EGYPT XOXO

EGYPT-EY things I love:

Cheap veg. (3 LE for a head of lettuce.)  That’s like.. 20 cents.

Knock-off EVERYTHING (glasses, watches, bags, clothes, movies, electronics…)

Everything is shiny and bright.  If it isn’t that means its cheap and low quality.

My wadjit eye cloth in the bathroom.  Its waatttttcccchhhhinnnnng you….

Buying freshly peeled garlic on the street.

Foreign junk food. (Its from everywhere! China, Poland, india, Germany, italy…)

Egyptian radio: the reciting of the holy Koran. All day. Every day. On every station.

Egyptian versions of ethnic food: sushi, curry, burritos, chicken wings. MCDONALDS. pizza (they put wieners on it. And ketchup.)  Anyone who was my best friend in grade 8 will see the humor behind ‘weiner pizzas’

We don’t eat chips.  We eat chipsy.

On that note, I watched a pretty good movie called ‘cairo time’ (2009). Its really good and is pretty accurate of what life is like over here. (minus the whole expat love affair thing…although its not uncommon :P ) Check it out!

 

Luther got 'Al Jezeera' cable so he has been glued to the tv watching European football leagues.  We went to the Khan and he sent some poor shirt vendor on a wild goose chase looking for a Portuguese jersey.  The guy actually FOUND one.  He he is wearing it eating a gift from our neighbor.  Its Luthers favorite Egyptian food.

 

 

BIRTHDAY: EGYPT EDITION

My birthday:

So, I am officially 27.  I am not upset about this but I’m kind of weirded out because according to my students I’m ‘old’. (According to my students, 24 was old)

I remember being in grade 2 and 3 and thinking my teachers were old ladies already.  I feel like a ‘young’ teacher though.  I don’t remember having teachers as young as me.  They all had ‘woman’ haircuts and shoulder pads and fuchsia dress pants.  Does that make sense? (I guess it WAS the 90’s…)

I spent my birthday eve alone because my passport was still at the school having random passport renewals done to it (I still don’t understand the reasoning behind this) and I couldn’t get in to the ‘cool teacher club’ (ACE club in maadi. Google it :P  Its an expat bar/lounge) without it.  So I ordered mcds and watched TV which was almost better because it was a CRAZY long week full of subbing and no preps. 

I had flowers delivered to me.

 

 

I went to sleep and the next morning I woke up to a message from Luther on my ipod.  Attached to the message was a digital PEOPLE subscription!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I walked into the living room and had birthday decorations!  Then a cupcake delivery!  WOO-HOO!

Luther and I decided to go to Citystars mall because I can spend all day in there happy as a pig in mud.  We shopped (mostly at H&M) and saw a movie (the last exorcism…part TWO!!!) and had dinner.

Omigod.  Egyptians watching a movie about exorcism was ridiculous.  They laughed and screeched the whole time (Luther thinks its because they were uncomfortable) and they were talking and their phones were goin’ off and it is just a crazy gong show.

Then we went for dinner at Planet Africa (Egyptian version of ‘rainforest café’) because it was so damn good last time we went.  After dinner we tried to find the exit but accidently bumped into all the NICE FANCY restaurants the mall has.  So next time, we will try those.

 

We got home. Gobbled 2/6 cupcakes. I blew out ALL 27 candles. (TWICE. because the first time wasn’t videotaped lol) and watched ‘Ted’.

Mom got me a haircut for when I get back to Winnipeg in June and apple earrings (THANKS MOM!)

Luther got me a haircut for NOW because my hair has the look and consistency of french-fries and a facial and a massage at a spa recommended by the staff at the school. YEAH!

And he threw in a bathing suit too because we’re going to the beach this long weekend. DOUB LE YEAH!

However, my birthday is not the same without my friends and family.  I ALWAYS go to Boston Pizza at least some time in my birthday week.  So listen up BP, I want a 4-cheese ravioli waiting for me when I get back J  Thanks again for the Birthday wishes everyone!

 

(Fatima: Luther forwarded me your message! Thanks!)

