Yesterday was March 25th, the two month anniversary of the start of the Egyptian Revolution. Dylan and I have some friends who have gone to Tahrir Square frequently in past few weeks so we decided to go with them and check it out! Although the revolution and protests are theoretically over, people still gather in Tahrir during the week and especially on Friday. But while the rest of the week is more serious protesting, Friday is like "Bring your wife and kids day." It's a new kind of tourism - revolution tourism. Ironically, Dylan heard of one protester saying, "We'll protest until the tourists come back!" Not sure he understands the situation...
Entrepreneurs have definitely capitalized on this situation. We were approached by at least ten men and women who wanted to paint flags on our face or hands (we all got our hands painted). The fences around the square were covered with t-shirts displayed for sale, and many vendors had their wares spread out on the ground on mats - black, red, and white hats, headbands, scarves, license plates, etc. As you'll see we took advantage of the t-shirts. =) There were also many men selling bread, pretzels, popcorn, and roasted nuts.
We're guessing there were about 500 people in the square. There were relatively spread out, with a couple of clumps here and there where people were listening to a speaker. We'd been told that Tahrir has a celebratory feel about it these days, but I'm not sure we felt that. It's been so long now since the revolution that everything is really dying down and people are getting back to normal life. There were definitely still people there enjoying the crowds and taking pictures - several asked us to take pictures with them or for them. Children with their faces painted or with red, white, and black hats were happily walking around with their parents.
The crowds in Tahrir were apparently shouting "Maspero," which is the name for the state TV station, so we went there too (one of the friends who was with us spoke decent Arabic). There were again a few crowds at the TV station, but nothing exciting happening (I'm not complaining).
By the time we got back to Tahrir after that, Dylan and I were pretty tired. Although everything was peaceful, it was unusual for us to be in such big crowds and around so many people we didn't know and who didn't really speak English! When we got back to Maadi it seemed extraordinarily calm and quiet - usually I consider it to be quite busy! We're glad we went and I would feel safe going again with a group of people. Once is enough for now though. =)
Entrepreneurs have definitely capitalized on this situation. We were approached by at least ten men and women who wanted to paint flags on our face or hands (we all got our hands painted). The fences around the square were covered with t-shirts displayed for sale, and many vendors had their wares spread out on the ground on mats - black, red, and white hats, headbands, scarves, license plates, etc. As you'll see we took advantage of the t-shirts. =) There were also many men selling bread, pretzels, popcorn, and roasted nuts.
We're guessing there were about 500 people in the square. There were relatively spread out, with a couple of clumps here and there where people were listening to a speaker. We'd been told that Tahrir has a celebratory feel about it these days, but I'm not sure we felt that. It's been so long now since the revolution that everything is really dying down and people are getting back to normal life. There were definitely still people there enjoying the crowds and taking pictures - several asked us to take pictures with them or for them. Children with their faces painted or with red, white, and black hats were happily walking around with their parents.
The crowds in Tahrir were apparently shouting "Maspero," which is the name for the state TV station, so we went there too (one of the friends who was with us spoke decent Arabic). There were again a few crowds at the TV station, but nothing exciting happening (I'm not complaining).
By the time we got back to Tahrir after that, Dylan and I were pretty tired. Although everything was peaceful, it was unusual for us to be in such big crowds and around so many people we didn't know and who didn't really speak English! When we got back to Maadi it seemed extraordinarily calm and quiet - usually I consider it to be quite busy! We're glad we went and I would feel safe going again with a group of people. Once is enough for now though. =)