Cairo greeted me with the same intensity I remembered—alive with history, movement, and meaning. Returning after 24 years, I stepped back into a city that shaped my youth and found it as captivating and multilayered as ever.

Cairo is a living museum—a sprawling metropolis where millennia-old monuments stand alongside modern high-rises, where the call to prayer echoes over honking traffic, and where every corner tells a story. My first encounter with this mesmerizing city was in 1993, when I spent a summer working at the National Bank of Egypt (NBE) as a university student. That experience left an indelible mark, and though it took me 24 years to return, stepping back into Cairo’s vibrant streets felt like reconnecting with an old friend.

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