Alisha! Got your picture! VERY excited!

springtime in egypt

Spring has NEVER been my favorite time of year.  There is Easter of course, and MY BIRTHDAY. But really, its just a big heap of messy weather and stressful students.

I always felt like mother nature used spring as a bit of a tease.  Right when we would go out and buy our fancy pale yellow and peppermint colored dresses for Easter and spring break- we would be bombarded with snowfall.  Not only that, but everyone's broke from Christmas and cramming for finals.  AWESOME month for a birthday. :p

Meanwhile...in EGYPT...mother nature does not f*** around.  Its more like, "K...SPRINGS HERE. ABORT LOCUST INVASION. INITIATE EXTREME HEAT.....THE BLOWING KIND!'

I felt like I woke up and just WHAM- heat wave!  I went to school in pants and a jacket and emerged drenched in sweat. (this was me and 11 other teachers on the bus. what a "fun" ride home)  So, temperatures here are in the mid-thirties and its not even considered 'summer heat' yet.  This is great an' all but the locals are warning us to stock up on water as there WILL be shortages. (There was when we first got here. you couldn't order a fountain drink at mcd's or find bottled water for quite some time)

Also, the use of electricity will skyrocket due to the use of air conditioners.  This is bound to cause power outages throughout the city (maadi is especially bad for it) so there is a good chance we will not have internet or electricity for a few days.  (ie: hard to get ahold of me)

Now that the nightmare of being a student is behind me, I am able to look at spring in another light.

MY BIRTHDAY!

EASTER!

SPRING BREAK!

30+ TEMPERATURES!

HOME STRETCH UNTIL SCHOOL IS OUT FOR SUMMMMMMMMEERRRRRRR!!!!

On that note, we visited our neighbor the other day and I thought of monica because she has 2 adorable Pekingese.  BEST part about these guys is that you can tell them apart by one of them ALWAYS having an overbite, and the other one always has his tongue sticking out. SSSOOOOOO cute



Ganja and Mary-jane :)

 

 

dear luxor- i miss you.

 We stopped off at were the Ptolemaic temples which is what Luther has been studying for over 5 years.  To put it in simple terms, its when the Egyptians and the Greeks met and began to merge their cultures together. (There are A LOT of similarites between Greek gods and Egyptian gods and the temples exhibit a cool mixing of Greek and Egyptian painting, sculpture and architecture)  It was hard to peel him away from these places as we only had a small time slot to meet back up with the rest of the tour group.  We were always the last ones at the meeting point. :P  Luckily we know how, where and when to go back to these places so next time we visit we can allow more time.  Some people can easily walk through these places and ignore all the carvings and painting on the walls but it’s so awesome to have someone explain all the stories and myths and legends and rituals.

We were also informed that because most people cruise down the Nile and stay in their boats, the hotels in Aswan, Edfu and Luxor (main sites for ruins) are SUPER cheap.

The next day we woke up on Easter Sunday morning with a view of a bunch of holes in a mountain.  These were Noble Nubian Tombs! (No, there were no resurrections to be seen.)

For breakfast the boat had prepared many types of eggs and Mediterranean easter bread (sweet bread with an egg baked into it) as well as chocolate easter eggs for dessert. J 

Another negative for the boat was that it was docked REEEAAALLLLY far from luxor, which made us have to cater to the tour buses schedule.  On the last night we finally decided to pay for a cab to the city of luxor and try to catch the temples at sunset.  Now i realize the benefits of staying in luxor for a few nights- what a beautiful city!!  We found a really cool hotel/restaurant that had a rooftop patio overlooking EVERYTHING and enjoyed chicken shawerma, mollecheyyia (this goopy egyptian soup luther likes) and tahini. :)  PLUS for luxor.

( The 'Nerfertiti' hotel was unknowingly the same hotel and restaurant that my fellow staff members stayed at and RAVED about.

 

So, all in all, please come visit us and we will take you to luxor :)

The entrance to the nerfertiti hotel

rooftop patio shawerma time :)

 

valley of the kings. and heat.

