Just passing by

We went out yesterday to Dandy Mall, which turns out to be about a 45 minute drive when there's traffic on Faisal Street.  Which there was, both coming and going.

In any case, when you reach the end of Faisal street and make a right to head towards whatever other roads take you to the mall, you can see the pyramids of Giza off to the left and then behind you as you go.

Kind of strange.  We live so close to them, less than half an hour, perhaps 20 minutes or so by taxi with traffic, but we can't see them from our apartment and you'd never guess they were there and they're these piles of rock that people fly thousands of miles to see.

I snapped a couple of photos from the back seat of the taxi, and the pictures aren't so great, there are horizontal lines going across both photos from what I guess is defrost feature of the back window, and the window isn't extremely clean and there's trees and cars and buildings in the way, but still.

It's also strange when you see the pyramids in movies, they always make them seem like they are out in the middle of nowhere.  And they aren't.  Perhaps they are on the edge of the middle of nowhere, but they are quite surrounded at least halfway by a sprawling population.

Anyways, here's the couple of shots I managed to get.  Click pictures for a larger image.

As you will notice from the yellow bus on the left side, we are closer in this picture, and below you can see the bus is a bit further away as we're driving away from the pyramids.

There are quite a few hotels that line the road we're driving on above.  They stretch out along the road, catering to, I'm assuming, almost strictly folks who want to see the pyramids, as there's nothing else much out in that area.  Though actually they are building a new "city" of sorts, New Giza.  We live in Giza but I guess it will be "old" Giza after this is done.  lol
But even with the build of the new "city", I guess the area will still not hold much attraction for tourists.  The area we live in is just devoid of most of what they seem to want to see or of the creature comforts that most of them want.

But the area, much to my surprise, was quite lush.  At least driving down the roads we were on.  Not Faisal street, but once you get past the pyramids and start driving out where there's not much on one side except desert, and the other side is being built up with what they call villas here, which is just large houses.  Not so much villa how I would think of, like something on the Riviera (though I've never been there).  But some of the houses are indeed quite large.  I guess something in between a regular house and more of a mansion of sorts.

Why there are so many trees and plants and bushes on the edge of the desert I don't know.  Particularly because much of it looked like it consumed quite a bit of water instead of being desert friendly plants which would consume much less water.

I tried to take some pictures but driving in the car does not always make for great shots and you tend to miss a lot of what you want and my camera takes forever to be ready to take another picture after you take one.  I don't have the other pictures ready yet, so I'll post them next time I post.  They aren't that exciting, just shows along the road we were driving.

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I made basbousa, which is a cake like thing that is liberally doused with a sugar syrup after baking.  The cake is made with semolina instead of regular flour.  I didn't know what semolina was before baking this, but I looked it up and it seems that it's basically just a rougher version of flour.  The outside part of the grain if I remember correctly.  So it kind of looks like cornmeal.  And I guess it is interchangeable with cream of wheat?  Not sure if that's what cream of wheat is made from or not.

In any case, it was good and hubby is loving it.  I guess it's not something people make at home as much as buy in the bakery, so he was quite surprised that I made it, though it wasn't hard to make at all.  I'd have taken a picture but it's really plain to look it.

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We had a small dust storm the other day that lasted for about 24 hours.  I can tell when it starts getting too dusty because my eyes start to sting a bit.  Not pleasant.  Thankfully it didn't last too long.

We are due for some more hot temps in another day or so, so I'm debating on whether to clean the floors today or wait til after Tuesday, as the hotter the weather is the more the dust seems to kick up.

Decisions decisions!

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Ramadan, our month of fasting, is coming up in just over two months insha'Allah!  Hard to believe the year passes so quickly.  It should be starting somewhere around August 11th.

I'm excited that this will be hubby and my first Ramadan together in our own place, and I'm already looking at meal planning and what I can make in advance and freeze so that I don't need to spend as much time in the kitchen cooking during the hot days when I can't eat or drink.

Also thinking of ways to decorate the apartment.  Still have some time to figure all this out.

Chicken conspiracies

Well I realize it's been a week since I've written.   Sometimes I'm just too lazy to put words down, and other times I feel like there's nothing interesting to talk about.  Not sure if this trend will continue or not.  I always feel kind of guilty when I don't write for a few days.  Silly me!

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The weather has cooled down a little bit.  Mostly in the mid to upper 80's, which is a lot nicer than the upper 90's and mid 100's weather we were having. 

