Bye Egypt; bring on the butter pretzels, käsespätzle, meat, beer, schnapps! 10/31
Yesterday was our last day in Egypt. We first hit up the local grocery store beside our hotel in search for spices. The locals cook with these spices every day, how expensive could it be? Not very. We did a bunch of hand signals to communicate with the girl and we ended up with a handfull at a great price. Upstair we found a nice tea set that was also haggle free and reasonable priced. Success!
We went to the beach for the next hour before we had to check out of the hotel. The Meditteranean Ocean isn't warm, but you get used to it. The water was a beautiful blue. We saw fishes swimming around our legs. Beach in Alexandria- check!
Sadly it was time to leave this cool city. We had our backpacks on when we checked out of the Four Seasons. We didn't want to give them our bags since they are hard to take off/put back on, plus we were taking a cheap taxi, not their E200 Mercedes taxi (I bet they don't experience that often). We walked out of the hotel and got a taxi for 25EGP, way better than the 525EGP for the Mercedes. A short ride to the train station and we were there.
Luckily the hotel got us tickets the day before because the train was sold out (that would have sucked so bad). We had time to spare so Andy ran to the store across the street and came back with Egyptian style cheese steaks (beef not liver). He said a woman in a full burka (even with her eyes covered), helped him order the food (not a lot of people speak English here). Definitely a different experience. They were very good- I was just happy they were beef.
Our train ride was smooth and I slept the whole way, something about the rocking back and forth that so soothing. When we got back to Cairo it was 5pm. We were on a mission to get some last items so we decided to take all our stuff and go to the market since the hotel is an hour out of the way by the airport. Along the way we found a shisha/hookah on the corner of the street. The taxi driver waited. Done! Then we went to the Khan el-Khalili market. I stayed in the taxi again because there was no way we'd be able to navigate the streets with all our shit. The driver put us in contact with a guy who spoke English. He took Andy a quarter mile away in search of the scarfs. I sat in the taxi people watching. 20 min later Andy was back- success! The English dude wanted a tip for helping Andy, although it was "his store" Andy got the scarfs from. The guy argued with Andy for a bit and then he said fine, give him some $$, then we were off. It took an hour to get through all the traffic to the hotel. Andy was twitching from the day in Cairo with all the crazy and negotiations and arguing. Bring on Switzerland!!
We woke up at 2:30 to catch the 4:50 flight. A guy who worked for the airport was "helping" us get our bags through the scanner. He asked for money. Not this time, we have nothing to give (we did but we were done). The guy checking our bags through the scanner barely told us that we were not allowed to bring binoculars and the glass part of the hookah on board. No binoculars? Why the hell not? He didn't say we couldn't bring the big camera lens. It's not like we were going to have a debate with this guy so we put the items in our checked backpacks that were already stuffed. Then when we went through the gate security (there are about 4 different security checks), we were told we weren't allowed to bring the metal part of the hookah. Why the hell not? "No metal allowed". Again, there was no debate but we weren't going to leave it behind. The guy checked my carry-on bag with the rest of the hookah and we were finally good for the flight.
The flight over the Meditteranean was only 1.5 hours to Athena. A short layover, then another 2.5 hours to Zurich. When we landed we were so happy to be in a country with good food and people that stand in lines. We got the car around 11am and headed for downtown to meet with Ali at her house. The kids in Switzerland all get out at 12 on Wednesdays so we met her and her daughter Flora who was all chatty and excited to talk with the new visitors (might have something to do with it being Halloween and some sugar intake). We took a short walk downtown to a sausage cafe and got bratwurst and beer. They give you the sausages wrapped in a napkin and a roll separately, then you dip the sausage in the spicy mustard. It was all we had hoped for. We were satisfied. But we still got some butter pretzels from the Pretzel King! Now everything was complete.
We headed for Innsbruck Austria at 2:30 and we arrived at 6. Simon was waiting for us in the parking lot to welcome us. He made reservations at a restaurant up the hill. We had a set 7-course meal called Turggelen which is served in the Italian part of Austria and is available from Oct-Dec. It was fantastic! We started with bread and 3 types of spread (one was schwein schmaltz- it didn't look great but it was the best, kruterbutter, and a paprika butter). Then we had the soup which was a barley noodle soup. Next was the Käsespätzle with bacon and a lightly fermented cabbage. Then came the meats, one was ham and the other was maybe venison, and a big ol kernurdel (dumpling) with gravy over it all. Then schnapps! Dessert was a warm plum streudel and a plate of fruit and roasted chestnuts. It was all amazing and quite the experience in the basement of the guest house. The whole dinner plus two beer each was only $100 including tip. How is that even possible? If only we lived here. Good thing we walked up the hill to get here (40 min) so we could walk some of it off going back down. We had been up for almost 24 hours so I headed right to bed and Andy and Simon chatted for a bit with a final beer.
