25Jan 2011 Egypt Revolution Look Back. Day 1 From My Experience

2011 25 January Photo from Tahrir.

Today people around Egypt are commemorating 2nd anniversary of #jan25  2011 Revolution.

    The rumblings of the 2011 revolution were hitting the streets way before people started to gather. We were already preparing for "something", but we didn't really think anything would come of it. There were attempts before, but all had failed on some level.

    This one seemed different. Some of our friends were leaving town the weekend ahead of the 25th because they wanted to get their children outside of the city. It was during a national holiday, so they used it as an excuse to leave the city.

I was scheduled to teach a yoga class across town in the evening of the 25th. All afternoon, I watched my twitter feed to get updates because the streets were buzzing with activity, rumours, people, police, and cars.
    Qasr Al-Aini street, which is just a block over from our apartment, was getting more and more crowded as groups of people were walking to Tahrir Square.
    Because I needed to make a decision whether I was going to drive from downtown (across Tahrir) to another part of town, I needed to know what was happening outside my apartment door.
  Using my only news source, Twitter, I remember reading the tweets from my revolutionary friends. The feed zipping by with calls to march to Tahrir:
    "This is happening."
       "Its really happening"
          "Thousands of people in Tahrir"
     "Come down now."
None of us knew what was "really" happening or what would happen. Deciding the streets were too blocked with traffic and people, I canceled my yoga class. My husband and I stayed home.