One week in the city.

As of right now, (as I'm typing) I am hitting exactly one week of being in Cairo. In some ways it has met my expectations and in other ways it has exceeded them. Let's see if I can summarize this:

• Met: Pollution is high. Though to be fair, my lungs haven't complained yet. On a clear day, you can see the pyramids on the drive to work. So far, that's happened once.
• Exceeded: I thought this place was going to be very dead and not much green. Not true. There is plenty of vegetation around and the parks are fairly nice. (Will get a photo up later.) That's not to say there isn't a lot of brown and sand, but the palm trees and other vegetation does help quite a bit.
• Exceeded: Convienence of living in Ma'adi. Right now, though I'm living in temporary housing, the Golds Gym is in the building next door. I've been able to go to the gym nearly every day since I got here. PLUS, the gym is just like any other Gold's in the U.S. It's a very nice facility and was cheaper than a U.S. membership.
• Met: Traffic. It's bad. 7 miles to work takes about 30 minutes in the morning and anywhere from 40-70 minutes on the way home. I've taken the shuttle and gotten a ride home from a co-worker and it seems to be consistent. It's also a little haphazard to say the least. The tactics are the same as in Georgia, but the volume is much higher. Parking near work is pretty pricey though, so I'm not sure how much I'll drive myself. Cabs are available, many have meters but apparently you need to tell the cabbie how to get to where you want to go. (How? I don't know where I'm going!)
• Met / Exceeded: The commissary. It's huge, and apparently a little subsidized. Looking around the local grocery stores, most things are about the same price on the economy as they are in the commissary. Considering everything in the commissary is imported that really surprised me. It's like walking into a Giant in the U.S. (Or any other large grocery store.) It's a 15 minute drive from home, so who knows what we'll do for shopping wise.
• The metro is only 1 Egyptian Pound ( < $0.20) per ride, takes 40 minutes consistently, and doesn't have a predefined departure time like the shuttle. No AC though, so we'll see about the summer time. I haven't done this yet, but probably will tomorrow.
• Last Friday (first day of the weekend), I was walking around the neighborhood and saw a girl running by herself in running tights and a t-shirt. It sounds like she may get plenty of attention by doing that, but 2 things came from it:

1) She's comfortable enough to do it anyway, so it must be worth it.
2) If you're going to do it, Ma'adi is the place to do it. Downtown, women will get a lot more harassment.

Overall, this tour should allow for many creature comforts while having it's own unique set of stresses. Moving into our permanent housing (December 28) will help and getting our household effects will really help. There are allegedly cycling clubs and other groups that I would love to get into. But with only 2 bags of clothes I flew in with, I'm a little cornered.

So far so good. Life is good.