I’ve found that my mood is heavily dependent on how productive I feel. When I travel, photography is a way to capture memories and create art. Today, I at least felt like I was shooting creatively and felt pretty good about my shots.

Other things that made today a good day.

I realized just how safe Cairo is. While I would like to attribute the lack of hassle to my general swarthiness I think it’s more probably due to the nature of the city and its people. Because it is an ancient city that has had little influx from other places there is little division between commercial and residential areas. Families have lived in the same area for generations and there is a distinct sense of community palpable for even a passerby like myself.

Also, I had forgotten until now that while I might be absolutely miserable at dithering with maps I am a damn sight better at following a compass and treating my routes as if I am drawing transects across the city. Cairo makes this approach especially since the city is set up on a north south axis due to the Nile and cliffs. If I go west for long enough I’m going to run into the Nile. If I go north long enough I’ll fall off into the Mediterranean. South to Sudan and East will get me to the Red Sea. Magic! Besides a map is nothing more than cartographic conjectures on what the world would look like if you squashed it and pasted it to a sheet of paper.

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