The Pharaonic Village

I really enjoy learning about and comparing different cultures. While visiting Egypt, Prof. Nelson gave to me and my wife the opportunity to learn more about Brazil, Canada and even Egypt! We only had a single day to spend with him in Cairo, so we had to be very selective regarding what to visit. Since he already visited Giza Pyramids, Egyptian Museum and The Citadel, we picked more three places to visit: The Pharaonic Village in Giza, Khan El-Khalili, and our home!

It was my first time to visit The Pharaonic Village. It's a touristic village on the banks of the Nile river, exhibiting the long history of Egypt. The tour starts with a small boat on the Nile, equipped with a cassette playing a loud recorded voice (available in different languages) through low-quality speakers. The old man driving the boat stops/slows down in front of statues representing important symbols in ancient Egypt, in sync with the recorded voice which tells the story behind each of the symbols. Then, the voice starts to explain some of the activities, industries and arts that were popular in ancient Egypt, while visitors observe actors/actresses dressed like ancient Egyptians while working on these activities. For example, we got to see how they used to water the fields, make papers from the papyrus plant ...etc. I enjoyed this part of the tour the most.

Then we left the boat and the guide walked us through a scaled down version of the Temple of Abu Simble, an ancient rich man's house, an ancient poor man's house, and the tomb of King Tut. This part of the tour was exciting, but would have been much better if we had a better human guide!

Then, another guide took us in a tour to see the several museums exhibiting clothes, objects, portraits, photos, statues, models and pieces of old news paper. Each museum focuses on a particular age or leader in the Egyptian history. This part was the most informative in the tour.

Mentioning the good things about the Pharaonic Village, their official presence on the web is decent. Also, the staff is really helpful and cheerful. On the other hand, I have to say that I found the tickets to be overpriced, found "some" human guides to be unpresentable and not fluent, and found boat speakers to be of low-quality.

We spent around three hours in the Pharaonic Village, so we decided to get back to home and have some lunch. Amany made such a good job cooking molokheyya, mesakka'a, rice with shereyya, babaghannoog, chicken panet, pasta, fries, in addition to the ennab and sahlab drinks! Prof. Nelson also surprised us with a royal Belgium chocolate as a gift. That was very nice from him.

At night, we went to Khan El-Khalili. If interested, please read my earlier post about this exciting bazars area.

The El-Refa'i Experience

El-Refa'i is the name of an infamous grills "restaurant" in Cairo. It's located in a narrow allyway, against Masjid Sayeda Zeinam, a very old district in Islamic Cairo.

El-Refa'i keeps its doors open to 5 AM. It's very popular to the extent that you'll find it busy at 2 AM! The vast majority of El-Refa'i's tables are in the street. Hence, clients are severely exposed to the life in this old spot in Cairo. The old, dirty tables and the wandering cats also contribute to the hard-core experience. And it's not cheap, 1 kilo of mixed grills costs you 150 LE. Drinks are served by an old woman with a refrigerator right in the street, not through the restaurant itself. Generally speaking, service there is way below the average.

Clients tolerate all what I mentioned because El-Refa'i cooks tasty grills; really tasty grills. We are not quite sure about the quality, though. They offer what can be best described as "salade juice" in bottles, and they name it Wisky; I have to admit I'm fell in love with their spicy Wisky.

I do recommend experiencing El-Refa'i once, for Egyptians as well as for non-Egyptians.

Drive Ahead

If you know that a car accident will probably happen after 60 seconds, and you will be part of it, maybe you can exercise caution to avoid it. I'm not talking about science fiction, the idea is very simple; regardless of its applicability.

Consider the following setup:

• EACH drivers wears a helmet.
• Helmets are equipped with an embedded system in-sync with all other helmets.
• The vehicle itself is in-sync with the driver's helmet.
• Through the helmet, a driver observes (and lives in) the virtual world, not the physical world around him. The virtual world is initialized once, then it reflect the immediate commands drivers give to their vehicles; such that, if Khaled's car and Waleed's car (in the virtual world) are running side by side at the same speed and Waleed -stupidly- gives a command to his steering wheel to run into Khaled's car, this will happen immediately in the virtual world, and both Waleed and Khaled will see (through their helmets) an accident.
• Vehicles respond to a driver's command (e.g. starting the engine, moving forward, pressing on brakes, turning left) 60 seconds after the driver issues the command. So, when Waleed turns his steering wheel running into Khaled's car, this happens immediately in the virtual world, but the car will respond physically to Waleed's command after 60 seconds, giving both Khaled and Waleed enough time to switch to another mode, cancelling Waleed's command which would have resulted in a physical accident.

