Erfan Pasha street is one of the oldest and known streets in Alexandria. It's parallel to Othman Jalal, however it's much longer than it. A crowded, noisy, and polluted section of the district, yet it's very respected. What I mean by that is...this street houses many different stores and shops, ranging from butchers and bread ovens to the contemporary western European clothing style stores with the modern lights along the perimeter of them. Even the apartment buildings along the side of the streets vary greatly in terms of style and modernness. You'll have the extremely old and haunted buildings (which is the majority of them) along the sidewalks and right next to them you'll have the newer and taller high-rises towering over the street.
Erfan Pasha is also one of those streets that runs 24-7. You go there anytime during the night and you'll always need to find something going down; whether it's a fight, a funeral, a discussion, anything, there's always something occurring. Also, there's a large amount of elder men that go to the numerous hookah shacks at night for their nightly meetings and tabla tournaments. I'm proud to say that my grandfather is one of those men who's always found at these cafes at night, just tearing up the tournaments and always getting first place.
Erfan Pasha also houses many mosques, with the minarets of each mosque towering into the sky, illuminating the street with various colors of green, blue, and white. And despite the large amount of noise that the inhabitants of the street emit, you'll still hear the numerous mosques call for the time of prayer. And regardless of what the shop owners might be in the middle of, they'll suspend their work for a short period of time just go pray and return to continue where they left off.
Erfan street is also a very convenient street in terms of the supplies it has. Around noon time every few days, my grandmother would require some groceries from outside. And all of these "exotic" groceries can be found inside Erfan Pasha street. For example, some days she'll need tomatoes, fish, and cheese. And instead of getting into a car and driving to the nearest supermarket, I can take a five minute walk to Erfan Pasha street and buy them off the souks and outdoor shops. And above all that, I get to witness this side of Egypt; for lack of a better term, the old school side. I also heard that one of my great aunts was the owner of a vegetable stand on Erfan Pasha street. And from what I heard from my family, she was a very mean woman, who ran her business like a criminal organization. She would form monopolies just to run her competitors out of business. And I realized that everyone on this street does the exact same thing as her; and they all are very grimy people. It's always fun getting groceries for my grandmother from this street, because I get to witness many interesting things.
Erfan Pasha is also one of those streets that runs 24-7. You go there anytime during the night and you'll always need to find something going down; whether it's a fight, a funeral, a discussion, anything, there's always something occurring. Also, there's a large amount of elder men that go to the numerous hookah shacks at night for their nightly meetings and tabla tournaments. I'm proud to say that my grandfather is one of those men who's always found at these cafes at night, just tearing up the tournaments and always getting first place.
Erfan Pasha also houses many mosques, with the minarets of each mosque towering into the sky, illuminating the street with various colors of green, blue, and white. And despite the large amount of noise that the inhabitants of the street emit, you'll still hear the numerous mosques call for the time of prayer. And regardless of what the shop owners might be in the middle of, they'll suspend their work for a short period of time just go pray and return to continue where they left off.
Erfan street is also a very convenient street in terms of the supplies it has. Around noon time every few days, my grandmother would require some groceries from outside. And all of these "exotic" groceries can be found inside Erfan Pasha street. For example, some days she'll need tomatoes, fish, and cheese. And instead of getting into a car and driving to the nearest supermarket, I can take a five minute walk to Erfan Pasha street and buy them off the souks and outdoor shops. And above all that, I get to witness this side of Egypt; for lack of a better term, the old school side. I also heard that one of my great aunts was the owner of a vegetable stand on Erfan Pasha street. And from what I heard from my family, she was a very mean woman, who ran her business like a criminal organization. She would form monopolies just to run her competitors out of business. And I realized that everyone on this street does the exact same thing as her; and they all are very grimy people. It's always fun getting groceries for my grandmother from this street, because I get to witness many interesting things.
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