There are similarities between the Egyptian streets and---for example---the streets of Chicago. Energy or "aliveness" come to mind first. Both teem with a variety of people and on the whole tend to assault the senses. But Egypt has what can only be called "strange intrusions" or "odd juxtapositions." You might walk several blocks dodging garbage, passing old women who appear as if out of a distant century, perhaps contemporaries of The Prophet Mohammed himself. Then you take out a plastic card and draw from an ATM Egyptian pounds, converted from American dollars out of your bank account six thousand miles away. You could be riding in a forty-year-old taxi cab jammed between late-model buses, and then be passed by a donkey cart loaded with watermelons harvested by peasants living on one or two dollars a day. You sometimes receive hard looks from other men and you might conclude that you are living in a culture of machismo, and in the next moment you will see two guys walk past you with their arms interlinked, holding each other's hand. A woman passes you covered head to toe in black, wearing gloves, with only her eyes showing through the gap between her veil and her scarf. You look down as she passes and notice the decorated hem of a denim skirt. And she is wearing elegant (almost garish) shoes that would seem appropriate on stage in a night club or a gambling casino. You are living in a culture where animals roam the streets, not quite feral but not domesticated either. In an American market you will find shelves containing every imaginable food for pets; here you would look in vain. Yet on your way into the city you see through the rear window of another cab a beautiful Muslim woman, dressed classily in silk with her head covered. Her left arm is encircling a purebred dog, small, long-haired and shiny white. A pet surely, well-fed and riding in a private Egyptian taxicab.