Cake!

Egyptian people really do have a sweet tooth. In the Grand Mall there are 3 patisseries, one of which (Le Gourmet) we decided to check out for some dessert. They have an enormous display of all types of sweet and sticky cakes, biscuits and things in-between. You can buy individual slices - although they have a tendency to laugh if you only want a couple. The best way to buy cakes, therefore, is to buy the whole thing. They have a number of fridges containing revolving cake stands, and so we decided to buy this amazing chocolate creation. Lovely!

A favourite smell in Cairo

After all those new purchases (and a can of Pocari Sweat) I was really in the mood to make the house and home. One thing we'd said we wanted to buy was a laundry basket. In the UK we had an Ikea-special, but as a basket-man has a stall opposite our apartment block I really wanted to buy a nice wicker one here.

So we took a wander over and decided on a nice tall basket for laundry. When we asked the price, he pointed back to the cart and said "how many?" wanting us to buy more before we settled on a price. There were lots of different designs, but I thought a small bowl-shaped one would do for fruit and he dug around to find us some of those. We decided on two of them and asked again how much for the lot. LE65 for the large basket and the two small ones for LE35 I then asked if this was the bess price and he lowered the small one to LE25 for the two. LE90 for the lot wasn't too bad to be honest, but then he threw in a larger bowl and said LE100.

So here is a picture of our purchases!
And now I'm becoming addicted to sniffing the baskets, as they smell so good! mmmmm wicker!

We will come again - insh'Allah!

This afternoon we again ventured across the tracks from Road 9 in search of the fabled linen shop. We're still not convinced that we found it, but certainly found a fabric shop where we bought 440LE of stuff. The guys in the shop really did seem like we'd made their day. Three separate people were showing us towels, sheets, and bedding. They were reaching them out of bags to show us, cooing over their softness, raiding the back of cupboards for different colours.

One of them shook me firmly by the hand, wished us "welcome to Egypt" (comically always pronounced as "welcome t'Egypt" as if they've been watching a Peter Kay stand-up routine) and checked I was strong enough to carry all the bags home again. He also whispered to me that Alice was "very beautiful"...was she already my wife? Sadly for him, I showed my wedding ring. "Very beautiful," he repeated. "You must be strong for beautiful wife!"

The shop also had loads of shirts (a fraction of the price of elsewhere, assuming that these too are 100% cotton or linen mix) and sold hundreds of colours of suit fabric. When things are a bit cooler I may go back with some pigeon Arabic to see if I can find out if they know a seamstress who could make me a suit. I said that we'd just take what we had for the time being, but that we would come back. "Insh'Allah!" laughed the main chap who was serving us. Although strictly translated as "If God wills it," the phrase is most regularly used to mean simply "hopefully!" I'm sure we will go back sometime - the things they had really were quite lovely. We bought a couple of throws for the bed/seats in the back room, sheets for the bed, and some towels. We reckon it was all reasonably priced, too.

On our way back we called in at Metro (a Budgens-style supermarket) to pick up some of their renowned fruit juice. And, as if things couldn't get any better, we found a street kiosk that sold sachets of Nescafe 3-in-1.

It's coffee, creamer and sugar all in one! A true miracle of the modern age!

Iftar at Hussein Mosque and Kahn El-Khalili

This evening we were invited by some friends to visit the square outside the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Hussein at sunset to witness Iftar. We arrived at about 5.30pm to take in the build-up to sunset (including the continuous stream of bread deliveries), and as the call from the Mosque went out just after 6pm were there to see everyone breaking their fast.

We then took a walk around the streets and alleyways of Khan El-Khalili after dark, stopping at the legendary Fishawi coffee shop. According to local lore, it has been open continuously (as in 24/7) for the last 240 years without every closing its doors. This may explain the constant stream of people moving through - both as customers and hawkers bent on selling their souvenirs and henna tattoo designs to the ever-present tourists. Locals do, however, frequent the coffee shop for a drink or a shisha and it was interesting to note that they were in the significant minority when we first arrived as they were still breaking their fast. Soon, however, the place really began to fill up.

We wandered some more streets for a while, but later took a taxi back to the nearby metro station which returned us to Maadi. All in all, a thorough assault on the senses, alngside great company.

UKNova Radio: Our first show from Cairo

Tonight we broadcast our first internet radio show from Cairo. Despite the problems we've experienced with Skype, the radio held up pretty well and only dropped out once. Right-click the link below and select "Save target as..." to download the 2 hour show (55MB) to your PC.

Download podcast here.

Alternatively, stay on this website and listen to the show in the MP3 player below:

www.otlob.com

It calls itself a "free online food ordering service" so we decided we'd try ordering some food online for free. We paid for the food, obviously, but not for the ordering service. Hooray!

We can guarantee that this was totally unscripted...we didn't know they'd call!

You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight, Baby!

We've had a bit of a nostalgia-fest this weekend (if indeed it's possible to get nostalgic over something that only happened 7 weeks ago), but here's another video from the wedding courtesy of Jan: Soul Calibre, with yours truly on guitar and vocals, performing "You and Me and the Bottle Makes Three Tonight, Baby!" by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.