a quiet afternoon

Last month, over 370 people viewed my blog. COOL!

Okay, now that i have that out of my system, i tried getting luther to make another post but he is reluctant because his last post was deemed 'boring' by many friends and relatives. So, i'm hoping after his mid-terms are done (this week) he will garner enough courage to attempt another posting about life at AUC (and his archeological DIG- i am not disclosing anything you have to ask him about it!!!) 

We have gone from january to march without a school holiday or long weekend and i am ready for a break.  So in between that time, it has been pretty chill on rd. 221 with luther and i taking it easy.  Alot of exploring cairo in mini-trips (museum for the afternoon, shopping, "normal day-to-day stuff") and it has been really nice. :)

Tahrir Square on 'protest friday'  pre-protest

Oh- Luther has just asked me to write that he hates studying the 'armana period'- (i am fully aware of this as he has not stopped complaining about it all weekend.)  This is good because he is looking for things to distract him.(Good time to ask him to do chores and fix my computer)

He had attended an amazing conference on bio-archeology 2 weeks ago and met some cool international friends who share common interest in picking apart the decomposed-yet-well-preserved VIPS of history.

the name-tag says 'LUTHER:AUC'

ONE of the food tables at conference

Luther and i went to citystars last week (giant mall in egypt) and bought our weight in clothes at H&M.  Then we paid for VIP seats to see 'Oz the great and powerful'.  It was pretty good, go see it in 3D, its pretty awesome.  Afterward we went to a restaurant called 'planet africa'. The best way to describe it is 'Rainforest cafe'. Mechanical animals, jungle noises, large pond with fake crocodile in front, saltwater aquariums...you get the idea.  Good food, definitely checking that place out again.

Indulging- 'Luther-style'

 

riding of the camel

So, we get up and get ready.  Going to Giza is not like going to shoppers down the street.  Its not even like going to polo park for an afternoon. Or IKEA.  Its like, a full day, energy-draining experience.

Knowing this, Luther and i planned well ahead of time.  We called our driver (young man we rely on to take us places that are too far away for underground metros)

He picked us up and reluctantly took us to giza.  I will explain why he was nervous in a minute.

The majority of the ride was good.  Ahmed tells us he is going to get married. (Yesterday he met his wife for the fourth time. He is very much in love though.  You can tell by the music he plays in the car. (Lion Kings 'can you feel the love tonight')  He invites us to his wedding and we agree.  He asks how we celebrated our 'Balem-times day' and we tell him.  We first met ahmed on a drive to the largest mall in cairo.  He was young and played good music so we have used him for rides ever since.  If you ever come to visit us- i guarantee you that ahmed will be picking you up. :)

Going to Giza is crazy because there are no rules set by the tourist bureau, or state of antiquities, or even the municipal government.  Its a total free-for-all with men selling random egypt souvineers, pictures, camel rides, horse rides and bathroom tickets (what, did you really think that was free? )

The road to giza- the ONLY road is (strategically) one long street that goes uphill through a town filled with people who make a living off of tourists in the form of papayrus factories, souvineer stalls, essential oils, stables and restaurants.

The sellers are so crazy that when  they see a white person (bonus points if they look like a SUPREME tourist ie: short shorts, shorts in general, tilly hat, large camera adorned around neck etc. -they will jump on the cab or bus or whatever it is and begin yelling at you in every language they know in hopes that you will reply)

Ahmed dreads this because his poor car ends up being beat up.  We hate it because all we want is a damn camel ride.

We get out after a few sharp swerves with the car (to get the people off) and luther calls the 'camel man'. (You have a 'watch man', a 'heater man', a 'tv man'-we have the 'camel man')  We use this man because we noticed how healthy his camels looked on an earlier trip to giza.  As he says 'i feed my camels before i feed myself'.  He has 2.5 camels for us.  One of them is a baby! I hop on 'Casanova'- he is attached to the baby, 'cinnamon'.  Luther hops on his camel but I forget the name!