Valley of the kings is interesting.  It is much more secure and organized than many of the sites i've visited.  Basically, you pay a ton of money to see a bunch of holes in the desert.  If you wish to see whats INSIDE the holes, you pay extra.  If you wish to see whats inside of IMPORTANT holes- you pay a little extra.  If you want to see the most IMPORTANT hole (king tut) you pay 10 bux american (65 LE. ALOT 'extra')

Of course, we did.

So i can say it.  I saw King tut.  He looked..well. shrivelly.  Remarkably good for being thousands of years old.  Kinda crispy.

look ma! luxor!

After that we visited Hatshepsuts temple which was amazing and cool and something i have always wanted to visit because its on every single 'egypt' themed calendar.

puurrrrdy.and bloody hot.

 

meanwhile...down the nile...

We got home from school/work on Thursday evening and quickly packed as our flight was at 5-something AM.  From cairo to luxor its only an hour so when we arrived in luxor we stayed on the boat until the ‘welcome dinner’ at 8.

The cruise itself was great.  Its not ‘Carnvial Cruise Line’ but it was super awesome for 2 people who have never set foot on a cruise boat before.  It was called the ‘Nile Goddess’ and was all-inclusive with a fancy looking interior, spacious cabins, a “pool” (small but good enough for most) and evening entertainment on 2 nights of the 3.  The majority of the time was spent sight-seeing and tanning on the sundeck J.  We were blessed with temperatures over 36 each day.  The heat isn’t unbearable as some people might think.  The only time it got really bad was the day we went to Valley of the Kings.  Its in the middle of the desert and we had spent a full day touring the day before so everyone was kinda zombie-ish already.

crying over comfort

 

 

 

BEST PART ABOUT BOAT: The luxury ‘titanic’ feel of it and the belly dancing shows!  Also, the breakfast buffets were awesome with every breakfast food you can imagine.  My go-to was fresh fruit with Kaiser-sesame sweet buns. The staff was also amazing.



whirling dirvish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WORST PART ABOUT BOAT: This is what I DISLIKE about cruise ships.  We didn’t have much freedom.  Our boat was docked quite far from the cities so we found ourselves waiting around quite a bit for tours to start.  When we were finally on the tours, we only were out for a short amount of time before heading back to the boat.  So, Luther and I would love to explore the sites and cities on our own next time. 

breakfast buffet

bliss

 

The only time we “ditched” the boat was our last night in Luxor when we decided to just pay for the long cab ride into the city.  Probably the best idea EVER- I’ll explain more later.

The boat was filled with many interesting people as well.  It was mostly older people (40s-50s).There were TONS of Italians and Spanish people that gave life to the ship in the evenings.  A few Canadians living abroad and even an expat family originally from Winnipeg . J

So that was the boat.

KRISTOS-VOSKRES!

 

Happy Easter! Happy Spring Break (#1)!!!

 So, my posts have been lacking as of late because:

1.)    I’ve been so tired I don’t even have the energy to type

2.)    I am using my week off to recover from being so tired that I am too busy to type

 Right now, I have just spent my first day back in cairo after enjoying a cruise down the nile river for 4 days. (AMAZING)  And now, I am off to catch a quick cab ride (about 3 minutes) to ‘road nine’- the Osborne village of cairo- to meet up with luther and grab some pizza.  He did not have the pleasure of sleeping in today because he had a field trip to an archeological site with the AUC.  Our flight from luxor to cairo was quite late so we didn’t get to bed until 2:30am and he was up for 6am.  YEEK.

Apparently, the reason the flight was delayed was because cairo decided to 'dim' its electricity in order to conserve it.  This genius idea caused many problems in homes, retail stores, restaurants, anything with an internet connection and- airports.

Anyway, according to a text I received, he found something on the dig. More details after pizza.  J

Naturally, while in Luxor which is SO close to the holy lands, i kept the meaning of easter in my mind.
For your seasonal pleasure:

JEEEEEEEESAAAAAAAAHHHHHHSSSS!

my best 'carl anderson staring pentively into the sunset from tour bus' impression