Garage Doors, Zamalek, Cairo

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Wandered around Zamalek yesterday and it definitely had a feel of a quiet Friday. There are lots of embassies in this area and, although still obviously Cairo with the dust, bad pavements, traffic and noise, there are leafy streets here too and beautiful embassy buildings. Had a late pizza lunch in a tiny little very basic restaurant and I recognised the name from one of the internet sites as being a place to try, which usually has long queues onto the street - had a big pizza and two soft drinks 30 Egyptian pounds, which is about 3 euros! Also found quite a good book shop with both new and used English books and so bought the Lonely Planet for Egypt and a novel, 'In the Time of Love', by Naguib Mahfouz, the Egyptian writer who won the Nobel prize for literature in 1988. I have a bit of a cough and woolly chest and think it's the change of temperature and all the high aircon. Luckily the chemist across the street has some English and so was able to sell me some pills and a cough bottle. Strange that this is Saturday and feels like Sunday just cos I'm back to work tomorrow!