The 600 LE "Bebsi" And Other Ridiculous Stories

Okay, so I know I'm supposed to keep this thing updated and tell you stupid things I accidentally do in Egypt, but instead I just go to class, go to the library, rinse and repeat. Literally. Arabic is kicking my ass on a daily basis and I have no life. Take me back to senior year in college, please and a very big thank you. If that doesn't happen though, here are a few ridiculous stories to hopefully make you appreciate America a little more.

Last weekend happened to be my birthday. Thank you everybody, I wish you could've been here to celebrate Egyptian style with me. It included a nighttime trip to the Pyramids. We went to a show called sound and light, and they have lights and lasers on the pyramids and the Sphinx 'talks'. It was a very touristy thing, but I can say I spent my 23rd birthday at the pyramids. As a side note, as anybody who knows me knows that I tend to say really dumb things from time to time. Unfortunately, just because I'm in Egypt, it doesn't change. I was with some friends at a place called Pub 55 or something like that. Jess and I were talking and she said something about finding the ex-pat lounge. And being the absolute genius I am, I intelligently responding, "The ex-pat lounge? Like a place for the New England Patriots?" Yes Belle, because ex-Patriots love coming to hang out in Egypt so much, there is a bar just for them. Duh. I'm sure all you smart people know exactly who the ex-Pats are, so we're going to leave it at that. We will move on to the rest of my very interesting birthday. A large group of us went out to this Lebanese restaurant in Garden City, which is basically downtown Cairo where all the embassies are. If you want a cab from where I am to go somewhere, you need to call at least an hour in advance. So we called for two cabs to pick us up at 7 so we could get there around 8ish. Well 7 comes and goes and were still sitting on the side of the street. 715, 720 no cabs. So we happen to see one drop other people off and we book it to that one, thinking at least some of us can still try to make it and hopefully the other cabs will show up at some point soon. So 4 of us hop in and off we go. Now in Cairo. people drive fast. This dude was driving really really slow. Not what you want when you're going to be almost late for a reservation. Now instead of speeding up, the dude is slowing down. Like literally 5 miles an hour down the street. We're all looking at each other going what the hell is happening? Nobody drives this slow...anywhere. And then the car stops. It just dies. Turns out the cabbie forgot to put in gas in the tank and we were stuck in the middle of the highway/desert. Its about 735 at this point and there's  nobody around. They only thing we can do is laugh at this absurdity and call our friends back at school and hope the 2 cabs are there. Which thank God, they were and we we able to take our original cabs to the restaurant. We made it there by 815; not bad considering. I had just started eating real food again two days before so I wasn't sure what I was going to get. So I ordered this chicken dish with potatoes and some other things on it; it was a new item on the menu. But apparently it was there for future reference, because they don't actually make it yet. Oookay. So I pick the first thing I see that doesn't involve fish or tomatoes and it turns out to be beef and potatoes. I can manage that. Except when I get it, its in a bowl. And the beef looks like the beef you use when you make beef stew and its soupy. And there wasn't potatoes, or at least I didn't think so. So I try it, but when I pull the fork out I had (not a bug) but a french fry. Weird, but maybe it just got misplaced. So I take another bite and another french fry comes out. So I dig around and it clicks. Beef and potatoes. The potatoes were the french fries that they lined the bottom of the bowl with. I'm not sure if its a Lebanese thing or an Egyptian thing, but it was a little weird. It was good, just weird. Whatever. A baked potato would've been fine, though.

My friend Jess had invited me to Marabella, which is on the Mediterranean for this past weekend. Her family has a place there, and we were going to rent a villa in the complex and go to the beach and hang out.  I would be taking a bus with another friend from Cairo to the coast, about two and a half hours away. I had to buy the ticket at least a day in advance so I asked my friend Hibar to come with me downtown because he knows the city pretty well and the place we were going to apparently wasn't the easiest to find. Not surprising. So away we go. He is able to speak a little Arabic and understand it so it was helpful. So we get downtown after a normal charlie foxtrot of traffic (accidents). Every few feet we would stop to ask people if they knew where Cairo Gateway Plaza was. The thing about Egyptians is that they will tell you they know where something is even if they've never heard of it before. And they will give you directions to "the place" too. So we're ambling along and we stop to ask this guy if he knows. And he starts speaking fluent English. Score. Except he turns to me in my sunglasses and skirt and goes, you look Arabic. You Arabic? Okay, have you seen me? I'm about as white as they come. And I have magic eyes. So I say no, American. Big mistake. He starts going on and on about his time he spent there in Chicago and California, especially Long Beach and how he boogied (his word, not mine) and drank and girls and food and blah blah blah. I sort of giggled cause he sounded so ridiculous and kept calling my his sister and Hibar his brother. So Hibar is like okay, but do you know where CGP is? We need to get there. And the guy goes its closed. Oh shit, now what? So dude sees our slight panic and goes, oh well they'll open again, around 5 (it was about ten of 4). They just close for an hour or so. Okay, fine. So he goes why don't you come see my pictures from America, I have water. Erm, okay? So he's showing us his pictures and then starts talking about perfume. And my boyfriend. Wait, what? And my sister. My sister? Since when? He is now shoving perfume under our noses and telling us that we need to take some home and drive the boyfriend crazy and get him horny so we can play (his words, not mine). And take some to my mother so she can drive my father crazy, and don't forget your sister and brother cause they need to drive they're boyfriends and girlfriends crazy too. What. The. Hell. Once again, you are all smarter than I am, because it doesn't end. Yet. We'll skip everything else he was saying about making the world horny (still his words) because it just got more ridiculous. And guess who ended up getting a bottle of this 'magic' perfume. Yes, I got hustled. Hardcore. And since I'm sometimes blond, I didn't even realize it until it was happening and then we had no idea what was going on. So this guy told me to tell everybody that I paid 600 LE for this stuff. Which I didn't, by the way. I didn't end up losing that much actually, and its even less in American dollars. Moral of this? Don't talk to Egyptians who speak really good English. Actually, I'm not even that mad I got hustled, it could've been way worse, and now it won't happen again. And I got a free "Bebsi" out of it. Which is Pepsi, but since Egyptians can't say P's, it was bebsi. By the way, we finally got to CGP for the bus ticket, which of course wasn't closed. But you already knew that...

