Thanksgiving Weekend
Like I mentioned in my previous post, things have been a little crazy lately. This past weekend was no different. It all started last Wednesday as I headed to Cairo – gotta love working for an American company that understands the importance of not working on turkey day :)
Wednesday was Nisrin’s “surprise” bday party so I left work early to be there. May and I finished up some errands for the party after she picked me up from the train station. It was held at the Nile Hilton. It was a really chill place. Kicked it there for about four or five hours and had an intriguing conversation with Kent about the differences between a sweet potato and a yam. After we left there we headed to Abu Rami’s and got some chicken shawarma – btw if you’re in Cairo and you haven’t been here, you gotta go; it’s the best shawarma place.
After eating we headed to a café to chill some more. And that’s when Nisrin got her surprise. After a lot of conniving, May surprised Nisrin and picked up our friend Sarah S. from the airport and brought her to us. Nisrin, Sarah and I all went to Miami together and it had been a while since we’d seen each other. I have to say that from the look on Nisrin face, she was totally shocked. Now it’s about 4 in the morning and May is trying to get us all to stay up and watch the sunrise – thankfully we got out of it ‘cause everyone else was sooo tired. I was so exhausted that when we went and took Sarah to her hotel, I ended up sleeping there. Never get into a bed when you’re extremely tired and expect to actually get out of it before you catch some Zs!
The next morning Megan, Nisrin, Sarah and I got some breakfast from GAD – mmm…more chicken shawarma and fatire :) Afterwards we headed downtown and walked around for a few hours. It was pretty cool because I got to see more of Cairo. After getting some sweet potatoes off the street – over priced btw – and finding a taxi after about twenty minutes of trying, we headed back to Dokki to start working on Thanksgiving dinner.
Dinner was really good. It was a pretty nice size group of people – Sarah F., Angela, Megan, Nisrin, Sarah S., Kent, Tom, Simon, myself and a few other people. When I first realized that I wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought it was going to be so difficult to be away from my family. But it really wasn’t that bad. I was with another family that I belong to and had the opportunity to share the day with them. It didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving to me until I got a phone call from my mom while I cooking some sweet potatoes. Apparently a lot of people back home think I’m never coming home – no worries I’ll be back soon!
Later I headed to a BBQ where another group of friends were hanging out. I’m happy I went ‘cause I was able to chill with some people I hadn’t seen in awhile. Rhea, for example, I hadn’t seen her in almost a month :( Harrison, Githanjali, Mustafa, Farzina, Miguel, Salman, Percy, Nader, Mazhar and more were all in attendance. It was cool to sit and talk with Nader and Mazhar for a while, something else I hadn’t done in a while, even tho’ I was totally freezing outside on the balcony!
Got home around 4am and crashed. Woke up to my cell phone ringing around 10am. I went looking at an apartment when I finally got the strength to get outta bed. After departing from Megan, Tom and Simon after looking at an apartment, I met up with Nisrin and Sarah as we searched the streets of Cairo for a duty free shop – much love to people who fly into Egypt! Later we meet back up with Tom and headed to Al-Azhar Park to see the sun set. Because of all the wonderful pollution Cairo has, all we saw was clouds with a bright light shining through. The Call to Prayer was cool to hear there as well.
We left the park and went to Khan el-Khalili (a market place). We stopped and grab some food. It was pretty descent kofta, grilled chicken and mac -n- cheese. We wondered about the bizarre and then sat down at the Egyptian Pancake House. OMG, the place has the best fateer. We split one that had bananas in it. Amazing. Dang, now I’m hungry lol.
Later Nisrin, Sarah and I ended up in Sarah’s hotel room pre-gaming for a night of clubbin’. It was really good to be able to chat with a group of girls like back at home. We ended up at this club called Space which was totally dead – Bling Bling was having a private party, so we couldn’t go there. We went in anyways and had a great time. It was techno night and I quickly needed to hear some hip-hop. Thankfully, the rest of the group agreed. After a lot of discussion and getting the manager involved, we got our hip-hop :) The club was mad far. It was about a fifteen pound ride and thankfully it wasn’t too bad getting a taxi back to Garden City and Dokki at 3:30am.
