From the top of my building

My building is one of the highest in the area, sixteen floors high. Since i arrived here i asked everyone in the building if the top was open, i wanted to see the view; everybody told me that it was not, as it is very dangerous. Yesterday i ignored everybody´s comments and went out to the stairs (see picture) decided to discover for myself, or even to find an alternative way to access the roof.

For some reason the lift (oh! the lift deserves a post of its own) goes up just to the 12th floor, even though the shaft indeed reaches the top of the building. Another little mystery, i could try to ask Aam Sahad :) So, i walked up four floors and to my delight, there was no lock to the roof...mmm actually there was no door at all! I do not know why i do not go and check things for myself every time. The view is mind blowing, truly amazing! From there it can really be appreciated the high density of buildings, as well as to explore the surroundings from a new perspective. You can see the mosque in my street in this picture:


This is a picture of the building next to ours, it contains all the elements that repeat all around: lift shaft, satellite aerials, water deposit and ladder:


In this view we can see the roofs of the buildings surrounding the little street in the back of my house, particularly curious is the great amount of piled up wood in one of roofs to keep the building rising:


In a zoomed detail of the last photo you can find this boy, he seems to be having quite a lot of time in his hands:



In this other building builders could be seen in action and three children playing around in the floor underneath:


I have done a pasting exercise with photoshop for composing a panoramic view of the north-north east skyline of Alexandria from the roof, the result can be seen in the picture (sorry for the couple of patches :P):


Fact of the Day: Since the assassination of Sadat in 1981, Egypt have been uninterruptedly under emergency law.

Details in the streets

There are a number of photos that i did during my walks that i particularly like and that i did not show until now. Just for the need of beginning somewhere, i will do it by another of the already classic adverts, tweety (or Piolin) is there because is a kid´s wear shop (!!??):

This must be one of the few traffic lights in Alexandria (is the only one i saw), but is purely decorative, nobody seems to notice it:


This is a detail of the carreta of the fruit stand at the door of the mosque in my street:


This is a bike of an old man selling oil (i think). Particularly funny is the attachment method of the tin with a bicycle tire:

Some peppers hanging of the window of a restaurant in the centre, i love the colours:


This is one of many of the cats that i have photographed in the streets, this one was specially friendly and cute:


Fact of the day: I know now the name of THE cafe (where i have my kaua halib every morning), its called "el fardús" or "the paradise". Very nice place to start the day indeed ;)