The easiest way to Alexandria is by train from Cairo. It was the first normal train ride we'd had in a while. We were allowed to sit with the locals, pay the local fares, and there were no armed guards marching up and down the corridors. And the trip was only four hours. I don't think I saw another tourist on the train. Alexandria isn't really the tourist city. All the exciting pharonic stuff is in Luxor, The pyramids are in Cairo, and the Nile views are great in Aswan. The ancient Library of Alexandria is the stuff of legends, but not much remains now. It's a long thin city that spreads for miles along the coast of the Mediterranean.
We were staying way down in a hotel recommended by the guide books. We were on the twelfth floor. And Kate, as a crazy person insisted that we always go by the stairs. It's one thing to walk down twelve flights of stairs, but walking up is quite another matter. But the air conditioner was working, so I wasn't going to complain very much.
After the sun got a little lower in the sky, we decided we would go explore. Armed with the map torn out of the Lonely Planet (I thought I would never ever desecrate a book, but the 1,000 page guide book got really heavy), and this list of a few recommended places to eat, we crossed the main street that runs by the coast. This is not an easy undertaking. Cars in Egypt are nuts. This was nothing compared to Cairo – a story for another time, but the cars were constantly racing past. And the lane lines, they might as well not have been there for all the attention the cars were paying to them. After waiting and waiting and waiting for there to be a break in the traffic we ran for it, and got over just in time. There are no buildings on the sea side, leaving it open. The side walk is well paved, and in some places it's even a board walk. Very civilized, compared to the usual chaos on the sidewalks – guys selling bananas, cars parked, beggars, guys shining shoes, and on top of that, hundreds of people walking. But this sidewalk was calm and quiet, and empty, except for pedestrians ambling along the sea.
We didn't know exactly where we were. Kate thought that if we stood facing the sea and turned left, I guess that would be west, that we would get to the center. But we weren't sure, and we had no idea how far away the center was. After walking for about half an hour we decided to ask directions. We didn't want to ask a guy though, as we'd both been hassled too many times to count. Soon we saw two women walking together, and so Kate asked them if this was the way to the center. They said yes, and we kept on walking, and they kept on walking.
About twenty minutes later, they came up behind us. Only one of the women spoke English. She told us that her name was Ihem, and that she was very worried about us being on our own in such a big city. We didn't know anyone, and why were we so far away from our families? We tried to explain, but she didn't really understand. We told her that we really would be fine, that we liked walking. Ihem gave us her phone number and to call her if we needed anything, anything at all. We thanked her for her kindness, and continued on.
It wasn't even half an hour later when a small blue car pulled over and honked. It was getting dark, and Ihem and her friend had decided that they would not take no for an answer. At first trying to take us back to our hotel, we convinced them that it would be okay if they took us to the center. We would be fine, but we really wanted to see it. It's nothing they told us, nothing exciting. But in the end we won out. Ihem only let us out of the car, however, when we promised that we would call her that night when we returned to the hotel.
It was dark by the time we got to the center. It's not very big. There's a small circular park with benches. The greenery isn't really doing all that well though. There was a really nice store with fancy chocolates that I gazed at. Yes, mice like chocolate too. Following the suggestion of the Lonely Planet guide we wandered in the maze of narrow streets until we found Muhammed Ahmed, a little shop famous for it's felafel sandwiches. The place was jammed and hot inside, with the smell of frying food wafting out into the street. The felafel is so fresh that it's piping hot. They put it in small circular flat bread that they open. It's like pita 
bread. The salad looked so good, but after being warned by everyone, and their mother (literally) not to eat salad that you have not seen washed, we had to ask them not to put salad on. It took us a while to get the attention of the guys making the sandwiches. After we had gotten them to understand what we wanted, using lots of hand gestures, holding up fingers to indicate the number of sandwiches, and somehow explaining no salad, we took our ticket to the cash register to pay. Then we took our felafel back to the little park and sat on a bench to eat. The food was amazing! It was definitely the best felafel that I've ever had. And when we worked it out, each sandwich was a little less than 7 pence. How can it possibly be so cheap? And so delicious?
We walked back to the hotel, which did end up being a long way. Kate called Ihem to reassure her that we had indeed gotten back okay. We mostly talked to her son, who spoke English fairly well. He told us that his mother was going to take us on a tour of Alexandria the next day. We both looked at each other wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. It seemed pretty obvious that we had gotten ourselves adopted. This was a very nice change from the rest of male dominated Egypt.
The next day the little blue car picked us up at noon. There was another woman with Ihem this time. She told us it was her neighbor. She asked us what we wanted to see, and we told her whatever she thought we should see. They drove us to see the fishing boats in the harbor, which was on the other side of downtown from our hotel, past the aquarium, and past the very impressive palace. And then they took us to the mall. I hate malls. Kate hates malls. We're much more into markets, but Ihem thought that we needed to see the mall. It was an odd mix of western stores, and traditional Egyptian stores, and stores that were sort of a mix of the two. We visited a store that had lots of head scarves, and the long overcoats worn by Egyptian women. I didn't understand how they could wear so much clothing. Alexandria was less hot than the rest of Egypt because it was on the sea, 
but it was still really hot. Ihem and her neighbor looked at the coats. Then the call to prayer sounded, and we went with Ihem and her neighbor to the prayer room. We waited at the back with our heads covered (always have a scarf in your bag when traveling in Egypt) for them to finish their prayers. Then they took us to the food court. They bought us tea and chocolate cake in a place that had a close resemblance to Starbucks. Except the cake was a little dry. I wanted to laugh. Here we were, half way around the world from America, home of the original Starbucks, and the thing to do was come to the mall to drink tea and eat dry cake. They insisted on paying for us, and we smiled and thanked them. I noticed that the McDonalds sign had a western letter M, and then McDonalds had been written in Arabic. I wanted to show it to all my friends – McDonalds is everywhere!!
After the mall Ihem asked what were were going to do. We said we needed to buy a bus ticket back to the airport in Cairo. And so they took us to the bus office. But they were really sad we had to go. The neighbor's daughter was getting married in three days, and we were going to miss her wedding. They helped us buy tickets for two days later. And then they took us to a place to get Kusharie, a dish of rice and lentils and tomatoes that is famous, had it put it in a to go box, and drove us back to the hotel. We thanked them profusely and sat in the air conditioning for our feast.
For our last day in Alexandria we explored the tramway, reconfirmed our tickets for our flight to Istanbul, bought fancy chocolates to give as presents, and visited the new library of Alexandria, but couldn't get in because it was locked. We went to Muhammed Ahmed for both lunch and dinner. We tried the fried cheese sandwich and the fool sandwich. Fool is like re-fried beans, except that it is made with fava beans and it's amazing. Ihem had her son call us that night to make sure we were okay, and to tell us that she thought of us as her daughters. Come back to visit, she told us.