Friday, 2/21

 

2/21

Friday

 

I’m up by 7:30 AM, a little later than I wanted because I want to call Fred at home through Skype. The 10-hour time difference makes catching each other tricky. 8AM, Friday morning in Cairo is 10 PM, Thursday night in Seattle—so I am just getting up and starting my day and when he is ending his and is off to bed. If I sleep in, I miss him. He has just gotten back from a business trip to Hawaii and is up a bit later than usual, so I am lucky and we connect. The connection isn’t great and the only place I have enough of a connection to do anything is out on the balcony. It is a little cool and breezy there this morning, but I would never be able to get to an Internet café in time to catch him. So that is where I sit, on the balcony with my cup of tea and laptop and find out what he has been up to.

 

Skype has been the coolest thing! Sometimes the connection is strong enough for us to video call and it is wonderful to see and talk to him. Sometimes we can only talk or, if the connection is really bad, we use the instant chat, which is much better than email to feel connected. Skype is such a lifeline when you are this far from the important people in you life.

 

After calling Fred, I eat a quick breakfast, do two loads of wash, clean floors, and study a little. The dust collects so fast here and the tile floors quickly become gritty. I do a quick swipe with vinegar and water and what a difference it makes—for a little bit anyway. All this and the girls are still sleeping!

 

The girls are finally up and at 1PM we head down to the coffee shop Beano’s for their breakfast and my lunch. I am waiting to hear from Bridget to see if she wants to sightsee in Old Cairo this afternoon. Since I haven’t heard from her, it is looking like that won’t happen. At 3PM when I return to the apartment I phone her and yes, Old Cairo will have to wait for another time. Nicole hasn’t been feeling well and Bridget has decided to rest in the apartment too.  I’ve been to Old Cairo couple of times, so it isn’t a big deal to me. Instead we make plans for dinner and they will call with info later.

 

At about 5 PM I get a call that they have decided to have dinner at a “chicken place” what ever that is. I call Lilly and plan to meet her in Dokki then share a cab to Nicole’s flat. I haven’t been to Nicole’s yet and don’t really know where it is. Lilly does and she is right on the way for me.

 

At Nicole’s we hang out for a bit playing with her kittens. Her cat just had 6 kitten’s and she found homes for all but one yet has adopted another street kitten that is still very tiny and is nursing it back to health. I also get a chance to see some of the projects that she is working on and the photography is fabulous. I just love her work! She seems pretty happy with how it is all going too, so that is really great to hear.

 

Dinner is at a restaurant on the “ring road”. Nicole has eaten there but doesn’t remember the name or exactly where it is. Eslam thinks he knows. There is some discussion of how to get all five of us there but everyone decides they really don’t want to take the mini bus which re very crowed, and since traffic is too heavy for one cab to follow another and Eslam is only guessing at where we are going, we decide to pack ourselves into one cab—it is a very cozy ride ; ). Eslam has a conversation with the driver, and between them both they figure out what restaurant Nicole had in mind and we arrive at Andrea.

 

Andrea’s is a large tourist type restaurant yet a lot of Egyptians were eating there. You walk in past the rotisserie grills cooking the chickens, past the bread ovens with the beladi women making and baking pita bread, and to the restaurant seating. They have both a large indoor and outdoor seating area, but it is very cool tonight and we opt for indoors. Before we are even given menus, Eslam has a rather lengthy conversation with the waiter. It seem the waiter has offered us a “deal”—we can order off the menu or we can get the “company” special price dinner that includes a ½, chicken and a selection of salads at 40 EP per person. This sounds like the way to go so Eslam announces that we are now the guests of “XYZ” Company. It works for us--thank you XYZ Company! (Egypt does have its own way of doing things!) We had babaganou, hummus, domas, taboula, keftah, and a couple of other salads, followed by a ½ chicken, with an orange for desert. The oranges were rather bland and the only part of the meal that disappointed us. So 5 very full dinners pile back into a little taxi and head back to Nicole’s.

 

On the way back to Nicole’s flat there is discussion as to what to do next. Lilly knows of a couple of possible parties we could attend back in downtown. Nicole, who is still not feeling well, opts out. Bridget is on the fence, but I promise to accompany Lilly to a new adventure.  Close to Nicole’s flat, Nicole and I jump out of the cab to shop at the Metro (grocery store) for cat litter and a few comfort things like ginger tea and honey. By the time we get back to the flat Bridget has also opted out of partying, so Lilly and I head back to Dokki to see what “happening” things we can find.

 

Our first stop, and –as it turns out- only stop, is to join Lilly’s roommate and several friends at a restaurant in a hotel next to the Sheraton in Dokki. There we meet her roommate and 4 friends. Lilly’s roommate is a dancer who now performs at Mena House in Giza. She is French, from Lyons. 2 of the other women are also French from Marseilles, as is the third woman but she is an American now living and teaching in Marseilles. All 3 are belly dancers and were here for a week to take lessons and see performances. The 4th person is a male, Mohamed. Mohamed is an Egyptian now living in NY City. He tours performing Egyptian folk dances and teaching belly dance. After some polite chit-chat, I discover that I have seen him perform—at the Dina show in Minneapolis. He and a partner did the Hagalah, Sa’aidi, and he did Tanoura and Tahtib. He didn’t seem to remember other performers from that weekend, like Cassandra or Jawaahir Dance Company, so when someone made a comment that he hadn’t received instant recognition, I pouted and said “But he didn’t remember my performance either!” It got a good laugh and a “touché”!

 

That “party” broke up pretty fast because the 3 French women were heading off to the airport to return to France, so Lilly’s roommate also called it a night and so did Mohamed. Lilly tried to reach the host of the second party she wanted to attend but there was no answer and as she wasn’t exactly sure of the location, we called it a night too. This was a Cairo night that ended at midnight, not started at midnight.