In the 7 1/2 years we have lived in Egypt we have moved several times. Even though I wish we could have found one place and just stayed there, there have been circumstances that have made that difficult.
One of my favorite apartments, and the one that I will probably always remember over the rest was the one pictured above. It stands out in my memory for several reasons. The first reason, is that it was on the 18th floor of a 24 floor building. When I first heard about the possibility of living on the 18th floor, my first thought was "What if there is an earthquake"? Needless to say, I was always a little nervous while we were there, but there were other things that made it worthwhile.
The second reason this apt. stands out in my memory is because it was on the Corniche, and therefore, we had a beautiful view of the Nile River. It was so neat to be able to look out the window any time we wanted to and see the Nile River. I loved the view we had of the Nile. In certain areas along the Nile, the other side is filled with huge, high-rise buildings, but across the river from us was a small village-type area.
This apartment was in an area of Cairo called Shubra. Shubra is one of the most densely populated areas in Cairo, and the people that live in this area are not that used to seeing foreigners. We lived in this particular area because some of our best friends we had made lived in this area, and we thought it would be really nice to live on the Nile. We enjoyed the year we lived in this apartment, but after that year we decided to move back to the area called Heliopolis because it was much easier on our kids. In Heliopolis, our kids could get out more and travel a little more on their own. We were a little nervous about letting them get out too much in Shubra, just because it was much more crowded, and like I said before, the people in this area were not used to seeing foreigners.
One of the features I loved about this apartment was the huge window that looked out over the Nile. When we first moved in, the owners had very unattractive, black-out curtains on this window, so, we immediately went and had curtains custom-built for this window. You can see for yourself how beautiful these curtains turned out.
Even though we have lived, and even now live in a more beautiful area, I will always miss being able to look out that beautiful window and see that beautiful view of the Nile.