Problems:

• We need the virtual world to accurately renders what will happen in 60 minutes. It needs to be aware of so many aspects in order to predict accurately what will happen in the physical world (e.g. conditions of electrical and mechanical systems in the vehicle, road conditions, pedestrians movement-the most impossible)
• We need all vehicles on the road to be equipped with the system, and all drivers on the road to use their helmets. The idea cannot be applied partially (by a subset of the vehicles).
• All vehicles on the road should be initialized at the same time while parking (not moving). This needs to happen only once.

Applicability:
Obviously, the idea is inapplicable on the road, as it stands now at least. However, the idea is applicable in any sceario where human operation of machines could result in catastrophic events, and physical interaction is done through machines only, not involving living things.

I had a business trip in Ein El Sokhna, 100 KM to the east of Cairo. I shared the room with my friend Mahmoud. The resort was excellent with friendly and helpful staff, golf areas, golf cars for moving within the resort, singers with perfect performance, GYM with good equipments, tidy and well-equipped rooms. However, nothing is perfect. The beach is quite far from the rooms and the lobby. There is no water activities/sports to do on the beach. Swimming in their beach is not very enjoyable to many since the depth saturates at ~120 cm. The resort is very empty. We could hardly find two/three other rooms busy. Also, it's far from any other place in Ein Sokhna, making it kind of boring as soon as you get used to the places and activities in the resort.

We spent most of the first day in meetings. Then we had lunch in the excellent restaurant of the resort. We enjoyed the variety, presentation and deliciousness of the buffet so much. Enough to say that selection of the resort was due to recommendation for the restaurant's cheif. After that, we had a number of in-doors team building activities. Then we moved to the beach and practiced more team building activities. In one of the activities, my manager and I were inter-connected by two ropes, and the goal was to get our freedom. I'm not sure which skill is developed by this game, but at least it was fun.

I can't remember the last time I played soccer; it must be a very long-time ago. After dinner, the younger generation of employees got a ball, put the rocks marking the goal boundaries, and let fun begin. As you may guess, I'm not a good (not even a medium) soccer player. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the time so much. It had such a great impact on my morale. It made me feel younger. It made me feel free. I have to find some time for practicing on a regular basis. It wasn't long after playing soccer that I fell asleep.

The next day, I woke up late. My legs muscles were begging me to stay on the bed, but I had to catch the meetings. Fortunately, this time meetings lasted till 2:30 PM only, leaving a couple of free hours before our bus leaves. In a matter of ten minutes, nine of us were already in the swimming pool. It took us more ten minutes to have 18 colleagues fighting to score the ball in the opponent's goal. Water polo is such a cool sport, although it's easy to turn into a fight.

It took us an hour from the resort gates to Carreffour-El-Maadi. And more than an hour from Carreffour-El-Maadi to Cournish-El-Maadi, the destination of our bus. Go Cairo go!

Khan el-Khalili

We have a visitor from Alexandria, my sister-in-law Asmaa, and it's shame to just stay at home. This time, we picked Khan el-Khalili.

The taxi dropped us at Masjid Mohammed Bay Abu'l-Dhahab (first image). We took the pedestrian underground to reach Midan El Hussein; a green square in front of Masjid el-Hussein (which is claimed to host the head of the grandson of our Prophet Muhammad). The Midan is covered by tourism police. Inside the masjid, you shall find people (Muslims call them: Do'at el-Koboor) calling Sayedna El-Hussein and asking him to improve their living conditions ...etc. These activities have nothing to do with Islam, and Islam is not responsible for such ignorant acts.


