Alexandria
On 29 December, I then made it to Cairo behind me. As it has in this country not so many roads to choose from, I went over the 2-track developed Alex Desert Road north to Alexandria. A stage of 230 kilometers, that is a comfortable distance for a day. The last 25 kilometers to downtown Alex, I drove by an artificial causeway, which was built around the old access roads to relieve and leads through the middle of Alex in the upstream inland lake. An impressive picture. On the right side of the highway you can see vast wetlands and lakes. I saw a wide variety of birds. And on the left side of the dam huge industrial plants. There was a strong truck traffic, sometimes loosing a little bit of their charge (gravel). Stopping to take photos? Dangerous! So no pictures.
I found refuge in the hotel acropolis, directly into Alex. Downtown. This city is like many parts of Cairo, marked by the old French houses. As there is only 4 million, residents and the city has spread over several kilometers along the coast, the wind cleans it a little bit more often. Accordingly, everything is clean and get something better. That seems to be also on the minds of the people to work. Not that the people in Cairo were unfriendly. But Alex is more smiled. And it seems to approach more to the Mediterranean Europe. Dinner can even be a kind of Corso, as we know it from Italy. See and be seen. It is more open. Alone drinking a cup of tea. Impossible! But who wants to even be alone. Even before I had the tea in front of me, I'm deep in conversation. With students, Egyptian tourists or even locals - but this is the most linguistically difficult.
My main goal in Alexandria was, as probably for the most visitors, the library. This new library is located along with several museums in a building finished in 2002, which is to be a rising sun. And is creating a new sun in the firmament of the libraries to the goal of Alexandria. Currently, the halls include 800,000 books, but there should be room for at least 3,000,000 copies. For this purpose they are pursuing some very ambitious goals in the digitization of books. And they have what for me was of course very interesting, one of the Internet Archive in the world. Store in your data files, as a donation to the Archives in LA, 1.7 petabytes of Internet sites whose snapshots in 1996 were created until 2007. Of course, I searched a little bit in the files. Quite interesting. Our old Internet sins ;-)
Then I spent a total of 6 hours in the hallowed halls and even a few German books located. Collected works of Goethe and other variables.
In the evening I stroll through the southern part of town. The streets are full of people. But no other tourists in sight. I find a paper and printer road. Everywhere rattle the printing presses and it is made possible everything from paper and sold. Families are the school supplies for the shop again soon starting school. Between screaming loud in there a few guys who try and sell off the snow from the can as a residual item to other Christmas decorations. They make such a noise that the owners of the surrounding shops are trying again and again to get them off. I eat dinner at Mohammed and Alis streetkitchen along with a few other locals. I got Koshery, a kind of stew of rice, pasta, chickpea, roasted onions and Tehina with bread.
After 2 nights in Alexandria, it pulls me further. Too bad. I like this city and I have not seen much. But on the 18. I must get the ferry in Aswan. And I want to see mor of Egypt!