Second viewing

The weather here in Cairo is brilliant. It's nowhere near as hot as we were expecting, and certainly not a patch on Omani heat. It's about 35 degrees with no humidity and a slight breeze. Perfect.

Today we were all bundled into a bus and driven to meet our new landlords to sign our contracts. We have struck gold with our guy; he is fluent in English, runs a school and is extremely switched on. Needless to say, he made the process seem effortless and explained perfectly what the deal is with the contract. He even drove us to the local bits-and-pieces shop to get a brand new lock for our apartment (the front of which is pictured above) to ease our minds about who might have copied keys in the past (and sent his 'man' in to get the local price first before they could clap eyes on us and treble the price).

On top of the normal monthly rent, we also have to pay 100 Egyptian Pounds (about £10) for our 'bawab', a general handyman who is on hand pretty much all the time to fix things, help with shopping and other general stuff. Every apartment block in our area of Maadi has one and it'll be interesting see how the bawab fits into our daily routine.

There is excellent free wifi at the hotel we're at and so it's great to be able to record what's happening for future reference. It looks like internet in the apartment won't be a problem either which is a bonus with regards to regular blipping. I don't really have much time just now to browse properly and leave comments but will get round to it when I get a spare minute. Talking of spare minutes, do check out yesterday's blip which I've just uploaded too!