The second full day I was here, I left school campus and went on a walk with a coworker. He has been here a few years, and he gave a group of us for a short tour of the neighborhood. Every street in Alexandria is traffic heavy, and many of the sidewalks are nonexistent, so people, cars, donkeys, motorcycles, tuk-tuks, and bicycles all share the same street. There aren't any traffic signals or signs, but everyone knows the system of how to navigate through the streets. Everyone except the group of newbies who showed up here two weeks ago. On our first major walk I was so overwhelmed. The streets all looked the same and had no rhyme or reason to them, the congestion of people was intimidating, and attempting to cross the street seemed impossible. I was told by my coworker that there is a running joke that the percent of Egyptian you are directly correlates with how well you can cross a major street here. I think he joked that he's made it up to about 70% since being here :) Fast forward to today, and I successfully went on my first solo walk. I made it all the way to the grocery store near our house, which is about a 10 minute walk. But get this- I had to cross one of the major streets. And I totally did! I'm officially 4% Egyptian!
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