Tag Archives: food

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 25 2011
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Anecdotes, One minute read

Don’t say no to Panda

I ate Sudanese food for the first time tonight and it was amazing.

We exited the metro station, walked about a block, went behind the crumbling wall of a half-built building, wound around an alley filled with sand, and entered a restaurant, the very definition of a hole in the wall. We ate chicken with sauce, meat with sauce, beans with sauce, lentils with sauce, chewy bread with sauce, and roasted whole Nile fish. Unfortunately, the word sauce doesn’t quite convey how delicious it tasted but just take my word for it: the spices were mixed up just right. The fish was also incredible…I plucked hot meat right off the ribs of a fish that someone had just strangled in the Nile itself. What a beautiful thing.

Next week roomies and I are starting a schedule where one of us takes one night a week to cook so hopefully I’ll start getting nourishment soon in the home. I don’t know the nutritional information of Hobnobs but I’m sure a diet solely relying on them is a quick route to scurvy.

This commercial for Panda Cheese, an Egyptian brand of cheese, is really funny. Enjoy.

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Jun 12 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Two minute read

You didn’t bring your prairie dress?

I had the pleasure of attending a “Hafla Galabiya” today, or rather, a Galabiya Party. In said party, everyone was supposed to bring either an American or Egyptian dish and wear traditional Egyptian clothing.  Unfortunately, only about 5 people wore galabiyas, since they’re actually quite funny to wear for hip young people like ourselves; it would be the equivalent of wearing my prairie dress I suppose.

The party was a success in the food department, however. When we finally arrived about an hour late, we found quite a spread on the buffet table and, I, ravenous with hunger and hobbled by indecision, spent the next 10 minutes going crazy over what foods and desserts to choose. Eventually, I consumed sustenance and began to enjoy myself.  Though some talented party-attendees sang, we did not dance together like the heathen kings of old. Thus I suggested we have a party for traditional American and Egyptian dance in the future. I hope it comes to pass since this means square dancing and contra dancing! Ann Cowan would be so proud….

But I would like to talk about our shower. You know you’re showering in our apartment in Egypt when:

1. You turn on the water in the shower and find there is none.

2. The water spurts out sporadically much like an asthmatic whale might expel water.

3. The water returns after an abscence of a few hours but it is apparently drawn directly from the Nile and thus brown in color.

4. The water is either scalding hot or semi-cold.

5. No matter how hard you try, and despite the shower curtain, the bathroom floor and bathmat is soaked after even the shortest of showers.

6. The shower works and you find it brown because of the filth on your feet.

Luckily I only go through this experience a few times a week….#silverlining

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Jun 08 2011
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Egypt, Two minute read

Transportation Nation!

Since my post yesterday on crossing the street was such a hoot, I decided to do another quick postie-wostie on how I get to school everyday. Just imagine if instead I were writing about how I got to school everyday at  Boston University and you’ll see how banal this is. And yet I continue.

Roomies and I take the Metro to school…it’s about a ten minute walk from our apartment and in the trek, we walk up a street in which 90 percent of our fellow pedestrians are going the other direction, so if feels a bit like we are the proverbial salmon heading up the proverbial stream. We go down the stairs into the metro (Doqqi stop), which is by all accounts incredibly clean and efficient and big and well decorated. After purchasing a ticket, we head through the (hopefully correct) turnstiles and down the stairs. I love the tiling on the side of the walls down in the metro…the designs are big rounded shapes in pastel colors and so the place feels vaguely like a videogame, a nursery, or a knick knack shop.

Here’s where it differs slightly from Amreeka: if I’m with my g-friends, then we seek out the place to stand which will grant us entry to the women’s only car. There’s a sign above the platform that says “Women” and it has a picture of someone wearing a dress, so we go there, obviously. The word for women in Arabic (one of them) is Seyidat, and every time we enter I think to myself, chuckling: “Where’s my seyidat at?” After only a short wait (so efficient! 80 times better than Boston) we push our way onto the car and enter an atmosphere not unlike a sauna. Everyone else is sweating as well, so the smell is particularly lovely and only enhanced by the additional vapor of various perfumes.

We get off 2 stops later right at Tahrir Square. There are about 20 possible ways to exit the metro, but only one of them is the appropriate one for the university. So far we’ve found it one time, and that was yesterday. We might end up in Sudan tomorrow if we’re not careful.

I look forward one day to writing something of meaning, about Egyptian politics, society, religion, culture, etc. Until that day comes, you’ll have to put up with my ramblings: I bought some nuts today—1.5 pounds for about 4 bucks. Electronic music festival tomorrow. I’m speaking only Arabic with fellow fellows and it’s  little strange and a little hard. At least I have my blog.

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Jun 05 2011
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Anecdotes, Egypt, Two minute read

Oh great, more introductions

this is an icebreaker

We had part one of our orientation today, and for the first time almost all of us assembled and together we

attempted to absorb the mundane details of  the CASA program. To my great dissatisfaction, there was no formal introduction process. I was like “Come on, throw us an icebreaker or two.” Just because the majority of the people in the program are over 25 doesn’t mean we can’t get to know each other through excessively awkward games where we have to sit on each others’ laps and crawl through each others’ arms while introducing ourselves. I’ll suggest some games for tomorrow. My current line, “So you study Arabic?” isn’t as great as it could be.

Because of the lack of icebreakers, we left at around 4:00 after an incoherently planned orientation still unknowing of who exactly we are going to be dealing with for the rest of the year. They could be ax murders and I wouldn’t have the chance to get to them first.

The lunch was okay…I enjoyed the sweets and drank some kind of white juice. It wasn’t milk, and it wasn’t coconut. It may have been pear…more on this later.

On a different note: when walking through the market, one often happens upon cages filled with rabbits or chickens or pigeons. These are not pets, they are dinner. Sometimes when I see a bunny I want to yell “WHY FLUFFY WHY!” But I restrain myself and instead think about what a scene it would be if I brought one of those home and slaughtered it as a gift for my roommates. It’s a religious thing.

More o-tation tomorrow, but at the new campus out in the middle of the desert, about an hour commute outside of Cairo depending on the traffic. Apparently there’s a pool party afterwards, but I’m not going to it unless Pizza Hut is catering.

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