A tale of two cities (Egyptian nights & days)

This is more a tale of 2 days. Our first 2 days in Cairo to be exact.

The first day was our day as tourists (also known as marks, or possibly mugs). Everyone saw us coming, we were taken on a "tour" of the city (that we purchased in the airport). This tour basically consisted of taking us to various shops to try to get us to buy various overpriced items. They also took us to see a man about a camel ride around the Pyramids. We went on it, but it was hugely overpriced. We still had fun of course, it was an unforgettable experience, but ever since we have had to endure the laughs of any Egyptians that we told about how much we paid for it...

The other day was our second day in Cairo. I'm lucky enough to have friends in Egypt. We met up with one of them on the second day, and she brought some friends who are locals of Cairo. These guys showed us a local side of Cairo that most visitors don't get to see...

We had some local style fast food, a river cruise in the Nile, a visit to a ridiculously large and shiny mall, a trip up a nearbye mountain (it was well past midnight by this point), and then a visit in the early hours to a local style shisha cafe to try this local delicacy. We were eventually dropped back at our hotel at around 7am.

The other notable contrast of this as compared to the first day was that these guys insisted on paying for everything, i guess because we were their guests in the country. Even when they left us for an hour in a local internet cafe, they left some money with the owner to cover our bill...

There was something that both days had in common, which was the phrase "Welcome to Egypt". It seems like every egyptian that speaks even a little English knows this phrase. But it somehow felt like on the second day they really meant it...