Bottoms Up!

Oh the heat, noise and the dirt have been getting to me!  A tired and lazy girl am I.

I have been a negligent attender of gyms and studier of Arabic.  Even after going to such great lengths as going to sleep before 10:00 pm and taking a multitude of multi-vitamins, I have been unable to locate my energy anywhere.  Where did you go?!  Won`t you come back?

It might sound like this is the beginning of a complainy entry, but actually despite the fact that I am a soggy noodle I am still having a great time.  I cannot account for one useful thing I did yesterday (besides make a pretty delicious pasta dish and study a wee bit-o-Arabic) and yet the day flew by and it was lovely.  Just walking about and visiting with Kazzu and Eneda was the makings of a very fine day.

Plus I got an image for everyone`s viewing pleasure.   This is a common sight on the main road near where we live.  Goats (the dead and edible kind, not the petting zoo grass munching kind) can frequently be seen getting unloaded from the backs of old trucks and then are hoisted up and proudly displayed in front of the shops to be sold.  This is not for the faint of heart nor for those kind of vegetarians who don`t enjoy a bit of veal brains every now and again.  But I thought the look of these upside down goat rumps was too interesting not to share.  Bottoms up people!

Khan el Khalili

All done Arabic school for a little while!  It was a whirlwind two weeks but definitely a good start towards being able to communicate.  Give me a few more weeks/months to review and practice and we shall see where I`m at.

For our last day of classes on Thursday we each did a short speech or a skit in arabic.  I played the role of a cab driver and my partner was the cab victim (er - rider).  We were met with rather glowing reviews and even earned some laughs.  And Scott keeps telling me I`m not funny!

Thursday night we went out for Thai food to say goodbye to another temporary staff member from Scott's work.   We're becoming regulars at the Thai Elephant; now if only they would consider using airconditioning - we always leave there soggy with sweat!

Friday began was a  leisurely morning - shoot!  I slept in and missed church.  Still not accustomed to running my weekends with the Sundays first.  Then off to the Gezira club where Scott played basketball with the guys and the girls went to the ladies gym.  You`d think with this fair amount of gym-ing that I would be getting fitter but it seems that the heat (and possibly the pollution?) are no match for a few half hearted workouts per week.  My energy levels are quite low and my buddies seem to be feeling the same way.  Bring on the cool autumn breezes.  Please?

Friday night Scott and I joined Eneda and her hubby to go check out Khan el Khalili market.  This market is one of the must-see places when in Cairo.  It was established in 1382!  That is crazy!  One website I visited even hypothesized that the existence of the the USA can be attributed to this market.  Maybe a bit of a stretch, but here is the link where I read that so you all can decide for yourselves:
http://www.touregypt.net/khan.htm

What an incredible place.  Once again I was extremely aware that we were absolutely in a foreign country.  Completely strange, old, beautiful, dirty and loud.  Scott and I had been reluctant to go (despite everyone telling us that we really did need to see it) because we had heard that the vendors are very aggressive and persistent and would follow you until you bought something.  Well we needn`t have worried:  I encounter more persistent children selling mint or fruit in front of our apartment on a daily basis than anybody we dealt with there.

The overall structure of the market was hard to explain: it seemed like a confusing puzzle of roads, narrow alleys, overlapping awnings, shops, and mosques just stacked up in an elaborate but haphazard configuration. All of it dapled with dust, garbage, rubble and of course CATS.

One major complaint for us by the end of the night was all of the traffic.  Apparently before the revolution the market was for pedestrians only, but since then without the rules being reinforced there were many scooters, trucks, and car trying to honk their way around all of us.  At times it was pretty stressful!

But the noise did not dampen some of the fairly magical sights. The moonlight and the lighting of the mosques was amazing. We could have been there hundreds of years ago and it probably wouldn`t have looked that different.

Purification Ritual?

I would like to ask the rule-makers of vegetarianism:  Exactly how far can one stray and still ever deem to call themselves a vegetarian?  I may require some vow renewal or carrot juice shower or something to purify myself after what happened this past Thursday.

Scott and I went out to dinner with friends on Thursday night at 7:30 pm.  This was perhaps a foolish choice of dining time on our parts because it is Ramadan. During this particular time everybody is finishing up their big Ramadan supper meal and they seem to be in no mood to serve us.  We went to La Pacha - a rather large boat permanently docked on the Nile with a wide variety of restaurants on board.  We ate at a nice enough restaurant at the entrance to the boat because there you can order from any menu on board.

There were about 8 waiters and we were nearly the only diners in the whole place.  They all generally stayed in a huddle chatting rather than ya know, waiting on us or something.  In general most places that we have been to tend to be incredibly overstaffed compared to the number of customers.  Try buying a loaf of bread from a bakery with 5 dudes behind the counter waiting for you to choose what you want.  Intimidating.

