After Alexandria

Yet again, I've waited far too long to give an update. My apologies. Except now I have to remember everything I've done in the last few weeks!
Since the last time I wrote, I finished my blissful two weeks in Alexandria. I am seriously considering moving there. It was like dying and going to heaven after Cairo (which I've recently realized is really starting to grow on me). Along the Corniche in Alex was so picturesque. 5 PM in Alex is so gorgeous: the light is just right and it brings out all of the best qualities and colors of the Corniche. I started doubting I was still in Egypt. I honestly spent about 75% of my time there sitting at sidewalk cafes and people watching. I stopped taking cabs because I was just eating pastries and drinking 4 lattes a day. Everything about it was so relaxing. I really don't know how to accurately describe it. What I loved was that I had so much time and space and calm to start to process everything. The people are so much friendlier there so I got to ask a lot of questions and ended up making some really good local friends. My two favorites were Ahmed and Medhat. Medhat ran the internet cafe near my hotel (and wasn't trying to charge me 20 L.E. an hour!). He and I randomly started talking and I eventually started asking him questions about a few aspects of the growing conservatism that still didn't make sense to me. He had his own opinions, which he shared with me. The next night I came back to check my email, and he'd brought a good Muslim friend of his, Ahmed, to give me the other side of the story (since Medhat was Christian). It was so interesting to here both sides of this: there was a lot of overlap but they also disagreed in several ways and it was really interesting to see them debate it with other people who'd joined this conversation (until they stopped debating in English and switched to Arabic, at which point I became completely lost). I felt like those 2 weeks in Alex were the most culturally enlightening days of my trip so far. It became a nightly ritual of me going to that internet cafe and sitting and talking with Medhat and Ahmed. They're both very liberal and although I'd like to get a more conservative point of view, it's much more difficult for me to have an opportunity to talk to someone who'd be willing to answer my questions. I found that in Alex in general, if I was curious about anything I was seeing, there was always someone around who'd explain it to me.
I still haven't had my burka day: I'm going to do it when I'm back in Cairo in two weeks.
I've been really curious about the strictures for how women must act and dress (what's the rhyme and reason, etc.) and I've found several interesting things:
I had been wondering for so long how women who wore the full burka would eat in public. In Cairo, I almost never saw any in restaurants, so I began to assume that they just didn't go out to eat. The nice thing about the slower pace in Alexandria was that I could actually WATCH someone. I spent about an hour sitting at a cafe one day when I saw a woman in a burka, her husband, and her four children sit down next to me. They ordered a lot of food, and I was determined to see if she ate or not. She ended up eating last, so I had to sit there like a stalker sketch-ball in sun glasses and wait. I'd just come to the conclusion that they just don't eat in public, until I saw her pinch the front of her veil, lift it up, and slide her fork underneath it and take a bite. This may not seem so amazing to you, but this image was so fascinating to me and I was so elated that I'd finally seen it. I was so tempted to go over and thank them I was so excited. But, I'd finished off two lattes in the time that I was watching them so I headed to the bathroom instead.
A majority of the clothes that I brought with me are baggy and conservative. However, a majority of the women around my age that I see are wearing skin-tight clothes...and a hijab. I've been so baffled by this because it's such an extreme conceptual clash. I asked Ahemed about this one night and he began ranting about how ridiculous it was. The answer that he gave me was that there was no explanation for it. To me, that image of the woman in skin-tight clothes and a hijab really embodies the whole mystery and condition of this conservatism. It's a relatively new condition and was really sparked by a fear of loss of Egyptian identity: 20 or 30 years ago, it wasn't like this. I find myself wondering (and a lot of locals have agreed with me on this) if the hijab isn't actually understood, but just followed.
One thing I should make very clear is that Egypt is such a difficult egg to crack. There's a lot of disagreement among people about the right and wrong way, etc., but a lot of the people who I'd prefer to ask questions of (not that I don't adore my little liberal posse) would not give me the opportunity because of the two things I can't change about myself (can you guess what they are?). I don't mean to sound so extremist (because this sounds a little close minded, I know), but it's an unfortunate reality I've discovered. It doesn't apply to everyone, but it's hard to get the opportunity. Still trying, though.
What you see on the surface of Egypt doesn't explain what's going on underneath. There are several reasons for this:
A) Some of it doesn't have an answer.
B) There is this general attitude of "catering to the tourists". There's a ridiculously large number of Egyptians that work in the tourist industry (much more than half), and since so many people who come here are of the "get on the bus, off the bus, on the boat, off the boat, in the museum, out of the museum" persuasion, there's this tendency for locals to support the "experience". There's a huge difference between when someone talks to me like a "foreigner" and when they talk to me like a "tourist".
C) People have conveyed to me that they've very hesitant to talk about certain things because they're afraid of getting arrested for speaking against the government. A LOT of people have conveyed this to me. So, I try to respect that. However, that fear says enough.

Again, I feel like I left out a lot of things. I might need to to do a little make-up blog here in a day or two.

I'm in Aswan right now :). I'm very fond of it, to say the least. I got here about two days ago via train from Cairo. A cabin on the sleeper train would have cost me $80 where as just a chair in first-class costs about 150 L.E. (about $28). What I would have paid for a bed on that train is more than what I'm spending for 10 nights in my hostel in Luxor. Obviously, I chose not to take the sleeper car and just got a seat. That was an experience. But, I honestly preferred that to being stuck in a little room by myself for 13 hours. I managed to get a few hours of sleep (but neither deep or peaceful).

I'll save Aswan-so-far for later.

I've found out some very interesting facts about Luxor that I had NEVER heard before in my life until Atef from King Tut sat me down the morning before I left and said "Now, Phoebe: there's something you need to know about Luxor...". I haven't experienced this yet, so I can't say for sure, but apparently it's Courgarville. For the next 24 hours, this little fact kept getting confirmed by various people. That'll be interesting to see...

In short: I LOVE Egypt. It's so fascinating to me and it keeps getting more complicated every day. I'm so glad that it's nothing like I expected (because I really didn't know what to expect). I'm so excited for the rest of my trip, but sometimes I feel so tempted to cancel everything else and just stay here.