Category Archives: Humorous

Jul 02 2011
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Anecdotes, Humorous, Two minute read

I’ll take the sidewalk on the left

After staying inside almost the entire day and immersing myself once again in the Yacoubian Building/other Arabic homework pursuits, I finally left the apartment in the late afternoon in order to purchase credit for my phone.

At the store, I boldly greet the employees and declare I would like to buy a sidewalk. They chuckle and look at me…and I say it again, “you know, sidewalk, like for 50 pounds” and then one of the employees helpfully says “a sidewalk is the thing you walk on” and then it finally clicks. Oops. The word for credit seems eerily similar. Unfortunately, I’ve since forgotten the proper word for credit but will remember quite clearly from now on “sidewalk.”

My next errand was scoping out the selection of a different grocery store for their selection of off-brand Nutella since I’m trying to discover the most delicious and cheap hazelnut chocolate spread. The store’s selection proved disappointing, but on the way there I saw 3 children in tae kwon do uniforms sitting with an older man wearing a black shirt with a dragon on it and smoking sheesha at a cafe. I imagined that after an unimpressive performance by the kids in tae kwon do class, he decided to give up on them and smoke a bit before their parents came back to get them.

I’m touring Coptic Cairo tomorrow, which is sure to be exhausting especially since I leave in about 6 hours and still need to take the long night-nap before then. Also, my feet are incredibly itchy. See my recent tweet.

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Jun 22 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Humorous, Two minute read

Excuse me, do I have something in my teeth?

One of my favorite aspects of Cairo life is the fact no one knows where anything is, and thus at any point in time at any given place, someone is asking for directions. Every .25 seconds, another innocent bystander is accosted by a woefully lost human. Fully one million people are probably asking for directions at this very moment in the city.

Of course asking for directions is nothing special or specific to “overseas,” but I especially love observing the process in moving vehicles. For example, our taxi driver has no idea where he should take us as he’s going down the highway, thus he rolls down his window and shouts to the driver parallel to him “Pizza Hut??”. Without fail and without hesitation, the driver will answer back to the best of his knowledge, which usually is not sufficient. The process is repeated a few times over, often encompassing shouting to people we’re passing on the street or traffic police as we’re going around a traffic circle and so on and so forth until we finally reach our destination.

Cairo’s a big place and of course it’s not logical or possible to memorize every street, so until robots replace humans (soon hopefully!), this seems an appropriate strategy.

I don’t think other questions are as welcome in the midst of the daily commutes…but one day, in addition to the game involving making the fastest car stop, I want to ask something like the above title.

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Jun 13 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Humorous, Two minute read

Walk around, get offered a job

After class today, roomie and I and friend walked to the Cairo Opera House since roomie had heard that a great Egyptian piano player would be there tonight and we wanted to see if there were any tickets left. Unfortunately, there weren’t any left, not for tonight nor for the 30th and that was a bummer.

But on the bright side, we got to see the Opera House which was quite beautiful, though the pop music (think N’Sync) that playing on the speakers didn’t quite go with the elegant buildings. Everything was made out of white marble and there were well groomed gardens throughout the entire art complex. All in all, a very impressive experience. If I ever have the inclination to pretend I’m interested in culture, I know exactly where to go.

As we were leaving the ticket office, a man with a folder approached us. The conversation went more or less like this:

“Do you want a job in event planning?” asked the man.

“Excuse me?” said friend.

“Do you want a job in event planning?”

“Uh….no we don’t really have time…”

“Well you should come to an exhibition on modern dance this Thursday at the Opera House”

“Okay. Thanks….do you know where the metro is?”

All in all, it was quite a strange conversation. Out of everything we could have been offered, why a job in event planning? He could have been saying he has an uncle with a great camel farm that we should visit, or maybe given us a restaurant recommendation, but a job that requires a skill set? Really? Anyways, we’ll see what happens on Thursday. Maybe I’ll bring my CV and resume just in case my American appearance isn’t enough.

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Jun 04 2011
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Best blog posts, Humorous, Lists, Modern Life, One minute read

Me no workie well in coffee shop

My life has recently consisted largely of spending time in Cilantro, an upscale coffee shop/café/place to get wi-fi. Despite the large number of pounds I have spent here, I feel my time has not been well served for the following reasons, in addition to the basic fact that I don’t work well in coffee shops.

1. I order a latte and get hopped up on caffeine which makes me jittery, nervous, paranoid, and prone to distraction.

2. I am surrounded by people that I want to stare at and/or talk to.

3. There is a window that I want to stare at.

4. Cars are honking and the wind is blowing and these things are distracting

5. I drink my latte too quickly and then it feels like I’ve done everything I want to do, resulting in restlessness and procrastination of everything I’ve remembered I have to do

6. I forget to check my to-do list because I’m distracted.

7. I feel continually underdressed. I will never fit in clothing-wise anywhere except for gas stations in the south or christian potlucks hosted at apartments.

8. I go with people I know and have conversations with them. After each conversation I’ve completely forgotten what I was doing, where I am, and what my name is.

9. I feel guilty because I’m not speaking Arabic/doing anything with Arabic. The weight of the guilt makes it impossible to get anything done.

10. The internet doesn’t work.

A good part of coming here is partaking in the wisdom of previous Cilantro customers, some of which is written on the wall in faux-graffiti style. One lovely patron said the following gem: Sometimes you love someone somewhere in sometime; which you can’t do anything 2 stop it….but it exists.

But what do you do if that person is not “real?” Or if he’s Conan O’Brien? I NEED TO KNOW MORE!

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May 31 2011
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Humorous, Travelling, Two minute read

Two used vomit bags

I made it onto the plane in New York. It wasn’t a close call but it still wasn’t extremely pleasant navigating the million

different hallways, escalators, and moving sidewalks of JFK at a brisk clip.

Culture shock began on the plane. I flew Royal Jordanian on a direct flight to Amman, Jordan. The hallway to the plane smelled like urine, as did the plane itself. It wasn’t too strong and I guess had my imagination been apt enough I could have convinced myself it actually smelled like grape juice. Both urine and grape juice are key ingredients and products of children, of which there must have been at least fifty, all sitting in close proximity to myself. This is one of the things I had forgotten about travelling in the Middle East: there are kids everywhere, and the strategy for child rearing differs, the result being that children are also obnoxious.

I sat next to a child on the plane, but luckily she was very quiet and probably more scared of me than anything else. I encouraged this. But there were some screamers. They took it in turns: once one child stopped crying another began. There were some points when I thought about offering up my own child management strategies, which involve gently placing both hands around the neck of the offending child and squeezing until they stop crying.

Luckily we made it through with no deaths and only two people vomiting within earshot upon touchdown. The flight was a total of eleven hours and because of my signature method of traveling slightly dehydrated I didn’t have to leave my seat even once. I realized halfway through that this was my first time flying completely solo beginning a transatlantic journey, and I had a “don’t look down” moment, like if I stopped to think about how ridiculous it was that I was traveling hours across the world by myself I would implode or wet myself or something.

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