Anyway, half of our table of 8 ordered from one menu, the rest from another menu.  Scott and I ordered veggie pakoras to start and several other people ordered appetizers too.  When some of the food finally began to arrive our waiter kept putting each dish right in the middle of the table rather than in front of the person who ordered.  I think they were trying to encourage communal eating when really, none of us were interested in sharing what we had specifically chosen with the 7 other people at the table.  So when 4 small golden medallion shaped fritters appeared in the centre of the table I pounced on them (before I could be mistaken for a good sharer) and asked of the waiter: "Pakoras?  Veggie Pakoras?"  He nodded vaguely at me.

We began to notice that half of the table had received their food and half hadn't.  Some main course items were coming out before other people's appetizers.  Weird.  We later discovered that everyone that had ordered from the Indian menu was still waiting for their food while everyone who had ordered from the main menu had received their items already.  Okay, but our pakoras were from the Indian menu.  So by that logic, they should have been one of still to be delivered items.  Unless these were not our pakoras...

My first few bites I trustingly take are good.  "This is delicious".  I tell Scott and the others.  Soft in the centre and a nice mellow flavour. I determine since it is all white inside there must be only cauliflower and potatoes (I can't think of any other white veggies).  By my third bite I'm starting to think "this is not a veggie taste that I know"...  We jokingly hypothesize that perhaps it is the deep fried veal brains that my friend's husband had ordered as an entree.  Ha, ha we laugh.  As if we would be eating deep fried veal brains.  I stop enjoying my tasty medallion as we ponder the possibilities.

Aneda asks the waiter in Arabic what the menu item is in fact on my plate.  He replies in Arabic something that starts with an "m".  Aneda's expression is unreadable to me.  AM I EATING VEAL BRAINS OR WHAT??  Reluctantly she confirms my worst fear:  I ate veal brain and I liked it.

I fight away tears and a total meltdown (I won't even let Scott eat veal, let alone veal brains; forget about the idea of me being the one eating it).  With 7 witnesses at the table watching my reaction, I decide to continue to project a level of sanity and do in the end manage to even see the humorous side of it all.

About an hour later, our actual veggie pakoras arrive.  Too little too late, I choose to take a different tactic:  "What is THIS?" I bark at the waiter as he lays it down.  "Veggie pakoras" he replies.  Well why didn't I think of that earlier?!

Has Anybody Seen my Week?

I seem to have misplaced some time somewhere.  This entire week went by in a blur.  I owe my blog 5 full days of recapping and just can't bring myself to dig back that far!  So instead I shall mush it all together in one entry.  I have decided this is not cheating - I make the rules around here.

I began Arabic classes on Sunday, July 31st and this is the reason for my negligence.  Today, Thursday, (which again is like our Friday here) brings to a close my first week of classes.  From 9:00 to 11:00 am each day I have been trying to cram as much information in as I can and then hoping like crazy that not too much falls out.

Success: I can now greet people, tell them how I'm doing (as long as the answer is "good!") and tell them my name and where I am from.  With some peeking at my notes I can count to 100, tell time, and tell people my phone number and my address.  I can read the number characters and know about 5 letters.

The only immediate application of my new found skills is that I can properly greet our apartment building Boab and say thank you and good bye.  Our homework for the weekend is to place a food order for delivery in Arabic.  I will write out what to say before I call in and then we'll see what food items I actually end up with.  Our teacher is expecting some funny stories to come out of this assignment and we are to e-mail what happened to him so that he can share it with the class.  The fact that he is anticipating us having tales to tell at all is not exactly a vote of confidence!

Besides school, I have been maintaining my rigorous routine of going for coffee, going to the Gezira club for gym-ing and pool-ing, and being around the apartment on occasion to let in the repair men and housekeeper.  As a result, I am well-caffeinated, my muscles are sore, our apartment is clean, and our airconditioner is FINALLY fixed!  I am very grateful for my pals Kazzu and Edena who are doing a lovely job of keeping me entertained and engaged.  (I have to say nice things about them now since I recently told them about this blog...)

Plans for the weekend once again do not yet include seeing the pyramids: this may come as a shock to some, but it is still a wee bit too HOT!

Felucca!

Let's see what we can cram into one day!  May have been ended up being the guiding principle of this Saturday.  Scott and I have a late breakfast - bran cereal as penance for yesterday's NINE cupcakes (okay, they were mini but still).  Then we decide to try our hand at running in Egypt.  A crazy pass time for mid summer in the desert, but ever so much more plausible in an air conditioned gym.

