{"id":1491,"date":"2013-01-06T19:15:32","date_gmt":"2013-01-07T00:15:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/?p=1491"},"modified":"2019-04-26T14:39:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-26T18:39:38","slug":"alex-in-dust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/alex-in-dust\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex in dust"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; admin_label=&#8221;section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.3&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;0px|||||&#8221;][et_pb_row admin_label=&#8221;row&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.3&#8243; background_size=&#8221;initial&#8221; background_position=&#8221;top_left&#8221; background_repeat=&#8221;repeat&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.0.47&#8243;][et_pb_text admin_label=&#8221;Text&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.4&#8243; background_size=&#8221;initial&#8221; background_position=&#8221;top_left&#8221; background_repeat=&#8221;repeat&#8221;]<\/p>\n<p>Spectacular arrival in Alexandria! Well, let me preface that with what I thought first on creeping through the outskirts: what a dump. The roadside was festooned with diesel axles, oil spills, overturned barrels, torn metal sheeting, upturned vehicles in mud, discarded plastic bags attached to everything\u2026<\/p>\n<p>But there was such cool weather! The light was amber, filled with dust from the desert and moisture from the sea, on our hotel&#8217;s very doorstep &#8211; a Khamsin. The wind was rambunctious and tossing the date palms back and forth, while invisible rain lashed the streets, but somehow left us and the cars on them dry. How peculiar. But how beautiful too! We speed-walked along the Corniche, revelling in the strange weather, spoke quickly with random strangers who all welcomed us to Egypt (a lovely refrain we have heard from many Egyptians throughout our trip), and raced each other along the sea wall, the yellow, peach glow fuelling imagination.<\/p>\n<p>We are staying at the Windsor Palace Hotel, dating from 1902 with the ceiling in our room at least 12 feet above our heads. Its posher than we by miles and we may have landed here by mistake, but no, those did appear to be our names on the reservations\u2026 The WiFi is super quick, the &#8220;lift&#8221; is from early last century and they served us lime juleps in the lobby as our bags were lugged up to our rooms. Mustn&#8217;t get used to this, mustn&#8217;t get used to this\u2026<\/p>\n<p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.4&#8243;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.4&#8243;][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=&#8221;2746,2756,2757,2755,2749,2745,2743,2748,2744,2747,2751,2750&#8243; posts_number=&#8221;12&#8243; show_title_and_caption=&#8221;off&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22.4&#8243; box_shadow_style_image=&#8221;preset1&#8243;][\/et_pb_gallery][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spectacular arrival in Alexandria! Well, let me preface that with what I thought first on creeping through the outskirts: what a dump. The roadside was festooned with diesel axles, oil spills, overturned barrels, torn metal sheeting, upturned vehicles in mud, discarded plastic bags attached to everything\u2026 But there was such cool weather! The light was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"Spectacular arrival in Alexandria!  Well, let me preface that with what I thought first on creeping through the outskirts: what a dump.  The roadside was festooned with diesel axles, oil spills, overturned barrels, torn metal sheeting, upturned vehicles in mud, discarded plastic bags attached to everything\u2026\n\nBut there was such cool weather! The light was amber, filled with dust from the desert and moisture from the sea, on our hotel's very doorstep. The wind was rambunctious and tossing the date palms back and forth, while invisible rain lashed the streets, but somehow left us and the cars on them dry.  How peculiar.  But how beautiful too!  We speed-walked along the Corniche, revelling in the strange weather, spoke quickly with random strangers who all welcomed us to Egypt (a lovely refrain we have heard from many Egyptians throughout our trip), and raced each other along the sea wall.\n\nWe are staying at the Windsor Palace Hotel, dating from 1902 with the ceiling in our room at least 12 feet above our heads.  Its posher than we by miles and we may have landed here by mistake, but no, those did appear to be our names on the reservations\u2026 The WiFi is super quick, the \"lift\" is from early last century and they served us lime juleps in the lobby as our bags were lugged up to our rooms.  Mustn't get used to this, mustn't get used to this, mustn't get used to this\u2026\n\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3410.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3410\" title=\"_DSC3410.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3408.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3408\" title=\"_DSC3408.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3400.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3400\" title=\"_DSC3400.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3395.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3395\" title=\"_DSC3395.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3390.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3390\" title=\"_DSC3390.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3383.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3383\" title=\"_DSC3383.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3378.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3378\" title=\"_DSC3378.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3372.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3372\" title=\"_DSC3372.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3365.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3365\" title=\"_DSC3365.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3359.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3359\" title=\"_DSC3359.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3355.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3355\" title=\"_DSC3355.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\n<img src=\"http:\/\/hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/DSC3352.jpg\" alt=\"DSC3352\" title=\"_DSC3352.jpg\" border=\"0\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" style=\"float:left;\" \/>","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1491"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2769,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1491\/revisions\/2769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hellum.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}