Friday, August 03, 2007

Almost Legal




I braved the heat, metal detectors, female guard barking "Camera?", and bewildered masses to go to the second floor of Mugamma in search of a visa.

Mugamma is the hulking gray bureaucratic government building on the south end of Tahrir Square, near the Egyptian Museum and Nile Hilton. It's a scary place, and in summer, a hot place.

But it's not so hard to get a tourist visa, so I am starting with that one. You just do what everyone tells you to do, sweat a lot, fill out forms in blue ink, pay 11 pounds and 10 piastres, then go away for a while.

I have a tourist-resident visa good until January. Being an official tourist makes me think I should go to the Pyramids Sound and Light Show or something. Or visit the King Tut artifacts at the Egyptian Museum. Or fight with a taxi driver.

Not sure I could work up the energy for the first two, but the third is inevitable.

1 comment:

Steve Buccellato said...

You'd probably get a lot more traffic to your blog if you titled this post "Barely Legal."

That's me...always thinking.