"Are you Egyptian?"

Again the familiar words are echoed to me. "Just tell them you're Egyptian, you're not a tourist."

"You have an Egyptian look about you."

"Your face is a Moroccan face."

It seems, wherever I go here in Africa, I seem to easily fit right in. It's odd. Only here has my ethnicity been so easy for some people to figure out. Here being these last couple months abroad. One girl told me that I must have a parent that is Middle Eastern and another that is Asian. I stared at her in awe before telling her that she should go into this line of work...

Anyway aside from the hundreds of people who think I am either Moroccan, when in Morocco, or Egyptian when in Egypt. Both very useful, although you are still ripped off. I get a lot better deals though when they know I am half Iranian...hmm...Anyway, aside from that, people often think I am Spanish, French (very common)...

...and the weirdest thing--Chinese or Japanese. It's so odd how everyone tons of people here ask me if I am Asian. A couple people have come up to me speaking Chinese. One woman here in Egypt specifically thought I was Chinese and wanted to practice speaking with me. When she found out I was traveling through she pressed me to take her phone number right there, on the platform of the metro station, and told me to call her if I had any problems, or anything while in Cairo, or if I wanted to spend time with an Egyptian family, or anything.

Well, that's that for the ethnicity, nationality thing. I do think that regular ol' white, Caucasian Americans would have a hellish time traveling through Africa/the Middle East right now. It's bad enough for me, until they learn about my ethnicity, but often they do not ask after finding out where I'm from.

Thanks Mom and Dad.