If there were any one sound that defines Cairo, it is the car horn. The traffic here is absolutely crazy. When I was picked up from the airport, my cab driver, smoking a cigarette and talking to me, accelerated up to 70 mph (not on a freeway) until we started approaching another car... then he placed the flat of his hand against the horn, held it there, and did not start breaking/stop accelerating until we were 15 feet behind the other car. Mind you, the car in front of us did nothing. So we swerved into the other lane (cutting off another car) and proceeded to drive in between the two lanes and in out of traffic, horn blaring (the cab driver was kind enough to point out one of President/Dictator Mubarak's houses to me). Red lights are merely suggestions when no other traffic is coming. Lane markers are casually disregarded. If you drive correctly onto a one way road and a donkey cart is going the wrong way and about to run into you, as they say in Egypt, "No problem!"
It is hard to say that Cairo is a likable city, but it is interesting. Nothing but chaos. A Mexican I met said it's Mexico City on crack. The pollution here is incredible, my California lungs feel like they have a cold only after three days. Every Egyptian smokes. Parts of the city are extremely run-down (I saw goats grazing on a nearby roof from on top of a minaret, pigeons for sale as dinner, heaps of trash on fire next to the highway, and car exhaust that turns the air black) while others parts of the city have clean 8-story shopping malls filled with locals purchasing designer jeans and nice sweaters. In fact, everyone here wears sweaters, all day long. No shirts, always sweaters at midday when it's 80 degrees outside. No Egyptian sweats.
As an American, I've encountered absolutely no problems. Obviously touts don't care about your nationality when they're trying to sell you goods, but the few locals I've met have been exceptionally kind and generous even though they know I'm American (I talked to three unaccompanied young Egyptian women with headscarves who were frankly very cute [thinking the entire time this could be a mistake] and they were just so friendly and happy to be talking to me). I travelled to the Pyramids at Giza and Saqqara (on a side-note, Giza is one of the most run-down parts of the city I know, the tourists ferried around on air-conditioned buses must be shocked!) with two Brazilians, and I would almost say the Brazilians were treated worse than I was. I felt perfectly safe walking down bazaars filled with colorful locals (not the tourist bazaars) with an Estonian I met. Honestly, no one here gives me a second look, and to produce a huge smile all it takes is a "Sala'amu Alaikum" out of my mouth. Oh, and there's nothing like 30 Egyptian school children, on a field trip to a mosque, crowding around you to practice their English.
The thing to do at night is to crowd onto the street, walk around and window shop. So I have lied, I did wander around Cairo at night... surrounded by thousands of well-dressed Egyptians who barely noticed my presence! It's nice waking up in the middle of the night with the munchies, knowing that I can throw on my jeans and my sweater (glad I brought it), and know where to go to walk outside to the crazy city and get some cheap falafel!
All in all, Cairo is not to be liked... it is to be experienced. And if must be experienced from a vehicle, experience it not from a bus, but from a taxi blaring Arabic pop down dodgy roads at cooly unsafe speeds.
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