a bit of geography

The New York Times has a Google Earth map of central Cairo HERE. They’ve flagged a number of places of especial recent relevance, most of them in the middle of downtown, as you can see.

As for my own location when there, if you look at the big island in the Nile, the northern half of it is Zamalek. The large diagonal road cutting northwest/southeast through the neighborhood is 26th of July Street, the main artery of Zamalek. I live not too far north of that street, and towards the east of the island.

To get some sense of scale, to walk from my residence to Tahrir Square takes about 45 minutes.

The downtown campus of the American University in Cairo is directly on Tahrir Square. The School of Continuing Education is still there, as is the AUC Press, a nice branch of the Bookstore, and some other things. The rest of us moved in September 2008, way way east of this map. 25 or so miles due east of Tahrir Square, I believe.