We had to go to separate gym's within the club and I understand from Scott that the man's gym is not wonderful:  Only 2 treadmills, the weight lifting equipment is old, and the airconditioning insufficient.  By contrast, the ladies gym has 6 treadmills, decent weight lifting equipment, and pretty cool airconditioning.  Too bad for the dudes, though nice to see something lopsided in our favour around here!

I found most of the ladies don't run but walk on the treadmills.  Furthermore, the most popular equipment in the workout portion is the 'butt-shaker'.  At one point there were three ladies strapped in to those 1940s machines that "shake the fat out" (at least I think that is the point).  The beauty of these machines was demonstrated as it leaves you free to flip through magazines or text on your phone whilst your thigh, butt, or hips gets their jiggle on.

A quick trip home to change and put our feet up for a minute before our first social engagement of the afternoon.  We met up with a girl from Russia that we have met at a "global mixer" the other night at the Marriott Hotel.  This building is opulent, massive, and just so gosh darn fancy.  Kazzu and her fella join us in a cocktail room there and their coffee is served in beautiful china with a lovely silver pot for their own sugar cubes.  Scott and I split a cheese platter which just not quite as fancy as we were expecting for such a place; but the accompanying bread rocked!

A bit of a tour around the Marriott (we only saw one small part) revealed amazing ceilings, light fixtures, draperies, furnishings.  Wow - you can see why they would charge so much for the cheese plate!

We said goodbye to our first social group and had to race to catch a cab to our second social group.  Unbelievable and so different from our lives in Victoria where we knew only 2 people!

We met two of Scott's co-workers and a friend of a friend at a Thai restaurant in Zamalek.  It was again, very beautifully decorated.  They know how to do impressive here!  I got to order a tofu dish, my first since arriving and it was great.  We all ordered food that arrived on a steaming, sizzling plate.  It was hilarious to see the entire table steaming.  We were all already melting because the airconditioning (despite several request on our part) did not appear to be on.  When the smoke cleared we enjoyed a great meal.  A return visit will definitely be in order.

From there all 5 of us took a cab (1 cab!  He insisted that we squish in!) to somewhere near Zamalek (I was just a passenger, I have no idea) where you can hire small sail boats (Feluccas) to take a ride on the Nile.

For a mere LE60 ( about $10) they took us out for an hour.  The sun was already down (this happens before 7:00 pm here) and the city lights were lovely.  We did not travel too fast or go too far, but this modest vessel with seating room for about 20 people was perfectly suited to the 5 of us.  There were also two crew members, one that stayed at the back with us and one that stayed at the front and worked the sails.  This was like our equivalent to taking a gondola ride in Venice.  People often bring their own snacks and wine on board to make an evening of it, however we classy folk just brought a plastic bag containing a can of beer each.  Good conversation, beautiful views, a mighty fine float in a boat - Happy Saturday Night!

It's all about the Display

Friday morning and off to church.  We live right near an Anglican Church that has services in several languages throughout the week, including an English one on Fridays and Sundays.  But since Sunday=Monday here, it makes more sense to partake on Friday.

The church is in a bit of a compound type area with a few fellas manning the gate.  The church building itself is shaped like a pineapple!  Once inside, I wondered if I had the time wrong - I didn't see anybody through the front door.  But rounding the corner, there were about 50 chairs set up in a smaller side part and a few people getting seated.  I helped myself to a bulletin and then encountered the pastor who apologized for there being no greeters there today.  The theme continued as we found there that there was also no one there to play music and also no one there to make the coffee and juice afterward.  Summer in Cairo - everybody is gone!

Despite the mini number of attendees (maybe 30 people) I somehow manage to be in a row hip to hip with my neighbors.  I started off in a row by myself (and I was there 5 minutes late) and then a girl about my age sat a few seats down from me shortly after.  But then about 40 minutes into the service an Egyptian family came in and sat in our row so I had to scoot right into the other girl's lap.  The family had a brand new baby who mostly hung out in a basket that they put on a nearby piano plus two beautiful little girls with long, dark, curly hair.  I caught the littler one (who was squished up against my other side) peeking up at me throughout the service and we kept exchanging shy smiles.  So cute!

Anyway the service was great and it felt comforting to participate in something so familiar while being very much in the minority in this far away land.  Afterward I chatted with my left hip girl as well as the pastor and a few others.  It was someone's last day so that had thought to bring cookies, and the pastor had heard in advance there would be no coffee team so he had at least brought some juice.  We chatted for a bit on the patio outside and I met people from the UK and the US.  They go out for lunch every week so sometime I might join them.  They were advising my on Egypt's most famous dish - Koshari.  Apparently there is some disagreement on who makes the best around here so I will have to try it at several places.  When we went out to eat yesterday one of our table mates ordered it and it kind of looked like one of those "cleaning out the fridge day" meals.  Macaroni, spaghetti, rice, lentils, chick peas, and red sauce.  Apparently you eat this one meal and you are satisfied for the whole day.  As a girl with impressive food consumption capabilities I will have to be the judge of that!

