Taken for a Ride

It's becoming a bit of a habit for taxi drivers to take me the long way home from the school to the flat. It isn't the time or money that irks me, cos it's only a euro/12 mins difference, but what irks me is that feeling of being taken advantage of because of my being a foreigner, not speaking Arabic and probably because of being a female on my own. It makes me feel uncomfortable and vulnerable. As soon as I see they've gone off track I have to watch carefully, just in case they really don't know where they're going. When that happens the driver just keep driving until I repeat my destination and then they ask someone every 100 metres for directions. Once, when a driver realised he was off track he tried to let me out the taxi, saying we were there. Now my sense of directions isn't good, but even I know when I'm on the square where I live!

Anyway, other than that, a nice day. I met a recently-arrived teacher from the school for coffee in Zamelek and we went to a little place that I didn't know. I had to test the quality of their banana stuffed donuts and I might have to work my way through their donut range now. She ordered a chocolate waffle which would have been enough for a family of four! Good cappuccino too and a street view from the first floor window. The TEFL world is really quite small and it's almost always possible to find a connection with people. Today, we found out quickly that she did her CELTA in Poland and her tutor was a good friend of ours from our Budapest days (Mike C)! We hosted his 50th birthday celebrations in our flat there! Then into work for a couple of hours to finish something off for next week and then dinner at Kandahar, the Indian restaurant. Taxi ride home was ok!

Blip was from the taxi.