Comparisons

I have been back in the states for over two weeks now, and I'd like to make note of a few comparisons.

1) Cleanliness. My mother scoffed at this statement as we drove by two pieces of litter on the side of the interstate, but Cairo makes the US look like a freshly scrubbed hospital room. If this were Charlie Brown, they would play Pig Pen to our Lucy. 

2) A serious decrease in the amount of autotune on the radio. It happens here, mostly in R&B and hip-hop abundance, but omg, in the middle east it seems that somebody has duck-taped the 'record' and the 'auto tune' buttons together. DJ Mahmoud, have you been messing with the sound equipment again?

3) Comprehension. I don't have to run everything my friends say through an internal translation service. Of course, part of the fun with my Cairene friends is trying to slow down space and time so that I can put the sounds I'm hearing into familiar patterns. Usually there was somewhat of an awkward silence after I was asked a question before I was able to offer forth an answer that made sense. I think they got used to me staring intently off to the side. 

4) The presence of an amalgam of cereals other than unsweetened Corn Flakes. Oh amazeballs, I forgot how colorful and downright fun a walk past the rows of cereal could be. The fact that this food group has it's own entire aisle makes this the place where dreams come true. 

5) Yeast. Maybe it had much to do with ancient and/or Biblical tradition, but I sorely missed bread that fluffed and bounced back when I grazed it with a butter knife. I learned that bread shaped like a frisbee goes with everything... except peanut butter and jelly. And cream cheese. And cold cuts. 

6) Cars in neat, single-file lines. There have been several times since being home that I've been caught in what we hilariously call a 'traffic jam' when I thought, "Dude, there's room for at least 55 more cars in this space."

7) A lack of large groups of people in the streets. People are protesting here, but on a much smaller scale as in only on the radio, or in their living rooms, or in response to yet another news broadcast attesting to the inefficiency of Congress. Maybe we should scream a little louder because people on the Hill seem to be walking around with cotton balls stuffed in their ears.

8) Real coffee. And I mean the stuff that comes from dark crunchy beans that are ground into a fine powder and shot through with hot water. It's dark, it's smooth, it tastes like hot caffeinated goodness on the tongue. Not Turkish coffee (sludge in a cup with cardamum) or Nescafé (gross). How they call the latter anything that even sounds like coffee is one of the mysteries of the universe. 

9) And last but not least, transparent, breathable oxygen. Air, by definition, should be something you can't see, but Cairo's complete lack of emissions regulations ensures that this invisible element is constantly tainted with a grayish - brown haze in the off chance that one would begin to doubt its existence. 

Despite all of this, Egypt has left its dusty fingerprints all over me and my boots that were made for walking (through refuse and animal guts), and I can hardly wait to return and discover more of its idiosyncrasies. So glad you guys are with me for the ride.