The super street works

I have spent a lot of my day in the car. Egyptians drive differently. Car is King. Pedestrian DOES not have the right-of-way at all. I have crossed the street twice and never by myself. I almost got hit (not paying attention) in a parking lot.

There are three lanes and five rows of cars travel in each lane. ALL the major roads are super streets and I have thought of Bill quite frequently.

I went to Arab Contractors today. It is a consulting firm that does planning and historic "conservation" work. I got really confused with the conservation as we are in Cairo, but they meant preservation. They use GIS and their plans are very similar to ours. The main difference is their backgrounds. Most of the planners are engineers of some nature. I met two that did not have engineering degrees. They have similar studies that we have except they produce them in English and in French...enough about work.

This day has been incredible. I kept trying to tell myself to remember to write about that, but at the moment I am having a hard time remembering everything. My morning started with a much needed shower, unfortnuately I spent most of the time showering the entire bathroom with water. My PJs were SOAKED and so was my ego...incredibly embarrased. My driver is a Rotaract. (side bar..to anyone in Rotary reading this or can tell Jack...Take the Egyptians downtown instead of Concord Mills. They have been to Concord mills twice!! They have not explored downtown and have wanted to...even in the daytime) The Rotaract is very involved here; they are young and very hospitable. We ate lunch in a new cafe area (think Birkdale when it was built). I learned an Egyptian song and sang a solo at the Rotary Club. We went to City Stars which is a large and new indoor shopping mall. They take indoor malls to a whole new level. It was like 6 stories!

My host family is AWESOME. Youyou (spelled phoenetcally) understands english, but speaks French. My brain has been exhausted because I am operating in three languages, two of which I am not very good at and my spoken english has become very broken and I have a feeling it will translate to this blog. I have leaned about 12 new words today. Mona is my age and is Youyou's daugther. Her boyfriend is Amr (I'm still working on the proper pronunciation to his name. I think Bahaa was easier).

I left my camera at the Rotary meeting so I can't load pictures tonight. I will tomorrow, inshala (god willing). I thought the camera was lost so I am happy that I didn't loose the whole thing. Youyou's sister has arrived and I don't want to be rude.....bye (they use this word too..awesome for me).