We went for an hour long camel ride for 200 LE. Thats approx. 20 bux for 2 camels for an hour (thats a pretty good deal.  I mean, think about what the zoo in winnipeg could charge.  They could easily get away with charging 30 bux for 20 minutes)

camel cudles (even the camels are kissing!!)



casanova & cinnamon

The best part is when the camel gets up cause you go flying back and forth.  Then the camel man asked if we wanted to run with them.  So we 'galloped' across the desert. :)

We took lots of camelly pictures.  I didn't stand too close to the camels because (naturally) they attempt to eat my hair whenever i get too close. :P




luther is a natural :)

Worst part: chilly desert wind.

I am SO happy i was able to knock 'camel riding' off the cairo bucket list :)

next: BALLOON RIDING OVER THE TEMPLES!!

 

valentines day- cairo edition

I wake up, and realize i FINALLY get to bust out my 'v-day' earrings- pink sparkly dangly hearts that say 'i love you' and go to school.  The kids are excited because theres parties and bake sales all day. 
I get cookies, valentines and one telegram. :)

After i get home (5-ish) Luther and i exchange presents.  He gets a case for his ipad and NORTH AMERICAN oreos (not to be confused with 'boreos'- the egyptian knock-off you can find everywhere).  I get flowers, a bear, chocolate cake and dinner. He asks me what i want to do.  I say..

'CAMEL RIDING!'

'ok ally, its a bit late at night to go camel riding. we'll do it tomorrow.'

'ok darling' :)

So Luther takes me to the area of 'zamalek'- a part of cairo i really like.  Its filled with shopping, fancy hotels and restaurants.  Its also where many of the floating nile restaurants are. We enter 'buddha bar' in the 'Ciaro Sofitel Hotel'- one of the nicest restaurants in the city.  It was a fixed menu but whatever.



Whoa. It was nice.

We ate, danced, and went to the casino (a rarity in cairo, as it is illegal to gamble here)

Afterwards, we cabbed home, watched '5-year engagement' with chocolate cake and strawberries from 'le Poire' (a popular gourmet bakery) and had a good laugh (luther had many as he had downed an entire bottle of wine.)

the menu

 

 




the atmosphere

the shwag

 

Around 4am we went to bed (resting up for the ULTIMATE egyptian experience: 'the Riding of the Camel'

craziness here in tahrir (squared)

NOTE: BLOGGER IS BEING ANNOYING AND NOT LETTING ME POST PICTURES. boo.

So adventures in Tahrir square...AGAIN.

For some reason, my school decides to herd the staff in small groups 3-4 times a year to the passport/immigration office smack dab in the middle of sadat tahrir to renew our passport tourist visas. 

While it may be considerred a welcome break from the classroom,  I can ASSURE you, there is not ONE teacher who looks forward to this journey.

Not only is it in mid-morning rush-hour traffic (stretching a 20 minute ride into downtown into 2 hours), we are confined to a small van which i'm pretty sure has no shocks.  So this, combined with the rush-hour traffic, downtown smog and the lack of..well...EVERYTHING related to safety (no traffic signals, lines on the road, speed limits, seatbelts) one can only imagine what could happen in the event of a collision...(which, miraculously- doesn't happen very often from what i have seen) 


Anyway, tahrir square was quiet as usual with the exception of a few tents set up.  No one really could expect that 2 days later the entire square would be littered with tear gas and egyptians in protests of the football riot tragedy that occured a year ago. (Then, the week after that, the anniversery of the revolution, which brought even more protesting to the square.)

 Anyway, we get shuffled into this building that is STUFFED with people.  I'm not even kidding you.  People of all races, ages, shapes, colors and sizes are crammed into this huge building.  We get herded into a smaller crowded room and wait in line here.  Then we are shuffled to a hallway and told to wait there. Then sit down.  Then stand up.  We wait for awhile longer.  The school lawyer who brought us asks us to stand in front of a counter for a bit.  We wait here for about 45 minutes. (This is so the passport people can see us and confirm it is us in our passport pictures.)  Smoking is allowed.  I am standing next to someone puffing a smoke next to a small infant being cradled by a woman.  It is loud and there are papers (confidential and not-so-confidential) scattered everywhere. 

The system they have in place to record immigrants, visas, passports and the like is the same hard-copy paper system they have been using since the building opened (1920s?)  Whatever works, i guess.. 

On the way home we grab some lunch at the local tahrir KFC and look at the creepy toys you can buy.  All in all,  a good morning in tahrir square.

