Alexandria

Alexandria and the Mediterranean Sea

As I enter the second month of my Cairo adventure, classes continue to be going well and I'm starting to get used to most aspects of Egyptian life. I feel a little more comfortable speaking Arabic to people, even though I can pretty much only ask questions and not really carry on a conversation. I am getting a lot better at understanding what people are saying though.

This weekend some friends and I decided to take a trip to Alexandria, which is Egypt's second largest city and is located right on the Mediterranean Coast. While many international students decided to make this weekend into a 4-day weekend since we have off for the Prophet Muhammad's birthday today, two of my professors still held classes yesterday and some of my friends had obligations they couldn't miss Sunday evening. However, Alexandria makes for a very good weekend trip as it is only about a 3 hour train ride from Cairo and I got to see a good deal in the two days I was there. While I didn't get to see all of the city's attractions or swim in the Mediterranean, I figure this gives me a pretty good reason to return.

The Alexandria trip began early Friday morning, when my friends and I left Cairo at 8:15 on a second class train. There are 3 train classes available on the train; first class means wide and comfortable seats (kind of like Amtrak), second class means slightly less comfortable seats and some people end up standing (kind of like a commuter rail), while the lowest class means few seats and most people stand crowded together (kind of like a subway). The train ride took us past many pastoral scenes of farmers utilizing water buffalo and small villages where women could be seen balancing baskets and other items on their heads. While we got off the train one stop too early, this stop was also technically in Alexandria and a short cab ride brought us downtown. There, we immediately found a cheap hostel that we learned of from guidebooks that didn't pretend to be fancy but at least was cheap and was a place to sleep.

My first impression of Alexandria was that it was a lot less crowded and polluted than Cairo, and I really generally enjoy coastal cities and towns (New York represent). The city has a beautiful waterfront that is never too far from any of the attractions. However, since it is not yet hot enough for European tourists to flock to Alexandria, the few tourists that do visit in the off season (that would be us here) get a lot of attention and we were asked to buy tacky jewelry and carriage rides several times.


The Roman Amphittheater

The first place we visited in Alexandria was the Roman Amphitheater, which was built in the 2nd century AD and is located in a compound that also contains the ruins of a Roman bathhouse and lecture halls. Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 334 BC, hence the name (you probably heard this in Middle School social studies classes), and was under the Hellenistic rule of the Ptolemaic Dynasty for almost three centuries. While the city became Roman territory by 80 BC, the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra VII took control and the city didn't really become Roman controlled until Octavian(Augustus) Caesar defeated Cleopatra and Marc Antony at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC (This battle also marks the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire). Sorry for all of this historical background, but people that know me know that I love Roman history and historical sites. The Amphitheater was in very good condition for something that was almost 2,000 years old and was buried under a mound of rubble for hundreds of years (the Arabic name for it is Kom al-Dikka, which means "Mound of Rubble"), and we had a lot of fun posing on the Amphitheater and looking at the nearby statues that were underwater for thousands of years. The Amphitheater also had a certain spot at the bottom where you could hear your voice echo from several directions, which was pretty incredible.


The three friends I traveled with, Heather, Jessica, and Rachel

After a quick lunch at Dagaag Kantaakee (KFC in Arabic), we visited the Bibliotheca Alexandria, which is a massive library that is also part museum. The building itself is massive and one of the most modern pieces of architecture I've seen, and the library interior is state of the art for researchers, even though the library truthfully has relatively fewer books than most in the US. The library contained some exhibits that I found very interesting, including one that had old maps and drawings of Alexandria, which I found out was bombarded by the British in 1882 when they tried resisting British colonial rule (I guess it was smart not to wear my shirt for the band "British Sea Power" that day). They also had an exhibit on the former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that included a lot of his personal items, including the blood-stained uniform that he was actually assassinated in. We sent the night getting dinner and hanging out on the city's sea wall on the Mediterranean for a while, which we noticed seemed to be the cool thing for young Egyptians to do.

The next day we got up early again to walk to the Citadel of Qaitbay located by Alexandria's harbor. On the walk to the Citadel, we could see many fishing boats that were all beautifully pained shades of pastel (usually sky blue) with designs on the side. Once we got to the Citadel, we immediately noticed that there appeared to be a school trip that day, since there were hundreds of Egyptian schoolchildren there. From the moment we got to the ticket window to the moment we left, these children walked up to us asking our names and practicing their English with us. They also kept asking us to appear in their pictures and to take pictures of them, and whenever I said something in Arabic they'd be pleasantly surprised and start speaking in Arabic (apparently I know less Arabic than an Egyptian elementary schooler). As far as the Citadel itself, it was built in the 15th Century and is in very good condition. The architecture was very interesting on the inside, since I haven't really been to any castles before, and its location on the Mediterranean allowed me to get some great pictures.


The Citadel of Qaitbay, with teeming masses of Egyptian Schoolchildren


Me and the Citadel's wall on the Mediterranean

The next site we visited was the National Museum of Alexandria, which contained artifacts from every era of Alexandria's history; it started from the Pharonic Era, went into the Greco-Roman and Islamic Eras, and finished with the Modern Era. We then headed to one of Alexandria's many beaches, as we hoped it would warm enough to swim during our visit. However, while it was 80-90 degrees and sunny Friday, it was much hazier and cooler on Saturday (there were sandstorms in most of Egypt actually), and the water was freezing since it is still March after all. Since we'll probably return in April or May though, it will hopefully be at the point where it's so hot that I don't care about the temperature of the water.


Me in the Mediterranean