This was actually the last morning we had to wake up early in order to leave Siwa at 5:30 am. We had to spend 9 hours on the bus and didn’t want to arrive too late at Alexandria, so we could at least make use of a bit of the day. The only stops were at Marsa Matruh for a clean toilet at the Riviera Palace Hotel and some sweet cake for lunch as well as at the War Museum at El Alamein. I didn’t want to get inside but you could take a free walk in the museum’s garden where there was a collection of tanks, artillery and hardware from the battlefields on display. Again I was touched by the fact that these items were actually used in battle. I couldn’t understand when Vincent was making jokes about the reach of the canons and the bullet holes in the tanks. All I could think of was that people actually died in these vehicles. War isn’t funny. Later on I was happy not to have been inside the museum when Andrea told us that she has been harassed by one of the guides inside...

We arrived at Alexandria about 3 pm and first checked in at our hotel. It was a 10-floor building right on the waterfront. We had our rooms on the top floor and a great view over the Mediterranean Sea. Later we went for a first walk in the neighbourhood. What a difference compared to Siwa! Alexandria is a real city, colourful and bustling with life. Yet it is less noisy than Cairo and thanks to the sea the air is much better, too. At the same time, Alexandria seemed much more Western than Cairo or any other place we have been. You could tell by the way people were dressed, by the music played in stores and cafes, and by the non-harassment of Egyptian men. Plus, there were a lot of women in the streets and many of them were styled like in any European city. What a difference compared to Siwa, where women are actually veiled and totally covered in black robes like I only know it from pictures taken in Afghanistan. In Alexandria, the atmosphere was almost international. I really liked it.

After the walk, I went to an internet café close by the hotel to catch up with my emails and to continue my diary. I wrote for three hours but then had to stop for dinner. Tonight, we ate at an Italian restaurant and I had pizza. What a great change after all the traditional food of the past days! The restaurant was in the city centre and the others wanted to go out afterwards. However, I preferred to return to the internet place for which I had to take the tram. It was weird because similar to the metro of Cairo there is a specific compartment only for women. If a woman takes the tram without being accompanied by a man, she better sits in this compartment. I was the only foreigner and many of the women and children looked at me. I tried to smile and make contact with the kids. The approach worked and I was happy when the women smiled back at me. Women who simply look you in the eye and show some sort of reaction when you smile at them, hasn’t happened in any other part of Egypt.

After another 3 hours on the internet, I finally went to bed at half past midnight…