Where are we?

2, 3 and I met M and her friends at the Cairo Jazz Club last night. Eventually. Getting there proved much more problematic than we had anticipated. I will accept blame only for slightly less than half of the direction problems. See, we figured that the taxi driver would know where the Jazz Club is. It's a very famous place, most people know where it is (most people who aren't me, that is). And people who spend their lives driving around Cairo should certainly be more tuned in. But this was not the case.

As we were driving down 26th of July street, (a major thoroughfare) I saw a building with a sign that I thought said "Cairo Jazz Club," but I couldn't be sure. The "j" was very difficult to make out. And there was no evidence of any club-looking establishment near the sign, only the entrance to a garage. I said, "Hey, is that it?" But I didn't stop the cab because I wasn't sure I was right. I also figured that the cab driver, plodding along methodically, knew where he was going. But he kept going for ever and ever, as 2 and 3 began to get very annoyed that I hadn't stopped the cab immediately upon seeing the sign (which, yes, I should have done. I was a bit slow on the uptake). The rest of it, however, wasn't my fault. The driver just kept driving interminably. When we asked him where we were, he grunted. When we asked him about the Jazz Club, he didn't react. Finally, 2 called M (who is fluent in every language known to man) and gave the phone to the driver. M gave the driver detailed directions. And yet we remained lost for 15 more minutes of driving in circles. So we called M again, and she gave directions again. 15 more minutes of circles. M says that she told him to go to 26th of July street and the driver asked "What's that?" Finally the taxi driver asked a man on the street for directions and we made it to the club, 45 minutes after we were supposed to be there. And as the cab driver was pulling away from letting us out, he caused a three car pile up! So, while I admit that my first sighting of the club should have been accompanied by a loud "Wait! Stop here!," the fact that the taxi driver was either on drugs or a lobotomy victim is not my fault.

All in all, the club was nice. Smoky, as is to be expected. It wasn't too crowded because Sunday isn't a big going out night (I hear that Wednesday is their big day, along, of course, with Thursday, Friday and Saturday), but it was still extremely loud. M's Egyptian friend was supposed to be performing, but he didn't for some reason I couldn't hear, and instead sat with us and several of his Egyptian friends telling amusing stories that were mostly in English. I liked the story about trying to find a ghetto in New York. The Bronx did not look appropriately ghetto to him, and Queens was like a suburb. Where are the ghettos he always hears about, he wondered. Where do they make this ghetto culture? It's an interesting point of view, especially when you consider how an American ghetto looks to one who grew up in Cairo. Wait until he sees a California ghetto, what with the palm trees and single family homes. That's not to say that growing up in any of these neighborhoods is easy, but on the surface they look pretty harmless. It's not like Cairo, where unfinished buildings are inhabited, roof missing and no windows, for years before people give up on the building ever being complete. It's not like Cairo, where people live on the roof (if there is one) in what were designed as storage closets. And I'm sure it's not like other countries, like Dubai, where life for the poor is even worse.

Moral of the story: Americans have got it good. And I should never be trusted when it comes to finding locations.