My plane leaves at 6am which means i need to leave for the airport at 3am. Instead of sleep, I've decided to spend some time on the internet then head off to the souq for one last thrill.

Sayid is sick and has been in bed all day. He sounded terrible when I spoke to him. So I'm alone, a bit bored, and sad about leaving this place that i've grown to both love and hate.

A few miscellaneous things that didn't make it into any previous emails: Tampons are available here but egyptian women probably don't know about them because they cost a fortune. A small box of around 10 costs about $8US.

"Walk like an Egyptian" should really be "spit like an Egyptian" -- men here spit more than any place i've ever been.....big honking luggies all the time. The first time i heard someone spit was my first day in Cairo at the Egyptian Museum. I thought they had spat on me....but it's just the way things are. Maybe due to all of the sheesha (tobacco pipe smoked out of a hookah), air pollution, and cigarette smoking make them spit. People here seem to be constantly sick. Most of the kids have runny, snotty noses and most everyone else seems to cough. I don't know if it's a winter thing or always this way.

Men walk hand in hand or arm in arm here and it doesn't indicate anything about their sexual preference. It's just friendly. Women do the same.

Sayid says there are gay men in Egypt and Egyptian bath houses are used as meeting places by them. He claims there are no Egyptian lesbians and that topic seemed to embarrass him more than thinking about gay men.

Egyptians seem to have an incredible memory for faces (or maybe it's just my face??) but they will also sometimes pretend to have met you before when they haven't. Carnache drivers (horse carts) would talk to me briefly and then say hello to me several times a day reminding me of some previous conversation.

Open bags cause concern here. I was walking around with my backpack slightly unzipped. Everytime I did this, Egyptians would stop me on the street to tell me to close my bag. Once, I was losing my money belt and didn't know it and a man came running after me to point it out to me.

Favorite Egyptian sayings are: "hello, what's your name, where you from?" said all in one breath and "no problem." Right up there is "OH MY GOD!!! YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!" <g>

Egyptian beer (Stella) is supposedly terrible, but i think it's better than Miller or Bud or most American beer.

During Ramadan, it's easy to get fed by locals for free. i believe there is some obligation to feed anyone at iftar (break fast.) It isn't a bad time to travel (as I'd feared) though shop and museum hours are more erratic and the whole country tends to shut down for a few hours every afternoon.

I didn't know that egyptians mummified animals -- but since I've been here, I've seen 2 mummified monkeys, several birds, a cat, a crocodile, a ram, and a few other things. They also mummified bulls. There is a mummified monkey in the Egyptian Museum (shown at left) that was one of the most fascinating things I've seen in this country. It's tiny face was very expressive.

I went to a carpet "school" -- all of the silk carpets are made by young girls. After age 8, their fingers are too big and they are "retired." I don't know if the following is a pretty story for tourists or if it's real, but the school said that: 1) the girls are taught to read and write so that they can have a good life after they are retired from making carpets; 2) they only work for two hours a day on the carpets. The girls looked happy but who knows....maybe they get in trouble if they don't smile for the nice tourists.

Principal gods in ancient Egypt seem to be: isis, Osiris, ra, horus, hathor secondary but still important: min, thoth, anubis, nepthys, khnum, ptah, khonsu khepri is almost completely non-existent in any existing monuments. sobek is sometimes seen.

I think I have a new round of turista going on. I ate a fiteer (sort of like a pizza) in a village yesterday. It was one of the best meals I've had, but it seems like everytime I eat in the villages, I get sick. Or maybe it was the yummy figs juice I had. I'm not as sick as I was the first time. but since I've been here, I've had turista with fever, conjunctivitis (which i thankfully had some medicine for that in my bag), and I think I have bronchitis as well. I haven't felt completely healthy since I got here.

I think it's time for the souq. :) Next email will probably be from Oakland, California.

kayla (who will be a seriously tired donkey indeed very soon)