travel blog. NOT!) 🙂