Christine and Keith's Travels: Alexandria March 1

Over the last few days we have been thinking about our next step and we were rather keen to start our time in Schengen countries. There are about 14 Schengen countries, all of which have trade links and operate as a single entity with regard to Australian visitors and the no visa requirement. That means that you can visit one country for three months in a six month period, and then start again in a second six month period, or you can visit any or all of the countries, but still only for a total of three months in a six month period. It’s a bit complex!
We visited a bookshop where dusty boxes had to be stepped over to reach the English language travel books, and then there was none on any country other than Egypt. It was not, however a fruitless visit since I bought ‘Balthazar’, the 2nd of Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet.
We have become accustomed to shopkeepers inviting us to enter their shops and stalls as we walk by, just like the restaurant touts in Lygon Street. A young boy of about ten was sitting outside the family tyre shop and, with all the aplomb of a practised tout, he eloquently gestured to us to enter the shop and make a purchase. It was hard not to laugh since he took his weekend job so seriously but, since we have refrained from buying souvenirs for weight and size reasons, a tyre was hardly going to be our number one tourist purchase.
While the ground floor of just about every building is a shop or business of some kind, above the city, to six or eight storeys high is a mix of doctors, accountants, lawyers etc and masses of residential accommodation. Washing regularly flaps from downtown balconies and baskets are let down on strings for deliveries which are then pulled up. The mobile phone facilitates a system that would have once depended on shouts alone.
Rubbish is regularly thrown out into the streets for street cleaners to clean up, but this is a never ending task so it does seem that more rubbish bins and a culture change are needed. This is something that particularly gets at Keith. One day when he saw the unusual sight of a man putting a wrapper in the bin, he had the impulse to congratulate him and would have given him a medal if he could. So today, after seeing a man drag an old wool bale sized bag out of a shop specially to throw it into the street, Keith waxed lyrical on the topic of rubbish dumping. After three more steps a piece of rubbish came hurtling through a doorway, right past the nose of a policeman and right in front of Keith. No reaction from the policeman, total amazement from Keith. I guess there are no littering fines here.
We went to the library (what a surprise; we are regulars now) and looked up all the books and travel guides on Greece. It was worth doing because I love Egypt and have been loathe to think about moving on, but once we were all fired up about Athens and Greece in general, we made decisions and booked flights. Passenger boats are no longer sailing out of Alexandria.
After a long walk west along the gently curving and glorious corniche, the wind softly blowing in the dusk, we had tea at a street vendor’s stand. We chose to ‘eat in’ rather than take away, which means that our felafel sandwiches and pickled vegetables were served on a plate and we lent on the ledge at the front of the stand, as Egyptians do, to eat them. Egyptians are so kind and helpful and accepting of our ignorance. The other eaters cobbled together their English skills to explain the ‘eat in or take away’ options to us.
Walking home we came upon the church of St Mark, a Coptic Christian church. Saint Mark is credited with having brought Christianity to Egypt. We were welcomed by a man, Ede, who turned on the lights and took us in, and then went off to fetch his son, Mishma, who had greater command of English. The church is strangely dark, with wooden pillars, wooden panelling, a vaulted wooden ceiling and the most intricate and beautiful carved woodwork everywhere. The alter cloth had a cross design consisting of three large embroidered nails – is there a connection for Saint Mark to woodwork? Along each side of the church there were brass plaques commemorating parishioners. There is a Coptic University beside the church. These two men expected nothing and had come out in the dark to welcome strangers and to help us. They told us that we were welcome to come to the church anytime. We shook hands and left, and I felt blessed at meeting those good men.
Finally making it back to our square, where the gardens surrounding Saad Zaghloul’s statue have transformed during our stay from looking like an excavation site to looking like a sand pit, we stopped at a patisserie. This was in imitation of the characters in my new book, since they sat around in such coffee shops chatting and falling in love. Two gateaux, a million calories and a coffee and hot chocolate later, we realised that we had just cancelled out the health benefits of the excellent Egyptian food and fresh fruit juices that we have been eating and drinking.

At about 10 p.m. two jack hammers started work digging a trench in the road immediately below our hotel window. They stopped about four hours later, after which we got some sleep.

This is a food stall in the street at which you can 'eat in' or take away. We 'ate in', which means you stand where the men on the right are, with the food on a ledge attached to the stall, using metal plates and eating with fingers. The men on the left prepare the food, cook and run the stall.