Cairo Living

Well, we've been in our apartment for a week now and, no, we haven't done any "real" sight-seeing until today. But, I don't feel too bad about that (now that we've seen a sight). There's just so much to do when you first move in as many of you know. Plus, living in another country makes everyday living an adventure. Oh, I mean an ADVENTURE!!1!

List of Adventures Had This Week
1) Crossing the street- it's like living a game of Frogger each time

2) Buying produce from the street vendors. Are they ripping me off or not? Actually, they're probably not.

3)Riding the Metro. Took us a while to figure out the right exit so we don't have to cross the street every time (see #1). Also, I feel a bit weird every time because I'm one of the very, very few women in that car. Most women use the "Women Only" cars, which is very colorful and pretty as it zooms past you and then everything goes blah when the men's cars go past.

4)Buying groceries. What is in stock? Egyptian versions of American foods! How much everything really is since the blurb on the shelf doesn't match what is on the shelf about half the time.

5)Buying meat from the butcher. How do you know it's a butchery? Why, by the carcasses hanging outside, of course! We wanted to cook some ribs and serve them up to Morad and his family. You know, give them a taste of American food (to which Morad answered, "Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Hardees...aren't these American?" I sheepishly agreed and Froody said we wanted them to have real American food.)OK- so-back to the butcher who didn't speak English (natch) and had difficulty figuring out what we wanted even with a pic. Eventually, everyone figured out what we wanted and he went into the big fridge and pulled out 2.5kg of rib meat and lion (no bones) of veal. We bought 2kg of it and it was really nice. Froody thinks this can become a weekly thing: go to the butcher, get whatever loose meat he has laying around (in the fridge), and cook it up.

6)Eating lunch. Yup, it's an adventure when you A-Don't know what the heck that stuff is, and B-Don't know how much it should cost. At least it was tasty and cheap for us Americans. :-)

7) Go to the Post Office. It's adventurous when you can't find it! And we had two maps!! Anyway, ended up going to the Main Post Office instead which is a bit overwhelming because of all the windows with digital numbers over them and all the people sitting down in front of them. Are they waiting for their number to come up? Are they waiting for the window I'm about to go to? Which window sells stamps? (OK, we know the answer to this one now.)

8) Standing in Line. Not sure what it is, but Egyptians have no sense of the "queque" that we westerners have. Yeah, there's a "line" but older women seem to have the right to cut right to the front of the line! And, when your turn is next, there's no sense of personal space and the person behind you will crowd and get in front of you if you're not aggressive. And once you're at the window the people directly behind you are now right at your elbows (srsly, I'm not kidding) and some even have their money out and in the window! And you're still waiting for tickets or change!!

9)Driving in Cairo. We definitely aren't ballzy enough to even dare to imagine driving in this crazy city. I thought Nairobi was bad. Still, Cairenes do seem to follow a couple more driving rules than the Kenyans, but,...sheesh! You have to see it to believe it. For instance, at night, they don't turn on their lights. They do drive with the running lights on and use the headlights to warn other cars and pedestrians of their approach. During daylight hours the horn has this job. They also use their turnsignal for things other than turning corners. And they have a total disregard for the lines in the road. Basically, the road is going to have anywhere from 3 to 5 lanes, depending on how busy it is. I've even seen roads hardly big enough for one car fit two cars!! There's no real speed limit, either. If there's no one in front of you, you can floor it!