Inauguration Day in Cairo, 2025

We took another pleasant walk up Mariottia/Lebenny toward Pyramids Street this afternoon.

We had discovered a pet food store across the street from the old Siag Hotel on our first long walk through the neighborhood.  Our building cat, named Kitty Kat, is very happy with the Italian canned food that we found there so we returned for a few more cans.  The store's name is Champ Pet Store and it would be easy to miss unless you noticed the dog poster in the window.  

They have quite a selection of cat foods and we picked up four different flavors of the Kippy Pate on our first visit.  Kitty Kat liked them all.

 

Like many shops here, entry requires climbing several steep stairs without the benefit of any railing; we are fortunate there is never any ice on the steps!  

 

We visited a bit with the store owner, Mr. Abdl Rahman who is very friendly and speaks fluent English. 

In addition to the cat food, we picked up a package of dog treats for the neighborhood dogs that we frequently pass on our walks. There is one in particular that is friendly and seems to be a neighborhood favorite but we will give treats to any dog we meet. Treats for the "streets". Street dogs, that is.

Arriving back home about dinner time, we turned on the television to watch the Inauguration of President Trump. Inauguration day occurs a week or two after our arrival in Egypt every four years. We first watched an inauguration from Cairo in 2009, some sixteen years ago and posted an early blog entry about it.

My how the technology has changed! In 2009 we watched a fuzzy picture via a local Cairo over-the-air broadcast channel on a television with an actual picture tube. This year, we watched in high-definition via the Internet on a wide screen LCD television.

Both presidents from the 2009 ceremony have aged a bit. But then again, so have we.

 

For anyone who has read Hillbilly Elegy, it almost brought tears to the eyes to see his mother present at his inauguration as vice-president. His beginning couldn't be more humble.

 

And, I loved Melania's hat. 

 

 

UPDATE - Jan 26, 2025

Bonus Photo:

In 2017, we watched the inauguration ceremony in HDTV as broadcast on the BBC International channel via our satellite dish tuned to either the Arabsat or Eurosat.