Summertime

It's as if Cairo purges itself onto the steets once summer is here. Other places may get more relaxed, more touristy, less clothed...but Cairo remains the same, it just gets more intense.

People here don't alter their dress in proportionate reaction to temparature changes. It is almost july, and yet women are still dressed in skin-tight polyester, and I still occasionally catch sight of a light sweater.

There are some signs of the change of season...the earliest of these to manifest itself is always the sudden appearance of a line of cars parked on either side of both Kasr el Nil and 6th of October bridge. I always wonder (quite crabbily) why people don't just park their cars either downtown or in Zamalek, and just walk up to whichever bridge they have chosen. Really, it's not that incovenient. Why, why must they place inanimate objects in the way of the already insane bridge traffic?

And, of course, the sudden appearance of shabab everywhere. Whose sole purpose in life seems to be to ride in cars, or lean against them, and periodically scream "boobs!" at random women passing by. Yes, thank you, I had forgotten I had them.