They Try To Make Me Go To Rehab I Say....Yes?

Hi, my name is Kristen Belle-Isle and I went to Rehab tonight. Obviously, rehab's don't exist in Egypt because Muslims don't drink..or at least they are not supposed to drink. Anyways, we went to do random errands to this place which is about ten minutes away. Rehab (pronouced Ra-haab (think of Saab when you say the 'a's)) is a pretty bustlin place at night. Since its Ramadan, everything closes around 4 and opens again after sunset, but the places will say open until 3 or 4 in the mornings if they're social places. Shisha is very popular and you can find it anywhere and at any time. We have yet to do it but some of my friends went last night in downtown Cairo and they had a blast. This trip was a quick one, just to exchange money, get cell phones and Sim cards and grocery's. The exchange rate is pretty great if your American, and things are pretty inexpensive for us.  But if your Egyptian, they are very expensive. I spent almost 200 pounds tonight on food and laundry detergent and water which is only around 35 dollars. But enough about that, lets talk shawarmas. First of all, they are delicious if they are done right. The ones on campus, not so much, and they are ridiculously overpriced. How typical of a school to not only make them less than desirable, but to make them dumbly expensive. These were from a little restaurant in Rehab that most would consider sketchy, and I'm pretty sure if there were Food and Safety Regulations, they would have some pretty serious fines. But whatever. So if you want a shawarma, you can get either chicken or beef and a huge chunk of meat are  cooked on this big spit open flame thing and then the meat is shaved off and onions and peppers and unfortunately tomatoes are added to that and then simmers some more. Then, you can have it either on pita bread or a grinder role and they put some hummus on it and volia. Most people get the beef in pita, which is what we got tonight. It was quite delightful.

As always, what kind of post would it be if I didn't mention the driving. Let's just say it takes some getting used to. Okay, a lot of getting used to. But here's the deal. If you want to get to Rehab, there are two ways. There's the right why, which takes longer. Who wants to do that? Duh. And there's the way that is seemingly acceptable. And it involves driving down the wrong side of the street playing chicken with the drivers coming head on at you, usually at 40 miles an hour. We of course went that way both ways, and we went head to head with a nice large dump truck. Since he was obvioulsy in our way, we honked the whole way down the street. I think when I go home, I'm going to employ Egyptian driving tactics and see where it gets me....

There are a ton of things to do at night and the school has made traveling relatively easy for us, which has been very helpful. Last night, a crew went on a fallucca ride down the Nile. A fallucca is a boat that sits about 20ish people and you just cruse around the Nile. Anthony Boudain on the Travel Channel went on one when we did his show on Egypt. So it follows that I'm just as awesome as Anthony Bourdain. My TV show will be starting next month. The bus ride to downtown was longer than the fallucca, but of course, it was quite entertaining, especially when our driver got mad at the person next to us and started cursing the guy out through the window. Obviously we had no idea what he was saying, but since Arabic sounds like your permanently pissed off anyways, it was pretty impressive.

It's been a pretty hectic few days, but things are starting to settle down just a little. We are starting to adjust to the crazy time changes, which means staying up until 2 or 3 and sleeping until noon. Yeah, I know, I don't even do that at home, but I'm going to chalk it up to the sun and that most young Egyptians try to stay intside during the hottest part of the day. And its ridiculously hot. I'm going to freeze my ass off in December. And probably miss the sand, or rabal (which is how you say sand in Arabic, phonetically spelled of course). My phone finally works. I will put the number up, and calling and texting is okay, and it won't charge your phone which means it charges mine. So yeah, I'm basically saying call minimally, and get your ass on skype. Feel free to text me on my birthday though. Or come for a big ol celebration here. Just kidding! 0107210939.

Just for a clarification on my last post, Muslims wash the right side because it is the good side.

Anyways, I'm about to crawl into my sadly uncomfortable bed that resembles sleeping more on a table then a bed. Someone want to get me a chiropractor for when I come home? It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Goodnight from 5,608 miles away :)