June 26 - Pimped again and KFC/USA

I started the day off with a morning run. If you get going early enough in Cairo, the absolutely mental traffic is not so bad. My theory is that since everyone stays out until 3 or so at night that they must rest sometime, so 7AM is pretty quiet. It was a nice run in the cool-ish morning of Cairo, just before the evil Sun was to rise again to burn my ass all day.

One thing about running in Cairo, though. You know how I said a while back that people look at you like you have two heads if you go to Africa and don't go on safari? Well in Cairo, they look at you like you have FOUR heads (that is NOT a typo. Not two, not three, but FOUR heads) if you go out jogging downtown. In any case, I got back to the place just as it was becoming unbearable and we could then start the day.

Joe and I headed back to the bazaar, where we were sure we would avoid being pimped any more. Except we got pimped even harder this time. The man we encountered as we stepped out of the taxi recognized us from the day before, and insisted we come with him so he could show us the way to the mosque (he claimed to be on his way to pray!) and give us a quick tour. We declined, but he wasn't taking no for an answer, so we followed him to the mosque. Except the next thing you know, we were in a papyrus gallery. After some polite conversation with the owner, I was haggling for a papyrus I didn't come looking for. From 350 Egyptian Pounds, I got the price down to 260 (about $50), but I'm sure this could have been cheaper, probably even 150 Egyptian Pounds. The place was at least a legitimate papyrus place, so at least I came away with a decent piece of merchandise. Two things about shopping in Egypt: 90% of everything you see is complete crap and never, ever, ever enter into any haggling with a third party, or "tout" with you. Our friend the tout was sad to see us go, but then Joe and I continued into other parts of the bazaar and actually had some fun shopping and got some good stuff at good prices.

Later that night, the agenda was pretty simple: KFC and USA. Joe and I had both been craving KFC ever since we had seen an Arabic KFC ad in the Business Lounge at Cairo Airport on our way to South Africa. The ad starred the amazing Lionel Messi and featured beautiful dissolves between Messi playing football and playing the drums with KFC drumsticks. The splendor of the ad meant KFC had our business, at least in the Middle East. And after the Colonel's secret recipe, there would be nothing better to wash that down than a USA/Ghana round of 16 match.

It is not hard to find a KFC in Cairo. There were at least three within walking distance of our apartment. Joe and I chose the furthest but largest outlet, and walked over. The scene inside was typical Cairo: a mob of people pushing and shoving to get their order in first. We noticed there were a bunch of TVs inside and hoped we had killed 2 birds with 1 stone by coming to this location as we were hoping they would be showing the game. When we found out they would not (as they didn't have the right satellite package), we ordered hastily and ate our KFC the way it's meant to be eaten: fast. I can now personally attest to the consistency of KFC's product, be it in San Francisco or Cairo. KFC is KFC everywhere.

We now needed to hop in a cab and cross the Nile over to a place called Sports Café. Sports Café was almost like an American sports bar, with pictures of Michael Jordan, Joe Montana and Larry Bird along with soccer legends like Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry. One thing that set it apart was the amount of clientele smoking "shisha" or what we know as hookah. But Sports Café had plenty of big-screen HD TVs, and that's all we needed to enjoy the World Cup.

Sadly, the Egyptian support that the USA enjoyed when playing Egypt's bitter rivals Algeria had almost entirely dried up for this match with Ghana, the lone remaining African World Cup representative. Almost all of the fans at Sports Café minus Joe and myself were cheering vigorously for Ghana. Hell, if they're going to be that fickle, we don't need the Egyptians on board anyway! After a hard fought match and some typical missed chances by the USA, a great goal by Ghana's Asamoah Gyan put Ghana ahead for good in injury time. Losing to a great goal is, for me, much better than losing to a bad refereeing decision or a really egregious error by your team (although USA defender Steve Cherundulo could have done way better on the winning goal). After the match, some friendly Egyptians consoled Joe and I, and we said we hoped USA and Egypt would both qualify in four years. Getting out of the group stage was nice, but on balance this was not a highly positive result for our guys, and I'm just hoping for entertainment from here on out. Until next time...