Mom and Aunt Debby, Arrive in Egypt

I'm so impressed with these two. They survived a full day of travel to get to me, and then once here they remained open minded and full of curiosity. It's so much to digest in a few days, but they were pros by the end. I knew they had crossed over to comfortable when they knew the money well enough to be outraged by a 12 LE candy bar... or when making it both in and OUT of the subway turnstile.

I can't believe how much we crammed into each day, without feeling like we were cramming a thing (well, maybe once or twice). So I'll start from the beginning.

DAY ONE --
By the time they got through customs, passport control and waited on their no-show luggage, it was 1:30 pm. And because their checked bags were delayed indefinitely, shopping for clothes, rather than a relaxing felucca sail along the Nile, was the first order of business. We piled into my friend Mohamed's taxi and Aunt Debby jokingly asked, "What, you ain't got a Wal-Mart here?" and Mohamed replied, "No, The Grand Mall." But Debby, having a hard time with his Egyptian accent and with all the background noise of the street, clarifies at full volume, "What? The store is called "The Granma's?"

Oh my!!! I don't think I've laughed that hard since I arrived in Egypt!! "the grand mall"... "the grandma's"... And because my Mom couldn't hear from the backseat, I repeated it for her and we started laughing all over again!!! I think the fact that Mohamed found it funny made it even better.

So, they found clothes and headed back to my apartment, on busy Road 9. My plan was to show them a bit of the neighborhood while walking to exchange their dollars into egyptian pounds. Look at the photo above, not even 10 minutes after leaving my apt, and they already have purchases dangling from their arms. :) In their defense, this friendly gentleman and his tidy shop were hard to resist. And the prices are so reasonable in Egypt, everything seems like a bargain.


Here we are posing on my smoggy balcony. The view usually clears up by late afternoon when all the polution dissapates. Then later, it builds again from the downtown rush-hour, starting the whole smelly mess over again.


After the money exchange, we walked to Abu Said's, an upscale egyptian restaurant. We sat outside, enjoying the delicious food and the occasional wiff of strawberry-scented, second-hand shisha smoke. Shisha pipes are similar to hooka pipes, and very popular here. I often see groups of men gathered near the side of the street, having tea and shisha late into the night, sometimes gathered around a small TV or radio, cheering over a soccer match.

Just the little bit of walking around Road 9 and shopping at "Grandma's" gave them a pretty good idea of Egyptian culture and prepared them for the next few days.

We had a fantastically fun five day holiday!
Thanks for coming ladies!