The afternoon and was spent lazing about for a bit at home - it is TOO DARN HOT.  Forget what I said before, I am officially uncomfortable!  Then we walked about for a little bit in Zamalek - something we really haven't done that much of.  We discovered a new grocery store a block away that has pretty much everything we need.  It is in a small building and you don't think there is much to it, but a guy there gestures to a set of stairs and so we find there is a second level.  Another guy is following us around and when we finally pick an item off the shelf we realize the reason is that he intends to carry our groceries for us.  He eagerly comes forward with a basket and takes the obviously way-too-heavy-for-us-to-manage packet of raisins from us.  We have no idea what the procedure is for tipping the grocery carrier (who is employed by the store) so in the end we just pay for our groceries and duck shyly away.  The store, like everywhere else around here, offers delivery too.  So a person can go out to shop even if they have no cash on them at the time; have someone else carry your stuff around the store; tell the guy at the register that you are going to stop at the bank and head home; and then they will take your groceries to your house for whatever time you request. Incredible!  We have life way too hard in Canada!

The evening we keep exploring around and I have been noticing that around here they are Masters of Display. The way the fruit is arranged at the stands, the candy in the shops, even the goats hanging from the ceiling. It is all so orderly and attractive (well obviously not so much attractive the meat...)

We stopped at a nut shop whose slogan is "Add Delectation to Life".  What a fantastic idea, we could all use a touch more delectation.  We also stopped at a cupcake shop which I have to say far exceeds any that I visited in Victoria or Edmonton.  We tried NINE kinds and will have to return to try more of the intriguing flavours like yam, chestnut, and mango.  Another trip to cupcake heaven?  Sure!

More Ma'adi, More Falafel

Early to rise to make some breaky for the man again. Not sure if this tradition will stick, but it is nice to have a few more hours in the day.

I called the language school where I'll be learning Arabic with Kazzu to find out if we are in fact registered for the class since they have never replied to my application request and "re-request".  They said sure you're in and you can just pay on the first day.  I guess we won't know for sure until we get there since that is definitely not how their website says it works, but anyway I am cautiously excited about starting classes beginning July 31st.

Then a quick coffee with Eneda and Kazzu at a new (to me) joint nearby called Aroma.  It does not hold a candle to Beanos so my loyalty is still in tact.  It is a quick coffee - only 1 hr - which is way too short for a couple of chatty ladies like us, but Eneda has to run to be home for her airconditioner repair guy (mine is still broken - the airconditioner, not the guy) and I have to go to the district of Ma'adi again.

Hailing a cab on my own for the third time only.  The trip goes by without a hitch.  About a 40 minute drive for LE25 (egyptian pounds) equivalent to a little more than 4 bucks.  With my map and a memory of this trip last week, the cab driver and I make it there with no common language but a few silent hand gestures!

I meet with the community centre program manager where I'll be teaching dance in the fall and happily we find a way to hold all 8 hrs of classes per week that I would like to teach.  After only 40 minutes of chatting I make a full hour long cab ride journey home.  Too bad I'll have to commute so long to and from the centre, though on a map it really isn't that far.  Cairo traffic is to blame for the lengthy voyage.

My cab ride home is great - the driver did not turn on the meter which I have been told is a bad thing.  We are supposed to either agree on a price before setting off, or better yet: have them turn on their meters.  Well, head-in-the-clouds girl that I am,  I don't notice that the meter ain't a-runnin until we are 40 minutes into the trip.  When we arrive home (which is becoming easier to find all the time!), I ask him how much I should pay him since there is nothing on the meter.  I realize after that that is not necessarily the right thing to do since he could say anything.  But it is okay, he seems to look sheepish and says "no meter".  So I say tell him that my outgoing trip was LE25 therefore that's what I'll pay him.  I'm not sure how much of that he understood and he doesn't really reply so I just hand him the money and get out.  I did everything wrong and still wasn't swindled!

By the time that Scott gets home, he is completely exhausted.  Still not quite adjusted to that good 'ol 9 hr time change.  He has a nap while I hang out on Skype.  Then we head out to Abu El Sid which is a nearby Egyptian restaurant.

We have a seat and there are not too many people smoking cigarettes, but tons of people smoking shisha.  We order foul and falafel again - awesome!  Then two staff members from Scott's work walk in so we ask if they would care to join us.  They are heading to the pyramids tomorrow and we had been planning to go too, but the promise of incredible heat has us deciding to wait a bit longer.

I know those pyramids have been around for a good long while and they are probably not going anywhere during the few years we are here, but I hope we get there SOON.