Went down to Tahrir this morning with two girl friends as AUC (American University in Cairo) was holding a bookfair at their campus. The square was a lot quieter than it was when Scotty and I went to the museum (and this was a Saturday morning, rather than the traditionally quieter Friday morning). It was quite sad to come up from the Metro and see the roundabout in its original function; bare of any tented covering.
I noticed walking around the side streets near the square that a lot of the pavements need repairing - they must have been the ones pulled up during the Revolution to be smashed into rocks. There were t-shirt sellers still out and one friend bought some t-shirts for her family back home. I picked up a "calendar" of sorts that charts only the days of the revolution with photos and a few words.
The book fair was interesting. Apparently there were some talks on, but we just wandered around for 1 1/2 hours looking at the stalls of the different publishers and crafts there. I bought a fridge magnet in the style of a street sign saying Tahrir Square (20LE) and then some cartoon postcards of typical scenes in Cairo (2LE each). On to the books and I didn't buy any from the actualy publishers themselves - although I did look at their stalls - but instead we had a field day at the AUC Press Discount area. They had a whole table full of textbooks that were only 10LE, then the room was split in two with non-fiction being 3 for 100LE and fiction being 5 for 100LE. The multi-buy books were non-AUC Press books, but they did have some AUC Press books at 20% off in another area. I managed to limit myself to one small "text book" (that is actually a personal account of expat life in Cairo in the 1940's) and a set of five fiction (I originally picked up just three fiction as I got the bargain the wrong way around, but the teller corrected me!).
So, a good day.
Except then on the way home I got my camera out to take a few pictures of some revolution street art and managed to drop it right on the lens. It's well a truely broken which makes me very sad as the only reason it's destroyed is because o fmy clumsiness. Also it's less than 6 months old and takes brilliant pictures. Bad day. I won it in a competition and so can't be too upset. At home we look online and to buy the model brand new is less than I thought, and the next model up is just a fiver more. So I've ordered myself the model up and will try and sell this old one on ebay or see if it is possible to get it fixed when we get to the UK in the summer.
Good and bad together might be our Egypt Today magazine expereince. I was really excited, and blogged, when we recieved in January our first post to the apartment; our subscription to Egypt Today magazine. The next issue was obviously delayed in being published because of the revolution, but I did see it in the shops in mid-February and as we hadn't recieved our copy I bought one (not wanting to miss out on any revolution expereince!). I assumed that there had been a problem in distribution, which was quite understandable. When we didn't recieve our March edition though I was a little more worried. I managed to email ET and ask them what was happening. The reply I got was that they had been delivered, to a "Badry Mohamed" (our bowab). Erm - so why don't I have them? I've been wandering around for two weeks now with an old copy of ET in my bag just in case I bump into the bowab and can show him the magazine and ask him where the copies are (when I say "ask", I mean look at him and point to the magazine and say "fein?" (where?))
Today though, Badry came to collect his montly pay and I saw my chance. I came to the door with his 100LE (I think the real charge is just 35LE but we always pay more as we're happy to) and an old copy of ET. I pointed and he looked a little bemused but then said a few words and went away. I wasn't sure if I'd asked him if he had my copies, or maybe inadvertently asked him to go buy me a copy from the newsagents! 10 minutes later the bell goes and it's Badry's wife a toddler son. She has the two magazines that I'm missing - Good Day.
A final errand of the day sees me go to Road 233 to try and get a new battery for our Nokia visitor phone which has crashed out. The first place I head to has them - new, not reconditioned - and the price is about the same as on ebay, so job done. On my way back I pass a grocers and decide that I may as well pick up some more toms to make into pasata and bananas for snacks next week. "Wahed kilo mooz" I ask for, but it seems a huge number of bananas that are going in to my bag. I think he has mis-heard my arabic and I'm actually getting "Wahed kilo w' nos" Oh well!
Only a week until M&D get out here and then another week until we have Easter. We are very very much looking forward to the break. It's turned in to a really hard term since we came back at the end of February
I noticed walking around the side streets near the square that a lot of the pavements need repairing - they must have been the ones pulled up during the Revolution to be smashed into rocks. There were t-shirt sellers still out and one friend bought some t-shirts for her family back home. I picked up a "calendar" of sorts that charts only the days of the revolution with photos and a few words.
The book fair was interesting. Apparently there were some talks on, but we just wandered around for 1 1/2 hours looking at the stalls of the different publishers and crafts there. I bought a fridge magnet in the style of a street sign saying Tahrir Square (20LE) and then some cartoon postcards of typical scenes in Cairo (2LE each). On to the books and I didn't buy any from the actualy publishers themselves - although I did look at their stalls - but instead we had a field day at the AUC Press Discount area. They had a whole table full of textbooks that were only 10LE, then the room was split in two with non-fiction being 3 for 100LE and fiction being 5 for 100LE. The multi-buy books were non-AUC Press books, but they did have some AUC Press books at 20% off in another area. I managed to limit myself to one small "text book" (that is actually a personal account of expat life in Cairo in the 1940's) and a set of five fiction (I originally picked up just three fiction as I got the bargain the wrong way around, but the teller corrected me!).
So, a good day.
Except then on the way home I got my camera out to take a few pictures of some revolution street art and managed to drop it right on the lens. It's well a truely broken which makes me very sad as the only reason it's destroyed is because o fmy clumsiness. Also it's less than 6 months old and takes brilliant pictures. Bad day. I won it in a competition and so can't be too upset. At home we look online and to buy the model brand new is less than I thought, and the next model up is just a fiver more. So I've ordered myself the model up and will try and sell this old one on ebay or see if it is possible to get it fixed when we get to the UK in the summer.
Good and bad together might be our Egypt Today magazine expereince. I was really excited, and blogged, when we recieved in January our first post to the apartment; our subscription to Egypt Today magazine. The next issue was obviously delayed in being published because of the revolution, but I did see it in the shops in mid-February and as we hadn't recieved our copy I bought one (not wanting to miss out on any revolution expereince!). I assumed that there had been a problem in distribution, which was quite understandable. When we didn't recieve our March edition though I was a little more worried. I managed to email ET and ask them what was happening. The reply I got was that they had been delivered, to a "Badry Mohamed" (our bowab). Erm - so why don't I have them? I've been wandering around for two weeks now with an old copy of ET in my bag just in case I bump into the bowab and can show him the magazine and ask him where the copies are (when I say "ask", I mean look at him and point to the magazine and say "fein?" (where?))
Today though, Badry came to collect his montly pay and I saw my chance. I came to the door with his 100LE (I think the real charge is just 35LE but we always pay more as we're happy to) and an old copy of ET. I pointed and he looked a little bemused but then said a few words and went away. I wasn't sure if I'd asked him if he had my copies, or maybe inadvertently asked him to go buy me a copy from the newsagents! 10 minutes later the bell goes and it's Badry's wife a toddler son. She has the two magazines that I'm missing - Good Day.
A final errand of the day sees me go to Road 233 to try and get a new battery for our Nokia visitor phone which has crashed out. The first place I head to has them - new, not reconditioned - and the price is about the same as on ebay, so job done. On my way back I pass a grocers and decide that I may as well pick up some more toms to make into pasata and bananas for snacks next week. "Wahed kilo mooz" I ask for, but it seems a huge number of bananas that are going in to my bag. I think he has mis-heard my arabic and I'm actually getting "Wahed kilo w' nos" Oh well!
Only a week until M&D get out here and then another week until we have Easter. We are very very much looking forward to the break. It's turned in to a really hard term since we came back at the end of February
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