Toilets and Tourism

So this is the toilet in my flat. I share the two bedroom place with another student, Sabrina. The obivious things you will notice is that it is a bit grotty, The shower has no curtian and it's toilet seat is not attached. But it's not what it lacks that interests me... it's what makes it different. see the little metal disk at the back? and the thin pipe comming out to the left? that is the clean-your-butt-with-water funtion. The user simply remains seated, reaches around behind them and turns on the jet of water. all cleaning of course is done wth the left hand, that is why the left hand never goes near the mouth. and if you do make the mistake of, say, eating a piece of bread with your left hand in a restaurant, then you will be looked at like you have just eaten poo. I have not been able to use this funtion, as it doesn't work in my flat.

The day of rest here is Friday, and the day of fun is Saturday, so Friday is the Egyptian Sunday and Saturday is still Saturday but the last day of the weekend. On Thursday night (the Egyptian Friday night) some if my class and myself went out dancing, in a coffee-shop-turned-nightclub in a mall. The coffee-shop-turned-nightclub was full of teenage boys, they were lovely, to young to be threatning, and right into their dancing with coregraphed routines, breakdance moves they would teach each other, and at one point a hip-hop line dancing type thing. brilliant.

on friday all 9 of us went to the catacombs (no cameras allowed) it was a bit dull, it was kind of a 5th century BC roman mortary. No skeletons. There was a srange old man who would pop up randomly from behind pilars, or outof rooms to empart on us random facts about the catacombs... if we listened for too long he would expect a fee. Then the remains old libary, an amazing meal of seafood and onto the beach.

I grew up on an island, so I have a strong notion of what a beach is, or should be, it involves sand, bare skin, waves, not paying money and wide open spaces. My perception was a bit limited. The beach here was a clustered with unbrellas, salesmen, plastic chairs and rocks. the water was filled wth men. men who leer, stare, grap, grope and encroach. We went in fully clothed, 3 guys, 5 girls, two of us got groped, four of us got cut on the rocks and another two came out with panful looking jellyfish stings (healed with a bit of pee and some lime juice) .