It’s the twelfth day of the third month of the Islamic lunar calendar, which means it must be the prophet Mohammed’s birthday! Peace be with him.
For this year only, the Islamic calendar coincides with the Gregorian calendar to place Mohammed’s birthday on the same day as my own. And yet, whilst I could scarcely have failed to notice the hordes clamouring to celebrate the anniversary of their prophet’s manifestation on Earth this afternoon, I knew about my own birthday thanks only to a bunch of canned happy birthday messages from various discussion forums I’m a member of. How sweet of you to remember,
Apparently, I’m 43. Fuck that! How am I celebrating it? you ask. I’m not; I’m 43, for fuck’s sake. What’s on Earth is good about that?
Today, we moseyed over to the Egyptian Museum and blitzed the place before the children could complain too much. We saw the main stuff we wanted to see, such as the royal mummies and the Tutankhamun exhibition. Beyond that, we took in as much as we could, but then the inevitable wail of “Can we go now?” began to rise and we our time at the museum was done.
Outside, we agreed a fare and hopped in a taxi to خان الخليل (Khan el-Khalili), the souk in Islamic Cairo that we failed to locate yesterday. Prior to entering, we dove into Gad for delicious falafel, شيش طاوو (shish taouk) and strawberry juice.
With lunch out of the way, we had a look around جامع الأزه (the Al-Azhar Mosque) before entering the Khan el-Khalili souk. It was fun, but after the souks of Istanbul, Muscat and Dubai, we feel pretty spoilt. Before leaving, we popped into Qahwet el Fishawy to revitalise ourselves with mango juice.
Leaving was a little tricky, as a massive Islamic procession was arriving on Midan Hussein square. Women were ululating (how do they do that?), sweets were being strewn, the TV cameras were rolling and the men were marching with banners. This was clearly a huge event.
An Egyptian man informed me that my wife was showing too much flesh and, sure enough, Sarah’s shirt had ridden up where her sling was tied to reveal a sliver of her waist: definitely not the done thing in this most conservative of neighbourhoods. She quickly covered herself up.
We eventually burrowed a route through the crowds to the main road, where we found a taxi and headed back to our hotel.
I’m too tired to write any more and still struggling with sickness, which is causing headaches and fatigue. I feel as if I’ve done a day’s walking before I’ve even left the hotel. And then comes a day of walking.
Still, the temperature here is very reasonable. It can’t have been much more than 21°C today and the rain stayed away. Here’s hoping we’ll all shake the sickness by the morning. Tomorrow promises to be a very full day.