Tipping in Egypt has been raised to a new art form. We're not sure if it's just an ancient Arabian culture thing, or the fact that they just don't pay people enough - but you basically need to tip someone, something, for everything. They call it baksheesh, which translates to "you can't have enough egyptian pound notes in your pocket."Fortunately they're only worth about 20 cents a piece, but since you have to tip to even get the parking attendant in the garage to take your money - you end up running out of them pretty quickly.
In one particularly good example, Patrick and I bought some postcards in a gift shop on our last day, and the total bill was 16 pounds. I gave the cashier a 20 (wanting the 4 one pound notes), but she quickly asked, "Do you have a 1 pound note, so I can just give you a 5er?" I, of course, said, "No" - Patrick didn't catch on at first and said, "Yes" (He knew that I had about 40 in my pocket). Basically we went back and forth until Patrick acted like he was looking for some and come up empty. Finally the woman reaches in the back of her drawer for a wad of about 300 one pound notes and painfully gives us our change of 4 pounds.
