"I'm very very tired" and all its connotations

Snuggling in for the train ride to Alexandria, I couldn't stop the TGV nostalgia. As we pulled out of the station into the Egyptian countryside, I looked out half expecting to see France's rolling green hills and the misty grayness in the winter clouds. I suppose it was the palm trees and the Arabic all around me that gave it away, but for a moment I smiled remembering the times discovering the train system from Dijon realizing it wouldn't take much and I could be to Paris or Marseille or even London.

Just another train stop: A couple sitting on a bench, mosque in the background.

Alexandria was a reprieve from Cairo. Though still a big city, the crowds were smaller and less demanding, the traffic was quieter, being used to the ocean air in Dakar I was happy to be near the sea -- the smell and the space of it. Armed with a map and a general sense of direction, we made our way walking through neighborhoods and shopping districts to the historical sites. Being one of only a handful of tourists made us more of an oddity than normal especially during our walking tour which from the looks we got most tourists probably prefer the taxi. We'd walk past groups of men in standing the street who would look up surprised and shout out after us "Welcome!" or little kids who would yell, "What's your name?!" or one man who's first English words he thought of upon seeing us, "I'm very very tired!"

A view. Negotiating the route to the catacombs.

I'm used to being stared at in Senegal. No matter how much wolof I use to try to blend in, I'm always very evidently a toubab. I've made children cry in my whiteness, I've scared men coming around the corner not expecting to see a toubab, and I've had women discreetly rub the skin on my arms and then turn and run away. But being a foreign woman in Egypt is challenging, and Alexandria brought that out even more -- fewer tourists, not in Cairo anymore. There were more looks, more advances, more staring prompting Jeremy to say after coming back from an outing alone, "I walked from here to the store without so much as a glance."

Just outside the entrance to Pompey's Pillar.

One night, after a full meal at the elegant French restaurant with the guy on piano reminding us of Herghada by playing Beatles' "Yesterday," we walked the Corniche with the other lovers... Egyptian guys in their faux designer jeans and jackets slicked back hair (yeah man) and women with skirts and headscarves slowly strolling the lit sidewalk or propped up against the side of the stone wall whispering softly and closely, almost touching. Even with religion's limitations, courting goes on.

The Corniche at night.