Alexandria, Part One: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

I spent last weekend in Alexandria, which is around 200 kilometers from Cairo on the coast of the Mediterranean. I have to admit up front that this story doesn’t involve any planes – I just couldn’t think of another title. In fact, I can’t recall ever seeing or hearing a plane since arriving in this country, quite a difference from life in Washington, DC, where the silver eagles are ubiquitous. On the bright side, readers interested in trains and automobiles won’t be disappointed.

I embarked on my journey to Alexandria with five other students, all of them from Georgetown like myself. For the reader’s benefit, I’ve included the following brief profiles of the individuals involved in the expedition and the roles they played in the course of our adventure:

Anthony – Enforcer
Anthony’s a big dude. Although no taller than I am, he nevertheless outweighs me by fifty pounds or so, all of it muscle. This guy is in the gym lifting pretty much every day, and it shows. I, at least, was not worried about anyone messing with us when he was around. Unbeknownst to us, the limits of his strength were to be tested before our journey's end.

Mike – Negotiator, Translator, Photographer
Mike speaks fluent colloquial Lebanese thanks to his home life, and he has a natural bargaining streak that saved us money on several occasions. I think we honestly would have been lost without him, or we would have at least struggled mightily. Mike’s one flaw is his OCD-like obsession with taking pictures, a condition that I believe merits professional treatment. Is it normal to have ten 2-gigabyte memory cards for your digital camera?

Dan – Navigator
If Mike could talk us out of any situation, Dan could walk us out of it just as easily. Armed with nothing but his Lonely Planet travel guide, with which he has some sort of spiritual connection, Dan always knew exactly where we were and where we were going. Simply by laying hands on the Lonely Planet, Dan was able to triangulate our exact geospatial position and determine the direction in which we should proceed. Actually opening the book enabled him to walk on water and talk to animals.

Steph –Lonely Planeteer
Although Dan was the Lonely Planet’s unquestioned master, he wasn’t keen on carrying it around all the time, as he found this annoying and it also made us look rather touristy. Therefore, when Dan wasn’t using it to raise the dead, Steph kept the guidebook in her large purse until its powers were again needed. Her repeated requests for a new role were ignored.

Liz – Name Master
It’s tough to pin down a single role played by Liz on this trip, but I have to say it struck me that she was particularly good about knowing the names of places we visited, suggesting a certain amount of cultural knowledge that I lacked. Where I saw a bunch of old rubble, she saw the Kom El-Shuqfa ruins. I was unaware that the catacombs we visited had a name, but she knew them as the catacombs of Amud El-Sawari. Although I was impressed by this knowledge at the time, it occurs to me now that Liz was not frequently seen without her sunglasses, leading me to suspect that she was using a James Bond-like satellite uplink to receive relevant data in real time.

Me – Voice of Reason, Survivor Man
Prior to our departure, I was designated the role of “voice of reason,” a position I play well due to years of experience. The voice of reason thinks things through and prevents the group from making foolish or short sighted decisions. This can be a tricky role to play because an overactive voice of reason quickly kills all the fun to be had from adventuring. The key is recognizing subtle distinctions, like the difference between trespassing and breaking and entering. It was somewhat ironic that I was assigned this role, because it quickly became apparent that I was the most adventurous of our party, more into climbing and exploring than the others. I also declined to use hand sanitizer before meals, and I wasn’t grossed out by our sleeping conditions, leading me to be rechristened “Survivor Man,” in honor of the Discovery Channel TV show.

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Our plan was to get up early on Friday morning and take a cab to the Midan Ramses train station, where we would catch the 8:00 a.m. train to Alexandria. To that end, our somewhat groggy party assembled in the dorm lobby at 6:45 and split into two groups to take separate cabs. There was no traffic, but the cab that I was riding in with Dan and Steph nevertheless moved at an unusually slow pace. Our driver was an elderly man with an impassive, tortoise-like face, so I assumed he was a fan of the slow and steady approach. After a quarter of a mile or so, however, the car started shaking from the rear and the man pulled over to the side of the road. Flat tire. Without a word (or a change in his expression), the driver got out and started to change the tire. I wasn’t sure of the proper thing to do in this situation, but Dan was for finding a new ride. I left a few pounds on the seat and we hailed another cab, which took us to the station without incident.

Midan Ramses was bustling, and we had a little difficulty figuring out where to get tickets since the counters were divided by destination. We got help from one of the many security guards lounging around, who was happy to take us to the proper counter, help us buy tickets, and show us where to board the train. Of course we had to tip him for his services, but that’s how things work around here.

We found our seats and settled in for a two and a half hour journey. Although far from clean, the train was fairly spacious and comfortable, at least in our second class car. Our seats were cushy and could be reclined, and there was leg room to spare. Truth be told, this was my first time riding a train, and I was pretty excited about it. When I said so to Liz, who was sitting next to me, she looked surprised and advised me that the experience would probably not be as thrilling as I anticipated. Once we got underway I realized she was right; there wasn’t a whole lot to see out the window. Not knowing Liz particularly well, I talked to her for the first hour or so, during which time I was conscious of the fact that we six Americans were the only ones conversing. There were no other Westerners in our car, and everyone seemed to be sleeping or reading newspapers. We weren’t being particularly loud and no one paid us any attention, but I still felt overly conspicuous.

When our conversation came to a lull, I looked out the window at the passing landscape. We were traveling through an agricultural district. The land was flat and covered with fields of crops. Minus the clusters of palm trees and an occasional mosque, I decided that it wasn’t too different from Kansas. I was exhausted, having slept only three hours or so during the previous night due to difficulties doing laundry, and I closed my eyes.

I woke up when the train stopped at a station on the outskirts of the city. After another ten minutes and a few more stops, we were walking out of the downtown station into bright, sunny Alexandria. The scenery was green, the streets were clean, and a fresh breeze from the Mediterranean washed over me in a cool wave. I knew then that it was going to be a great weekend.

Coming soon in part two:
The New Hotel Welcome House, Fish Market, 50's diners, and more!