Khan el-Khalili lies at the west of Masjid el-Hussein. It's a major commercial quarter in Islamic Cairo. It's composed primarily of bazaars selling souvenirs to tourists. Some bazaars exhibit jewellery, antiques, papyrus, oriental clothes, carpets, perfume, spices, musical instruments, masks, or a mix of them (second image). Like Sharm el-Sheikh, many bazaar sellers have the skill to identify the nationality of tourists and talk with them in their languages to grab their attention to the goods.

Khan el-Khalili is also famous for El-Fishawi (third image), an oriental cafe that offers shisha, mint tea, Arab coffee and a variety of other drinks. This famous cafe has been open day and night every day of the year for over two centuries! On the edge of Khan el-Khalili square confronting Masjid el-Hussein, there's a few restaurants popular for offering pigeons on their plates as well as other oriental dishes (fourth image).


At the southern edge of Khan el-Khalili square, El-Muski is a long, narrow, congested street that ties Khan el-Khalili to Midan el-Ataba. The first half of El-Muski street is occupied by bazaars. Halfway along El-Muski street, we crossed Bur Said street, and then El-Muski street turned into a non-touristic market of clothes. El-Muski ends with Midan el-Ataba, which the famous Egyptian writer Yusuf Idris described it in "The Dregs of the City" as "a madhouse of pedestrians and automobiles, screeching wheels, howling klaxons, the whistles of bus conductors and roaring motors".

Khan el-Khalili inspired the Nobel prize winner, the Egyptian novelist, Naguib Mahfouz in several novels (e.g. Midaq Alley, Palace Walk). Khan el-Khalili was named after the prince Djaharks el-Khalili, who built a caravanserai there during the days of Sultan Barquq.

There's a must-have book for explorers of Egypt "The Rough Guide to Egypt". It was yet another wonderful idea from Dr. Nayer (Father of the Youth) to get this book.

Skydiving @ Snohomish, WA

I can't remember since when I had this dream.. the dream of flying, not on the plane, not in the skytrain, simply flying. It was at the background of my mind until Amany surfaced it as my birthday present.



People do parachuting for one of the following reasons:
- There's an aircraft emergency, the plane is going to crash.
- Military forces are needed in the battlefield, but there's no nearby safe airdrome.
- There's a big fire in the woods, forest firefighters are delivered to control the fire.
- Because they want to do so, period.

Since I'm not a brave soldier, not a brave firefighter, and none of my flights had an emergency, I just did it because I wanted to.

You have to schedule your jump weeks early, many people got into the habit of throwing themselves off planes nowadays. You go half an hour early, read a 20 page disclaimer about how unsafe sport parachuting is and about their being humans who sometimes make mistakes, and about their being unaccountable in case there's an accident in which you got injured or killed while parachuting. I felt so stupid signing off this document.

Then, they give you a 10-minute training on what's going to happen in the aircraft, how your body should be shaped in the air, how to open the parachute, and how to approach the land on arrival. I was supposed to go in a group of four. However, it seems like the HSBC bank decided this is too risky, and refused to authorize my payment. So, after we went out and wore the skydiving suit waiting for our plane, the receptionist ran out telling me she's very sorry but I cannot get on board before they secure my payment. I tried to explain to her that a friend of mine is on his way and will pay it for me, but she insisted and my group left without me! You believe that! How rude!

As a Muslim, I believe that Allah knows what’s better for me. So, I convinced myself that what happened is better for me, somehow. I took off my suit, and dialed my friend Emad -an Egyptian gentleman in Microsoft- telling him that my jump was canceled and asking him to come early to pick me back to my hotel. He generously offered paying my bill on the phone, and that was OK by the receptionist. Although I missed my plane, another aircraft went up just for my sake, and I was blessed a jump at the sunset, which is said to be the best time for a jump.