I quickly passed out when we got back to the hotel room – we knew trying to climb six flights of stairs wasn’t an option. The next day (Saturday) came all too quickly. Nisrin, Sarah and I went to Maison Thomas for breakfast and had some really good Mexican pizza. Sarah headed to the museum and Nis and I went on a mission to find a turkey. We did find one, but unfortunately when we got back to Nis’ the bird wouldn’t fit in the oven. Purvi to the rescue, ‘cause she let us come over and cook at her place. (There was a lot of rescuing going on the weekend, sah?!) Dinner was supposed to be served at 7pm, but the bird didn’t even get into the over til 6pm, so….Sarah, Nisrin, Kenny, Purvi, May, Luli and I chilled at Purvi’s til the bird was done – 10pm. Between this time, I left Zamalek and went back to Dokki to check out another apartment with Farzina. Unfortunately we missed the girls who already live there so I wasn’t able to see the place :(
Got back to Zamalek about thirty minutes before the bird was done. We all piled up and headed to Heliopolis for a Saturday Thanksgiving dinner. We had dinner at Nora’s. The place was amazing. We ate with formal dinning ware and everything – I can’t remember the last time I used a gravy bowl lol. It was a really delicious meal, even tho’ we didn’t eat til midnight.
Left Heliopolis and got back to Nis/Luli’s around 2am – early right? Not when you have a 6am train back to Alex :-O And of course I missed it. I was supposed to wake up Badr and he ended up calling and waking me up. After rushing to the train station – and happy the taxi driver knew what I was saying when I asked to be taken to Mahatat Atr – I missed the train and had to wait 2 hours til the next Turbini left – I have a feeling that they wouldn’t let me take any other kind of train b/c I’m a foreigner.
The minute I sat on the train, I fell asleep. I was straight comatose. Got to Alex around 10:30am. Went outside the train station to find some type of Egyptian Guards holding up traffic and then had to bargain with a taxi driving to get home – the driver was clearing trippin’ if he thought I was about to pay 10 pounds to get home; I was nice by giving him 5! After he tried to take me to Ibrahimeya instead of Camp Shezar about 4 times, I got home, hoped into the shower and rushed to work.
Now I’m stuck with the daunting task of moving to Cairo and finishing up some business in Alex. I don’t really see any of the “calm” days in the near future. I’m having a blast tho’.
Wednesday was Nisrin’s “surprise” bday party so I left work early to be there. May and I finished up some errands for the party after she picked me up from the train station. It was held at the Nile Hilton. It was a really chill place. Kicked it there for about four or five hours and had an intriguing conversation with Kent about the differences between a sweet potato and a yam. After we left there we headed to Abu Rami’s and got some chicken shawarma – btw if you’re in Cairo and you haven’t been here, you gotta go; it’s the best shawarma place.
After eating we headed to a café to chill some more. And that’s when Nisrin got her surprise. After a lot of conniving, May surprised Nisrin and picked up our friend Sarah S. from the airport and brought her to us. Nisrin, Sarah and I all went to Miami together and it had been a while since we’d seen each other. I have to say that from the look on Nisrin face, she was totally shocked. Now it’s about 4 in the morning and May is trying to get us all to stay up and watch the sunrise – thankfully we got out of it ‘cause everyone else was sooo tired. I was so exhausted that when we went and took Sarah to her hotel, I ended up sleeping there. Never get into a bed when you’re extremely tired and expect to actually get out of it before you catch some Zs!
The next morning Megan, Nisrin, Sarah and I got some breakfast from GAD – mmm…more chicken shawarma and fatire :) Afterwards we headed downtown and walked around for a few hours. It was pretty cool because I got to see more of Cairo. After getting some sweet potatoes off the street – over priced btw – and finding a taxi after about twenty minutes of trying, we headed back to Dokki to start working on Thanksgiving dinner.
Dinner was really good. It was a pretty nice size group of people – Sarah F., Angela, Megan, Nisrin, Sarah S., Kent, Tom, Simon, myself and a few other people. When I first realized that I wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought it was going to be so difficult to be away from my family. But it really wasn’t that bad. I was with another family that I belong to and had the opportunity to share the day with them. It didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving to me until I got a phone call from my mom while I cooking some sweet potatoes. Apparently a lot of people back home think I’m never coming home – no worries I’ll be back soon!
Later I headed to a BBQ where another group of friends were hanging out. I’m happy I went ‘cause I was able to chill with some people I hadn’t seen in awhile. Rhea, for example, I hadn’t seen her in almost a month :( Harrison, Githanjali, Mustafa, Farzina, Miguel, Salman, Percy, Nader, Mazhar and more were all in attendance. It was cool to sit and talk with Nader and Mazhar for a while, something else I hadn’t done in a while, even tho’ I was totally freezing outside on the balcony!
