Woke up at 9 this morning and prepared to go to the citadel. By 9:30 I was out the door and walking towards Tahriir. On the way I picked up a croissant from a pastry shop on Kasr El-Eine. A few blocks away from Tahriir there were swarms of policed lining the street. Police on both sides of the street every three feet. I thought it may be because of the recent riots in Zamalek (over the soccer game). I later found out it was because President Mubarak was attending the Opera (which was 5 blocks away… a bit ridiculous).
Met Henry at McDonalds so he could grab breakfast. Sam decided to join us and met us there. I gave in and grabbed a sandwich as well. From there we grabbed a taxi and headed into ‘Old/Islamic Cairo’. The Citadel is located on the highest hill in Old Cairo. It was built as a castle by Saladin to protect Cairo from possible crusader attacks. Since then it has been expanded and added onto. Now it contains three mosques and two museums and a whole bunch of unused (and inaccessible) housing quarters.
We paid our entry fee and went in. We started our excursion by checking out the amazing view offered of the city. We took it in for awhile before entering the main mosque. The main mosque was built by Mohammed Ali. It was large and extravagant. The outside courtyard was tiled and the buildings were domed. The inside was covered with stained glass, marble, and frescoes. It was gorgeous but hard to explain. (check out the pictures).
After walking through the Mohammed Ali Mosque we moved onto the Katkhuda Mosque. It was a smaller mosque that is less preserved. The paint was cracking worn and the tile had been partially stripped. It had vaulted/arched ceilings and had its own charm. Definitely wasn’t as big and flashy as the other one though.
We looked around for awhile trying to find the third mosque but couldn’t figure out how to get to it. We decided to check out the police museum. Inside the police museum were artifacts and narratives describing the development of crime prevention in Egypt. Actually allot more interesting than I anticipated.
After that we walked over to the Military Museum. We dubbed this museum the ‘scraps museum’. Outside was a section where they placed a few planes and tanks to show their progression, however all of them had signs saying ‘tank from USSR/USA/Britain’. We found it kinda funny.
Went inside and walked through the museum. It was expansive and was very well laid out. One could have easily spent a few hours looking through all the rooms. Unfortunately allot of the exhibits were closed for maintenance. However, the parts we did see were very detailed and informative. I was rather impressed.
Afterwards we took a cab back into Tahriir. We got dropped a few blocks away and split up. I started my walk back to the apartment but got stopped just outside of Tahriir. Apparently Mubarak had finished his visit to the opera and was chilling in Tahriir Square. The entire square was closed until he left. This meant I had to walk around on side streets…. Very annoying.
Eventually made it back to the apartment. Went upstairs and started working on my beast of a project. This of course is the 6 page paper that we have to write. Agh! Why couldn’t everyone vote for the meet half an hour extra once a week…. Why! It would have been so much easier. Oh well… now I’m hitting my head against the wall doing extra research and trying to find time to write this paper.
Finished all my media and MSA homework first and then did research. Spent most of the night doing this. However, I did eventually get dinner and made two, hour and a half calls back to Cali. One to the family and another to Sara.
Went to bed at midnight.
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