We went to the beach for the next hour before we had to check out of the hotel. The Meditteranean Ocean isn't warm, but you get used to it. The water was a beautiful blue. We saw fishes swimming around our legs. Beach in Alexandria- check!
Sadly it was time to leave this cool city. We had our backpacks on when we checked out of the Four Seasons. We didn't want to give them our bags since they are hard to take off/put back on, plus we were taking a cheap taxi, not their E200 Mercedes taxi (I bet they don't experience that often). We walked out of the hotel and got a taxi for 25EGP, way better than the 525EGP for the Mercedes. A short ride to the train station and we were there.
Luckily the hotel got us tickets the day before because the train was sold out (that would have sucked so bad). We had time to spare so Andy ran to the store across the street and came back with Egyptian style cheese steaks (beef not liver). He said a woman in a full burka (even with her eyes covered), helped him order the food (not a lot of people speak English here). Definitely a different experience. They were very good- I was just happy they were beef.
Our train ride was smooth and I slept the whole way, something about the rocking back and forth that so soothing. When we got back to Cairo it was 5pm. We were on a mission to get some last items so we decided to take all our stuff and go to the market since the hotel is an hour out of the way by the airport. Along the way we found a shisha/hookah on the corner of the street. The taxi driver waited. Done! Then we went to the Khan el-Khalili market. I stayed in the taxi again because there was no way we'd be able to navigate the streets with all our shit. The driver put us in contact with a guy who spoke English. He took Andy a quarter mile away in search of the scarfs. I sat in the taxi people watching. 20 min later Andy was back- success! The English dude wanted a tip for helping Andy, although it was "his store" Andy got the scarfs from. The guy argued with Andy for a bit and then he said fine, give him some $$, then we were off. It took an hour to get through all the traffic to the hotel. Andy was twitching from the day in Cairo with all the crazy and negotiations and arguing. Bring on Switzerland!!
We woke up at 2:30 to catch the 4:50 flight. A guy who worked for the airport was "helping" us get our bags through the scanner. He asked for money. Not this time, we have nothing to give (we did but we were done). The guy checking our bags through the scanner barely told us that we were not allowed to bring binoculars and the glass part of the hookah on board. No binoculars? Why the hell not? He didn't say we couldn't bring the big camera lens. It's not like we were going to have a debate with this guy so we put the items in our checked backpacks that were already stuffed. Then when we went through the gate security (there are about 4 different security checks), we were told we weren't allowed to bring the metal part of the hookah. Why the hell not? "No metal allowed". Again, there was no debate but we weren't going to leave it behind. The guy checked my carry-on bag with the rest of the hookah and we were finally good for the flight.
The flight over the Meditteranean was only 1.5 hours to Athena. A short layover, then another 2.5 hours to Zurich. When we landed we were so happy to be in a country with good food and people that stand in lines. We got the car around 11am and headed for downtown to meet with Ali at her house. The kids in Switzerland all get out at 12 on Wednesdays so we met her and her daughter Flora who was all chatty and excited to talk with the new visitors (might have something to do with it being Halloween and some sugar intake). We took a short walk downtown to a sausage cafe and got bratwurst and beer. They give you the sausages wrapped in a napkin and a roll separately, then you dip the sausage in the spicy mustard. It was all we had hoped for. We were satisfied. But we still got some butter pretzels from the Pretzel King! Now everything was complete.
We headed for Innsbruck Austria at 2:30 and we arrived at 6. Simon was waiting for us in the parking lot to welcome us. He made reservations at a restaurant up the hill. We had a set 7-course meal called Turggelen which is served in the Italian part of Austria and is available from Oct-Dec. It was fantastic! We started with bread and 3 types of spread (one was schwein schmaltz- it didn't look great but it was the best, kruterbutter, and a paprika butter). Then we had the soup which was a barley noodle soup. Next was the Käsespätzle with bacon and a lightly fermented cabbage. Then came the meats, one was ham and the other was maybe venison, and a big ol kernurdel (dumpling) with gravy over it all. Then schnapps! Dessert was a warm plum streudel and a plate of fruit and roasted chestnuts. It was all amazing and quite the experience in the basement of the guest house. The whole dinner plus two beer each was only $100 including tip. How is that even possible? If only we lived here. Good thing we walked up the hill to get here (40 min) so we could walk some of it off going back down. We had been up for almost 24 hours so I headed right to bed and Andy and Simon chatted for a bit with a final beer.