Got home around 4am and crashed. Woke up to my cell phone ringing around 10am. I went looking at an apartment when I finally got the strength to get outta bed. After departing from Megan, Tom and Simon after looking at an apartment, I met up with Nisrin and Sarah as we searched the streets of Cairo for a duty free shop – much love to people who fly into Egypt! Later we meet back up with Tom and headed to Al-Azhar Park to see the sun set. Because of all the wonderful pollution Cairo has, all we saw was clouds with a bright light shining through. The Call to Prayer was cool to hear there as well.
We left the park and went to Khan el-Khalili (a market place). We stopped and grab some food. It was pretty descent kofta, grilled chicken and mac -n- cheese. We wondered about the bizarre and then sat down at the Egyptian Pancake House. OMG, the place has the best fateer. We split one that had bananas in it. Amazing. Dang, now I’m hungry lol.
Later Nisrin, Sarah and I ended up in Sarah’s hotel room pre-gaming for a night of clubbin’. It was really good to be able to chat with a group of girls like back at home. We ended up at this club called Space which was totally dead – Bling Bling was having a private party, so we couldn’t go there. We went in anyways and had a great time. It was techno night and I quickly needed to hear some hip-hop. Thankfully, the rest of the group agreed. After a lot of discussion and getting the manager involved, we got our hip-hop :) The club was mad far. It was about a fifteen pound ride and thankfully it wasn’t too bad getting a taxi back to Garden City and Dokki at 3:30am.
I quickly passed out when we got back to the hotel room – we knew trying to climb six flights of stairs wasn’t an option. The next day (Saturday) came all too quickly. Nisrin, Sarah and I went to Maison Thomas for breakfast and had some really good Mexican pizza. Sarah headed to the museum and Nis and I went on a mission to find a turkey. We did find one, but unfortunately when we got back to Nis’ the bird wouldn’t fit in the oven. Purvi to the rescue, ‘cause she let us come over and cook at her place. (There was a lot of rescuing going on the weekend, sah?!) Dinner was supposed to be served at 7pm, but the bird didn’t even get into the over til 6pm, so….Sarah, Nisrin, Kenny, Purvi, May, Luli and I chilled at Purvi’s til the bird was done – 10pm. Between this time, I left Zamalek and went back to Dokki to check out another apartment with Farzina. Unfortunately we missed the girls who already live there so I wasn’t able to see the place :(
Got back to Zamalek about thirty minutes before the bird was done. We all piled up and headed to Heliopolis for a Saturday Thanksgiving dinner. We had dinner at Nora’s. The place was amazing. We ate with formal dinning ware and everything – I can’t remember the last time I used a gravy bowl lol. It was a really delicious meal, even tho’ we didn’t eat til midnight.
Left Heliopolis and got back to Nis/Luli’s around 2am – early right? Not when you have a 6am train back to Alex :-O And of course I missed it. I was supposed to wake up Badr and he ended up calling and waking me up. After rushing to the train station – and happy the taxi driver knew what I was saying when I asked to be taken to Mahatat Atr – I missed the train and had to wait 2 hours til the next Turbini left – I have a feeling that they wouldn’t let me take any other kind of train b/c I’m a foreigner.
The minute I sat on the train, I fell asleep. I was straight comatose. Got to Alex around 10:30am. Went outside the train station to find some type of Egyptian Guards holding up traffic and then had to bargain with a taxi driving to get home – the driver was clearing trippin’ if he thought I was about to pay 10 pounds to get home; I was nice by giving him 5! After he tried to take me to Ibrahimeya instead of Camp Shezar about 4 times, I got home, hoped into the shower and rushed to work.
Now I’m stuck with the daunting task of moving to Cairo and finishing up some business in Alex. I don’t really see any of the “calm” days in the near future. I’m having a blast tho’.
posted by Nay-Nay at 5:14 AM
2 Comments:
I'm going to dedicate my life trying to prove that a yam and a sweet potato are in fact different.
I wonder if anyone will pay me to do that...
Ok, so there is in fact a difference between the two. However, not the difference that I was expecting or supporting.
I guess yams really aren't that sweet, nor moist. They come mainly from Africa and can get as big as 130 lbs.
Sweet potatoes come in different shades of orange/yellow (hence my confusion), but are found much more commonly in the US.
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