November 23. Gaza.

Mohammed wakes me up at six, and I go to the bus with a disconcerting feeling of insecurity. Will I get into Gaza? Will I be searched? Questioned? Will I get stuck in Gaza? Hit by an Israeli bomb or bullet? I cannot risk too much since the success of my journey is strictly dependent on my surviving it - I want to make it to that tv show where I can tell other potential travelers about this.
Thus pondering the bus crosses the Sinai once again and takes me to Ariche, where I convince wondering taxi drivers that I really want to go to Rafah, and on to the border crossing with the Gaza strip.

So I arrive at the gate and a tactless officer eloquently elaborates the state of this border crossing: "closet closet". Of course, what did I expect? Do I want to be persistent and wait a few days here, possibly without result, or to I chose getting back to Cairo and take on my causes there? I decide to do the latter, and turn my back on the border guards. I meet a young family from the US, that want to enter the Gaza strip for a family visit. It has been seven years since I saw them the last time, the father tells me. His father died in that period and he couldn't go to the funeral. Now they have paid a lot of money and made an arrangement. I ask them to take pictures for Charity Travel and give them my card so they can send them to me by email. That way, I might be able to publish some footage from Gaza on my website. I take a photograph of a traditional Palestinian couple waiting at the gate, walk to the gate myself and put my hand on it, just like I had done at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. "I am sorry" I say, "but I will be back. I will not forget the people of Gaza and will do what lies within my power to support you." I feel very sincere and all ritualizing my failed attempt to enter Gaza.

I am shocked by the inhumane situation here. When I think about the January 2009 war, the bulldozers, the settlements, the restrictions, the torture, the human tragedy, all inflicted on harmless Palestinian people who just want to live, I feel tempted to say something I perhaps should not say. "Who are those pigs that cause all this suffering?"

On the way back the taxi driver [on-site ad: buy a taxi-driver DVD now starring Robert the Niro] offers me a cigarette and I accept, I reckon its lethality is nowhere near that of Israeli shrapnel or teargas grenades. I feel gooood even though I didn't complete my mission in Gaza. I hope other travelers will be bolder and braver and venture into the strip, opening it to the world community whose task it is to pour critique into the holy land stronger than the Israeli lead [disambiguate 'lead'].

Back in Cairo I dream of that young woman from Gaza who had to pay 1000$ to crawl to Egypt through the dangerous tunnel in order to buy her wedding dress. She had to pay another 1000$ to get back to the Gaza strip to make it to her wedding. What is the name of the motherfucker leading this abhorrently inhumane nation again?

November 22. The Egyptian museum.

Beans for breakfast, sugary tea, and bread. I enjoy being the only foreigner here and take my time before I say goodbye to the friendly staff and walk around in Cairo. At first I try to use the tourist map but its scale and German street names only complicate things. Just walk around, just breath the air the millions breath here. Randomly enter a teahouse and sit down for a moment, smiling at the men as they indulge in their narguilas or clamorously play their cards. Veiled women pass by on the street, merchants shout, cars claxon their way through traffic. What is the fingerprint of a city?

I get back on the tourist track and have my bag checked at the Egyptian museum. I am granted student discount and walk in happily. There are some 160,000 items in the museum according to a man that offers me his services as a guide. No thanks, I kind of just wanna feel the stones and vases and marbels and pottery and tombs without explanatory interference. And I see some amazing objects there that make me go wow. Tutanchamon's tomb and all the gold, beautiful figurines readily put in a vitrine with a sign "Gods" above it, chariots with fixed axes and golden embellishments, steles with mysterious texts on them, flint knives, sfinx models, jewellery with feldspar, sapphire, opal, jade, emerald, amethyst and what have you, royal scepters, flails, chunks of marble, statues of Ramses both ans human and as God standing 30 feet tall, mummies with and without golden masks, 4000 year old diapers, and on and on. I enjoy the museum a lot. Outside I see a very conservative woman, or rather I merely get a glimpse of her dark brown eyes as she is completely covered in a black burka. Then I am distracted by two Russian women, or admittedly, their almost uncovered behinds. They were just walking there, taking pictures of each other and attracting the attention of many men. Quite a contrast, I tell you, and it would have been nice to catch both of them in a photo but that doesn't work out.

After the museum I look for the bus station for an overnight ride to Gaza. There is no such thing and I have to come back tomorrow. I manage to call my friend Mohamed and we spend the evening together. Tomorrow I'll try to enter the Gaza strip, document what I see, and do something good.