LET THE FUN BEGIN! My Russian instructor Vladimir was very funny. He makes his life by jumping 10 times daily, and he keeps enjoying it. The pilot of our little plane was a nice American lady. The plane went up. Ammar: OK that's good let's jump now. Vladimir: that's only 3,000 feet, we can't jump from here. After a while, Ammar: all right, that's too high already, let's do it! Vladimir: not yet, we will be jumping at 13,000 feet (~2.5 miles) altitude! Well, I have to admit it gets scary over here.. Ten minutes after taking off, our pilot said it's time. So, I opened the door, and looked down, it was really scary. I had no idea I would be THAT high. The scene, looking down through the plane's door was something like this photo to the right. I could easily see the lake of Washington, Redmond, and other cities, but they were too small. How to make sure I'm not going to reach the ground above this train rails! I put my left foot on the plane's stairs and jumped towards the tail.



It took me a while before I managed to stop rolling over. We flattened our body shapes to allow for greater air resistance giving us the feeling of flying. It was like a fire hose of air opened in your face. It was a lot of adrenaline, probably the highest rate of adrenaline in my blood ever. The thirty seconds of freefalling went like minutes-long.

Now comes the calm and fascinating part of the journey to the surface of the Earth. Vladimir opened the parachute and taught me how to use the parachute handle to turn right and left, and how to hold almost-still in the air. I liked the relaxation and control in the parachute. It took us like 5 minutes to reach the ground at the Harvey field.

Overall, the experience was incredible, was intriguing. I did it in US cuz I thought that would be more safe. However, if you're in Egypt and would like to give it a try, The Egyptian Sport Parachuting & Aeronautic Federation offers parachuting for civilians. Parachuting means to jump with the parachute. Skydiving means to free-fall for sometime before opening the parachute. A tandem jump means jumping with an instructor (like I did).

Cairo Tower

Cairo is a very touristic city. Its streets and buildings are full of stories and secrets. I'll try to make use of my temporal residence in Cairo and visit as many interesting places as time permits. To begin with, I decided to visit the Cairo Tower.

Cairo Tower is a well-known landmark in Zamalek (AKA. El Gezira) which is a small well-connected island in the Nile River, near downtown of Cairo, Egypt -my homeland.

Amany -my wife- and I arrived half an hour before the sunset to watch the day scene as well as the night scene from above the tower. Because we are not VIPs, we had to wait in a long line for the elevator, which has room for 6-8 adults. Amany found the arts graved and painted on the inside mural of the tower very interesting; they represent the different regions in Egypt with some of their traditions. In the elevator, the operator welcomed us and played the 40-second message he repeats all the day "This tower consists of 66 floors, and stands at 43 meters higher than the great Pyramid of Giza. It was inaugurated in the presence of Abdul-Nasser, a former Egyptian president, in 1961. At the 65th floor (others also consider it the 14th, because only 15 out of the 66 floors are usable) there's a slowly-rotating restaurant where you can have lunch and enjoy the panaromic view of Cairo". I have to say the elevator exceeded my expectations with the high speed and the comfortable acceleration.

By the time we reached the surface of the tower, the sun was already gone, but we still were able to view the beautiful scene. I dropped a coin in the old telescope hoping it might work, but it didn't. I thought the radius of the tower is much larger. The circular strip available for people to circle the tower is hardly 2 meters in width. At the altitude of 187m, we could see the Nile River, El Tahrir Square, El Mokattam, The Opera, October Bridge, ghosts of the pyramids, and many other things we could not identify. I tried to spot El Maadi but it was a big failure.

After taking a few pictures, we went down the stairs to reach the rotating restaurant. We prayed El Maghreb next to our table before placing the orders. I tried to be very slow doing everything in the restaurant since I wanted to measure how long does it take to make a complete circle around the tower's axis. It took us around two hours. It was a little bit more expensive than I thought, but it was worth it. There was an even longer line for taking the elevator down. But we bypassed it since restaurant's clients have the priority.

I'd like to brief you about the history of this tower. The historian Gamal Hammad says that CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt (son of Theodore) sent 6 million pounds to Abdul-Nasser as a bribe to influence Abdul-Nasser's stance of the Algerian case against the French occupation. Hence, the Cairo Tower is considered the largest and tallest "NO" in history since the president Abdul-Nasser refused to change his stance towards this sensitive Arabic case, and instead of using this large sum for improving the much-needed infrastructre of Cairo, he based this tower to remain as a figure reminding Egyptians of their dignity no matter how much they are in need.

I do recommend the Cairo Tower for everybody to visit!