The Matt Lisac Thing.

Day two, and the mood here is getting quite intense…. in a GOOD WAY!

I thought the city would only be interesting during the day, when the regular 9-5 protesters came out. Boy was I in for a shock. Every night in the club section of Cairo you can find protest raves just about everywhere you go. Sure the music is a little too, err… you know… Eastern for my taste, but man the beat keeps you dancing all night. And nobody’s on drugs here, just the natural ecstasy that comes from defending a wonderful politician against the vicious barbs of radical hate-mongers. BOOM! Blat! BOOM! Blat! BOOM! Blat! WAIIIILLLLLLLIIIAAAAAAAA—– HAAAASSHHHTAAACCHHHHHHH—- FAAALLLIIIIAAAAMAAAACCHCHHHH—- That’s my favourite new song. I think it’s something about murdering dogs or women or something.

Anyway, I’ve had a lot of chances to meet the “locals” of Egypt, and I tell you they are just people like you and me. This here is a picture of David, he’s from Egypt. I used my new camera phone I got on the street. Man, the prices you can find here on everything are just out of this world. It’s probably because they don’t have all the stupid taxes we have back home. Could you imagine paying $40 for a totally real iPone in Canada?

I thought David was a strange name for an Egyptian guy at first, because it’s from the Bible and stuff, but apparently they not only have the bible here, but lots of parts actually TOOK PLACE HERE! Holy cow! Anyway, this isn’t actually THE David from the Bible, and also he’s not a giant like David the Goliath. I should read that story again sometime.

David sells pipe welding equipment, which means he’s just as boring as any other white guy from Canada. But he’s not even white! David has multiple wives probably, but I didn’t ask him about that because I’m trying to be more ethnically sensitive on this trip. Sometimes people get offended when you point out how their cultures are wrong. He does have 3 pictures of children on his desk, and I asked if they were triplets, and he said no, the girl is several years older than the two boys.

The only food you can eat around here is something called Halal.

It tastes totally different everywhere you go, but you really can’t go wrong just ordering the Halal, trust me. I might see if they have bacon Halal tomorrow for lunch, I’ve just been craving bacon since I came over here, but being a bunch of health nuts over here, they don’t seem to be that into the stuff. GOOD FOR YOU, EGYPT!

Off to bed now, my ears are still ringing from all the rave music. Those crazy kids.

All my love back home, I can’t wait to show you some cd’s I burned at this rave. IN A FIRE!!!! GET IT?!!!!!

This is me in Cairo, day one. Flew over the pyramids on my way in, not much to look at when you’re above, just looks like a bunch of squares drawn in the ground with an X in the middle. Could this have been the plan all along? Historians will tell you no, and that’s why I don’t read books.

Got a quick rundown on what was going on politically as soon as I landed by an angry Arabic-speaking taxi driver. Oh no wait, sorry, that was on my way to the airport.

Picked up a newspaper when I landed, watched the news for a bit, and found out that the old president Hosni Mubarek (Mubarek is the last name of 37% of Egyptians believe it or not) was doing JUST FINE. In fact, it seemed from the media that Mr. Hosni was as popular and stabilizing as ever, so I quickly sided with the pro-Mubarek camp, and made friends with a bunch of police officers. I knew I was on the right side because the police are always right.

Anyway, I headed downtown, but first stopped at the Al-Walimar (yes, Walmart is in Egypt too) to find some gear to fit in a little better. I already had the beard, which was lucky, but I needed a man-purse to carry my stuff around town (see above), and also needed some armor for the conflict. Luckily they did have man-bags, but all I could find for body-protection was a bucket. Actually, because of hording, all that they had left were man-bags and buckets (bunch of homophobes.) I couldn’t tell if they had lots of buckets left because Egyptians LOVE their buckets, or because nobody EVER buys buckets, but it turned out to be the right choice, once I made some clever adjustments that the wife recommended. Splitting the bucket down the middle, you see, gives it a lever to open and close like the old medieval helmets.

I soon found my way downtown (“just take me to where all the shit is happening”) and tipped the guy what I thought was an appropriate amount of Egyptian currency, but considering the guy starting crying and massaging my feet and showering me with roses, I may have miscalculated. Anyhoo, lesson learned.

Once at the battlefield, I found my fellow pro-Mubarekians, and engaged myself in what seemed to be the world’s worst game of dodgeball, played with rocks, and if you hit someone, they aren’t out, they just shoot tear-gas at your face. SOME GAME YOU GOT GOING HERE, EGYPT!

After a long day of throwing stuff, I retreated to my hotel, the Al-Bestwestern, but they gave me two double beds instead of the single King-size that I had CLEARLY REQUESTED OVER SKYPE… ugh…. anyway, this is real life politics and stuff, so I won’t complain. It’s just good to help out.

More news as it happens, all my love to Canada,

Matt