What next? Because there is always a next. How about the bus ride to Marabella. The bus was semi normal and didn't look like it would fall apart and there were seats so people weren't jammed on like sardines or hanging off the bumper, cause that's what public buses are like.  So we settle in for our little journy north. Through the desert. That has no street lights. Which is fine until you realize that the bus driver is trying to entertain a cute little girl of about five. And by entertain I mean he is leaning over and tickling her and turning the headlights off. So basically we're sort of swerving down this pitch dark sandy highway with no lights and no civilization around for miles.  I am all for keeping the kids entertained, but buddy, when you're driving a bus through the desert, lets try to keep our lights on and eyes on the road. Maybe next time. Oh,and lets not forget the stop to pray. Because there are mosques in the middle of the dark sandy desert along the deserted highway.  But there are no bus stops for where we were going so we were dropped off on the side of the highway. Literally. Nothing makes any sense in Egypt. Ever.

Our short stay on the Mediterranean was fantastic, however. Jess's family are so kind and welcoming and we had a great time. They made us dinner, and breakfast the next morning and got lunch for us before we had to go back. The food was fantastic and their beach house was gorgeous. You could sit on the deck and see the Sea. And walk to the beach which was about twenty five feet away.  Jess has two cousins; one goes to school in Germany and she had German friends visiting so we spent the night trying to teach them American drinking games. It was a lot of fun and we were up until 5 am. (Tim, if you read this, I'm sorry and you might want to skip the next part :) Jess and I were in the same room and we got up around 1030. Our friend Tim was in the next bedroom. We were going to go to her aunts for breakfast, so we got up and started getting ready. I was walking into the kitchen when I heard a knock. At first I wasn't going to open it because we don't know anybody there, but then I figured it could be one of her cousins to see where we were. So I open the door and sitting on the ground is Tim. In only his boxers.  Oookay..what the hell are you doing there like that?! Apparently, around 7 (two hours after we went to bed) Tim decided he wanted fresh air and went outside. And the door locked from the inside so he was stuck outside for about 3 hours. Jess and I didn't hear him knocking on the door; we needed beauty sleep. Poor Tim.  Our day at the beach was phenominal; it was like the Carrabean: clear blue warm water, white sand and everything. It was great.

But all good things come to an end and we had to go home. The bus gives you a ticket and a seat number, but its not like there are assigned seats. So on the bus we go and we're off to one more stop before we are able to leave. We're siting on the side of the road waiting for people and outside is this large group of people, aka a family with the grandmother and daughters, right down to the crying grandchildren. And they're making a minor scene, but whatever. I'm half asleep with my headphones on and suddenly I look up and Grandmother is standing next to us speaking rapid fire Arabic and yelling to the bus driver. Great. She is looking at her ticket and insisting that we are in her seat. Okay, lady, there are two seats right next to us and two seats right behind us that are open, why don't you just take those. Well, normal people would. She wasn't normal. She's going "YELLA YELLA", which when said like that is basically move your ass. But she is blocking us into our seats so we had nowhere to go. So after 5 minutes, the bus driver had enough and asked us to move. To the seats next to us. But Grandmother doesn't even sit in the seats we just vacated. She sits right in front of me! And turns around. leans over the seat and starts dictating to her grandchildren (who were sitting in our old seats) which is three rows back and across. And of course it wasn't quiet. Crazy Grandmother. After that it was a relatively normal ride (with headlights) and a terrible Arabic movie that included blood, heroin, guns and the final shootout scene with bad guy being beaten with a mop.

The next morning (yesterday) we went to the Pyramids and Spinx. I wish I could go on and on about them, but really, words and pictures don't even do them justice. It was astounding to actually see them and climb on them. Some of the blocks were bigger than me (and yes, I know I'm not that big, but still). The base of the biggest pyramid is 13 acres, average weight of each stone is about 2 tons and there are about 2.5 million blocks. And 446 feet tall.  And they used mules and men and pulleys. It was incredible. We were able to go into one of the queen's pyramids; it was hot as hell in there and very tiny. We saw the Sphinx, and yes I kissed him. And then hoped on a camel. It was wild. And fun. Pictures are of course on facebook, so go check them out. We spent about 4 hours there with a great tour guide and our security guard; they really knew what they were doing and had so much knowledge about the whole area and what the hieroglyphics meant and stuff.

I'm going to Alexandria this weekend, so that will be another adventure. Unfortunately until then I have classes and Arabic is still kicking my ass. I will be studying until I pass out, rinse and repeat. Charmed life I live.Well, on to homework until next time!

Ciao :)