 

not so baadi in maadi :)

The past 2 weeks have brought some very interesting turns.

I had some good news (career related)

Some bad news (also career related)

Some great news! (A WEDDING!!)

And news that could potentially keep me in cairo longer than I expected.  Of course, none of this is set in stone, and I find myself changing my mind on a weekly/daily/hourly basis.

For one, it is easy to stay here for the weather:

    Secondly, it is easy to stay here when you have awesome teachers and awesome students:
 



egypt culture day (dress-up day!)

And, we painted- and with my ‘winnipeg décor’ I brought from home my place is becoming more of a home as opposed to a ‘blank hole’.

 

Luther also couldn’t stand our small crappy tube TV and literally-less than 10 hours of getting off our flight from Canada, he bought a flat screen at Carrefour (arab walmart).  So, this idea also adds incentive to stay. The fact that we are beginning to invest in our lives as opposed to considering these two years as simply a temporary state.

I should add, we have been blessed with an AMAZING neighbour who has lived in maadi for most of her life.  She has amazing stories to tell, and a son my age who is a pilot. He is also very nice. :)  She has come to our rescue COUNTLESS times.  Its great to have a 'mom' down the hall. :) 

As my co-worker Kerry would say, (imitating that adorable little-girl-in-mirror-folgers commercial):

‘I like my house! I like my friends! I like my life!’

Cos’ right now, I certainly do. J

 

WELCOME (back) TO EGYPT !

 My first post since coming back to Cairo.

At first I was not looking forward to coming back “home”; (ie: Egypt-home) but I have to say, once I settled in, had a fresh piece of balady and blasted my heaters to maximum capacity (there was a brief cold snap) I was glad to be home, and excited to begin the next half of the school year (or as my expat friends have referred to it as: THE BIG STRETCH’). As I glance at my school calendar, I realize it IS quite a stretch because there isn’t a decently sized holiday until the end of march (spring break).  There are a few 3-day weekends scattered about so I hope to get some activities done during that time.  Camel riding and bazaar-hopping are on the top of my list.


My trip to Winnipeg was great.  It was nice to see my family and do normal-ish routine Winnipeg things with them. Things like going for coffee, shopping, cooking, and just talking about nothing.  I’m pretty sure I had a timmys cup permanently grafted into my hand while i was there. Every photo of myself taken that week is clutching either a timmys to-go cup or timmys coffee mug. Kuckily,  my family is well aware of my addiction, and was sure to provide me with a coffee every morning, and send me home with 4 cans of beans.  This may seem like a lot but from the perspective of a teacher who gets up at 5:30am every morning- it must be carefully rationed until june.

I was also sent home with maple cookies from luthers family. Let me repeat. I WAS ALSO SENT HOME WITH MAPLE COOKIES FROM LUTHERS FAMILY. Now, the nice thing to do would be to let my American and egyptian friends sample the deliciousness that is a maple cookie- HOWEVER- the evil maple cookie-loving demon in me has decided to hoard them for herself because there is a new season of the BACHELOR downloading on my ipad right now; and I can’t think of anything better than maple cookies and rose ceremonies.

I also got to see/maul my furry 4-legged child. 


She stayed at dads the entire time and had a great vacation.  It was also nice to see my Gido play with her.  He got a kick out of the fact that they are the same age.  I gave her a whole holupstsi because she is comparable to a holuptsi. (brownish, reddish, lumpy, cylindrical, kinda smelly but you still want one near you…)

I spent a good chunk with friends as well.  Making the most of the snow, we hit up holiday mountain (note: upon hearing this, all Canadian staff from the west coast thought the idea of ‘holiday mountain’ was pretty laughable. They refer to it as ‘holiday mound’)None the less,  It was awesome to see everyone, and then right when I got back I hear one of them is getting MARRIED!!

(when I found this out, I got so excited I cried. I seriously cannot go a day without getting giggly and giddy and squealy and girly-annoying! I hope I can be there for it!!!!!  It also motivated me to immediately book my flight home.  That way, I can be giggly and giddy and squealy and girly annoying with my best friends!)

So until next time! (won’t be for awhile, at least until the next long weekend.  That’s coming up next week! HAPPY BIRTHDAY PROPHET MOHAMMED!….)


 

happy birthday mom. :)