Month: January 2011

After lunch at Abou Tarek we went to Khan al Khalili market. It’s a huge tourist attraction because it’s all these shops/stalls that are older than dirt and you wind your way through narrow alleys and people try to sell you perfume, jewelery, scarves, spices, and junky trinkets at every turn. But because you are their special friend, you’ll get the “Egyptian price.” Yeah, right.

I didn’t take any pictures there because I already felt enough like a tourist without whipping out the camera. We were with friends so it was 6 adults, 4 kids, and 2 babies, all obviously westerners, strolling through the old city. We didn’t buy anything because we wanted to see what was there and how much things were selling for and sometime we’ll go back with the specific intention of wheeling and dealing.

We did stop and have mint tea at Fishawi’s, the oldest coffeehouse in Egypt. It’s over 200 years old. We sat and drank mint tea and said, “la shukran” every 30 seconds (no thank you) to the peddlers who were insistent that we needed their knock-off watches and beaded headpieces.

 

OK, so we did buy one thing. Caleb has been wanting a toy pyramid since we went to Giza and we promised we would buy him one, just not at the pyramid site. Today was the day. It has red “jewels” all over it and the top opens up to reveal a bowl-shaped space in the middle. We’re pretty sure it’s supposed to be an ashtray, but he adores it.

 

See the dude in the reflection of the mirror behind Caleb? He was a particularly persistent peddler who wanted to sell us these crazy looking plastic visors that looked like animal faces. Do I look like the kind of person that would wear a duck bill on my head?

 

On the way home we had a really nice taxi driver who chatted with Josh the whole time. I caught a little bit of it on video. The cabbie’s music is pretty loud, so I don’t know how much you’ll be able to hear, but Josh is a natural. You can also see from this video how casually people walk out in front of moving traffic.

All those obnoxious honking horns? You hear them 24 hours a day. Welcome to Egypt.

And what are we doing while he’s chatting up the cabbie?

 

Just entertaining ourselves by taking silly pictures and trying not to elbow each other as we’re crammed together in such tight quarters.

And one more video of Josh putting his education to good use:

I was taking more of my low-pro videos as we were walking through downtown Cairo and I managed to catch this guy’s advice about crossing the street:
(you don’t see him, you can just hear him talking to Josh.)

In case you can’t hear him over the street noise he says, “When you cross the street, close your eyes and pray to your god. Walk like an Egyptian.”

So that explains why people play chicken with the cars here.

*****I had a more detailed post planned for today, but we just got home from a full afternoon and evening of pyramiding and exploring so I don’t know if it will get posted tonight. I’m pretty tired.

The boys love koshari too. They even liked the hot sauce that you can add to it from the silver bottles on the table. I’m proud to say that I actually used the hot sauce that was sitting on the table and didn’t let my thoughts of “I wonder how long this has been here” and “who has been touching this before me?” keep me from enjoying it. If you come and visit, we’re totally taking you here. We’ll even pay for dinner. Our total for 7 kosharis and 7 waters (we had friends with us) was 85 LE. Under $15.

 

Why is my daughter not wearing pants? Because 1/2 way through the meal Josh felt something warm and wet and somehow she peed out of her diaper and all over her pants. Of course it was the one time I didn’t have a spare change of clothes in my purse so she had to be half naked for the rest of the day. And I wasn’t sure how I was going to change her diaper in the bathroom, but luckily there was a small windowsill that I was able to perch her on to help get the job done. It was the windowsill or nothing since the bathroom had water all over it from people getting crazy with the bidet hose. Really.

Doesn’t she look like she’s been eating a ton of koshari?
All those fat rolls on her legs . . . chubby bunny.

To see Anthony Bourdain’s impression of Abou Tarek:
I love what he says at the beginning about the pyramids. Dude cracks me up.

Guess what all these sleeping beauties are doing! They woke up early this morning to watch the college football National Championship game. No, we don’t get it on our satellite — they skyped with Papa Dave and watched it on his TV.

 

The boys called him on the computer and my dad set up the webcam so it faced the TV and they could see the game. Then they watched together, talked about the different plays, penalties, etc. Josh said it was almost like being there together.

 

Josh hooked my laptop up to our TV so they could watch the game on the big screen. It’s amazing what we can do with our computers, isn’t it?

Now if only my mom and I could still quilt together . . .

I couldn’t explain how much she liked the wrapping paper you sent, so I thought I’d show you: