Here's some photos of Athens...and a few of Cairo.

View from my hotel in Athens

The Acropolis




Accident with a guy on motorcycle right near my place.














CAIRO Dancing in Azhar Park in Old Cairo








7-28-09

Today was a pretty crazy day. My check-out time was 12am and of course I got up at 11am. I had trouble sleeping the past two nights and didn’t end up falling asleep last night until past 4am. So I woke up, got some breakfast which consists of coffee, a hard-boiled egg, and a piece of bread. Meal of champions. After breakfast I paid for my stay and negotiated a free ride to the airport because I had not gotten it upon arrival. The taxi was arranged to pick me up at 2:30.

My goal for the day had been to locate the travel agency in Cairo that sold Japan Rail passes and to go purchase one. For whatever reason the Japan Rail Pass (basically the MTA or metro) can only be purchased OUTSIDE of Japan. Makes perfect sense. On top of that it is extremely expensive. For a three week pass it costs 600 US$. I collected the address for the travel agent and had the front desk translate it into Arabic for the taxi driver. I hailed a cab and got to the destination at about 1:00. Thank God I found it because without a JR pass I would have been S.O.L.

I climbed up the unlit stairs to the third floor and thankfully got right in touch with a Japanese man. I decided on the 7-day pass, which is still 300US$, and he began to process the paperwork. Thirty minutes pass and I keep looking down at my watch. He manually types the information onto the voucher. At about 2:00 he finishes and we go to process the credit card. So, just to take public transportation you need to purchase a voucher outside of Japan, pay a ton of money, and wait over an hour to have it processed.

I asked him where the closest ATM was because I had no more Egyptian pounds on me and still had to pay a taxi to get back to the hostel. I run across the street and attempt to make a withdrawal. ‘Unable to Process’ it reads. Ok, so I hail a taxi at proceed to head back to the hostel. By this time it’s about 2:15. I must have picked the slowest taxi with the crappiest car. We arrived back to the hostel at 2:55. I told him I needed to go to ATM to withdraw money. I try the ATM which I had previously had success. No luck. I’m half an hour late. I tell him to wait one minute. He’s not too happy about this. I rush up to my room and take out my last $10US, the very last bill of currency I possessed. Rush down, pay him, rush back up, apologize to the driver who’s been waiting over half an hour and we proceed to the airport. Believe me, all of this in the extreme hot weather is not too enjoyable.

I’m sitting here and I made it. My plane leaves at 6:45 for a direct flight into Tokyo. Twelve hours total. Luckily I have a room booked for the first night and should have wireless access. Somehow I will attempt to contact Wamu/Chase and tell them to unlock my card. It’s funny, before traveling I had not informed them that I would be using it abroad. I’ve had no issues up until today and have only paid 1% foreign fee on my ATM withdrawals and NO service fees. Not bad, but now it’s locked.