A Mediterranean house of mirrors

One trip to Alexandria, five friends: Jailan Halawi plays with perspective Intimate we may have been, but the group had very different ways of seeing the same things. A one-day trip to Alexandria revealed a new city for each of Amira -- secretary to the Egyptian Embassy in Algeria who happened to be on a brief holiday, Hazem -- scholar from America, Naheed -- angelic Afghan-American field communications expert, Mustafa -- telecommunications wizard, and yours -- the journalist off the job. (Mustafa gets the trophy for driving, not complaining and being my fellow Cairo resident). Would I make the deliberately early starting time, requiring me to wake at 5.30am? Hazem thought not. Eat your words, I stuttered as I woke to my Beethoven playing alarm clock. By 7.15, Amira (whom I picked up in Heliopolis) was half-asleep in the... [read full story]