Almost there

This morning I booked my hostel in Cairo. It was tough going through all the hostels and deciding where I was going to lay my head. I opted for a quite spot in the Garden City district close to the US and Canadian Embassies. It's inexpensive for a single room at E£135 ($24.00). There are less expensive options but they're also in the heart of downtown. I think I want to sleep well the first couple of nights and I've heard that the Juliana is in a peaceful neighborhood. It's also a couple minute walk to the Nile and is pretty close to a location that Lonely Planet talks about having the best felucca rides. I'm so going to sail on the Nile one evening, maybe two.

I purchased the last of my items yesterday that I needed for the trip. I picked up two pair of lightweight cargo pants and along with a pair of jeans, some shirts and what I'm wearing the day I fly off that's all I'm taking. I had to pick up a few adapter items I need for charging things too. I'm traveling very light for this trip as I want to be somewhat uninhibited and not worry about baggage. I have been considering taking my medium format camera though. I just pulled it out yesterday and was thinking how cool it would be to get some 2.25"x2.25" film images. I love the square format but I'm not sure I want to lug it around.

After booking the hostel I went on the U.S. Department of State Travel Registry site, created an account, and gave some details about my travel plans. I've read it's good to do if there's an emergency of some sort so why not. I'm now receiving a bunch of emails containing information on Egypt and Cairo (the lists I subscribed to). Most of it is warnings about boarder regions but sights a few instances of violence that have happened over the last several years in other areas. I'm not so worried about that but Wow, I just read the part about Egypt having one of the worlds highest rates of road fatalities per mile. I think I'm a little more concerned about crossing the street or getting into a car now. This reminds me of a video I was watching on youtube the other day of a person crossing the road in downtown Cairo, while eating. It was seriously like Frogger and what made it even more hilarious was that the guy was eating,... I think it was KFC too. Too funny. Well, I guess all those waisted hours of my youth spent playing Frogger might actually have been a good thing. Little did I know, it was preparation for Egypt.