Adventures today were Tim, Darshan, David and Myself... yes I was the only girl in the group... whatever... We got a taxis and we asked for Khan al-Khalili... and when he dropped us off we did not know where we were... we sincerly thought we were in Khan al-Khalili... but it turns out our Taxi Driver dropped us off about 3 blocks before the Khan... so we went adventuring into the Market that we were dropped off at... and it turned out to be a clothing market... which asI call this entry my first adventure because well I cannot go there just once, I will probably go there a couple of time... The nice, there were some nice Islamic buildings there... but as we adventured we reached the end... and well we did not know where to go so we went right... well that took us to the Museum, and well we did not want to be there... so we started walking again... trying to look at the map and figure out where we are and how we can get to the Khan... the entire time we are walking we mostly had to walk single file behind the others... I was the third in line, and Tim was behind me... well Tim was entertained... because I was receiving a lot of stares and catcalls, and Tim say and heard it all... It seems that most of these men enjoy calling out to women, especially women that are different, ie Me...
Finally I am getting feed up so I use my Arabic and asked where the Khan was... well it also seems that the guys that I asked I made their day by talking and asking them a question... So after an hour and a half of walking, we finally find the Khan...but it is on the other side of the road... But there were some pretty Mosques in front of us... so we stopped...and took pictures!!! While we were taking pictures this guy comes up to us and starts talking to us, and then he tells us about a place that makes the mother of pearl inlaid boxes, and he tries to give us directions, but instead he just takes us there... and while we were there, the men show us the difference between their wood and bone boxes and the plastic boxes that everyone else sells... which was interesting, and now I know the differences...
So we start talking, and they start asking about us, and we about them... it was nice because I was practicing my Arabic while they were practicing their English... but I also started to figure out that the Man who took us to this little shop made a cut of the profits, because this shop was not really on the main road... but the Boxes were beautiful...After we left the box shop we made it over to the Khan al-Khalili... and we became tourists, we must have had signs over our heads that said this... but one thing that was interesting about this trip was that even though I was speaking Arabic, and I was asking Directions, all the people there seem to only speak to the guys that I was with... I would get the catcalls, but it seemed Darshan and Tim got most of the attention when it came to directions, like I was forgotten or pushed to the back... which I understand is a cultural norm... but it is still a little weird...
After walking through the Khan, we came across these two beautiful Mosques, and of course we grabbed our cameras and took pictures... This triggered a man to come up to us and try to sell us tickets to see the mosques... but we did not want to do it then... but he then started asking us questions about ourselves, and where we were from, and then he turned to me, and he asked me if I was married, I told him no, and then he asked if any of the guys in the group were my brothers, I said no, and then he tried to marry me off to the guys I was with... at this point I am just LAUGHING... near us were some Tourist Police, and this guy is talking to them about how Beautiful I am, and how I dont have a husband, and that me and Darshan (who is Indian and Darked skin) would have beautiful babies because we are mixing light with Dark... his exact words... This guy was the funniest man ever, and it totally made my day... well after all this adventuring, about 4 hours worth, I am tired, and it is only 7 pm here... so nap time... not really though but close enough...Here are some more pictures again at the bottom of my post...
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