Cairo, Egypt: My kind of town

Why Cairo? I went to Cairo for a few weeks but fell in love with a beautiful Egyptian doctor and ended up staying four years. To spend time together away from the prying eyes of conservative Egyptian society we got to know one another over the card table, playing a kind of Egyptian bridge called tarneeb.

What do you miss most when you’re away? Two things: the relaxed approach to life. Nothing in Egypt is urgent, everything is negotiable and when you do find yourself faced with an insurmountable problem, a friend of a friend can always sort it out. Then there’s the social networking – not the kind you do by yourself on the internet, but the real thing, meeting up every day to chat with friends or family.