The a/c has been running quite a lot, which will bring the electric bill up.  However, last month our electric bill was 77 pounds.  I had to laugh about this.  The month before it was something like maybe 20 or 25 pounds, I can't remember exactly.  But 77 pounds equals about 15 dollars.  :D

I've heard that the more you use your electricity, that the price doesn't go up steadily, it kind of doubles and quadruples, so we shall see as summer wears on.

I also told hubby we should get a fan, since sometimes that is all that is needed, just to move the air around, as opposed to the a/c.  Cheaper to run, even if we have to spend 50 pounds (or however much they cost) to buy it.

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Generally when buying chicken, we buy frozen whole chickens.  The ones we buy generally weigh either a kilo or just over.  That always kind of cracks me up.  While I was growing up, the only thing we (I) heard kilo in reference to was drugs.  So thinking about the illegal chicken we're keeping in the freezer kinda gives me the giggles a little bit.

Anyways, there are two brands of chicken that we buy, but last week or the week before, they were out of those two brands and so hubby brought home a third brand.  No big deal I figure, they're all pretty much the same.

Except... this one still had it's neck bone attached.  GROSS!

Usually they take that bone out and the end is just kind of sealed up there, but for some reason this company leaves the bone there and man it was just too much.

I know that I'm eating an animal, but truth be told, the more it resembles an animal, the less I'm inclined to eat it. 

Sometimes I smile when I see the half a chicken frying in the pan because for some reason sometimes they look too much like a dancing chicken.  Except... you know.. dead and with no head and not resembling the cartoon that plays in my head of dancing chickens at all.

Last week when I decided to roast a chicken, I hadn't let it thaw out first but figured that it would be fine if I just let it cook a little bit longer.

It got to the point where it had been cooking for what I thought was long enough.  I took it out of the oven and it looked nice and roasted.  I pierced it with a fork and the juices ran clear.  Well, done I thought.

I turned the oven off and went to checking the rice and a couple of other things before I got around to putting the chicken on a plate so that I could cut it in half.

Which is when I noticed that although the outer layer was quite cooked, the inside was still quite uncooked!
Ooops!

And the oven was off, and since I have to pull out the oven tray to light the oven, and the oven was still quite hot, there was no way I was going to light it again, so I stuck the chicken in a pot with some water, oil and vinegar, added a little salt and pepper and let it cook that way til it was *finally* and for real done.

I think I learned a lesson.  We'll see.

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Went for a nice walk down Faisel street last night.  About 45 minutes of walk til we got to the restaurant we wanted to get food from.  Sat 20 minutes inside waiting for it to be done and then caught a taxi back home.

The restaurant, I can't remember if I've talked about it before, but it has the best chicken EVER!  For real.
And it's not a chain, just a stand alone place.

They actually have kind of barbecue pits but they're built into the wall so all you see is the opening.  The coals are underneath and the opening isn't all that big and mostly just looks like a rectangular black hole
But you can see the guy cooking from where we were sitting in the lobby, as it's just behind a glass barrier.

We got home and got the food out and I took a bite of my chicken and it's just like heaven.  I don't know what spices they use, but it is so good.  Not too spicy, slightly sweet, it's just perfect.

Hoping for another walk tonight but we'll see. 

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Trying to start making some plans towards coming to the States for a visit.  Looked online at ticket prices which are ridiculous, so will probably have to go through a travel agent, who will hopefully have some better deals.  $1300 bucks to fly Egypt Air (which sucks) isn't going to work for me.  At least for that price give me a decent airline.  lol

When I flew here a year ago it was through Delta but on Air France planes.  I've heard a lot of complaints about Air France but they were nicer than nice to me and the planes were just fine.

I'd love to fly first class sometime on a flight that long.  The problem with the 12 hour leg of the flight is that the seats are a bit cramped and you don't have that much leg room, even a shorter person like me, so while a couple hours flight isn't bad, 12 hours is just kind of miserable.

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Found the most ginormous daddy long legs in the bathroom the other day.  Scared the bejeepers outta me.  I took a picture because I couldn't believe how big it was and I figured I had to show hubby and I thought perhaps I could post it here, but honestly the picture is still sitting in my camera because really I don't want to look at that thing again.  lol

I left him be where he was, not sure what to do, and went about mopping the floors.  On one of my trips back into the bathroom, I noticed that he had disappeared, and upon looking for him found him hiding behind the toilet.  At which point I got the spray hose and hosed him down the floor drain which is right next to the toilet.  Phew, I was more than happy to have that thing out of sight!

There haven't been a lot of spiders here that I have seen.  Occasional roach which gets killed fairly promptly, and we've had some roly poly bugs which I find strange and which hubby is not acquainted with.  I tried to explain that when I was a kid and found them I would touch them and then they roll into a ball and then you can flick them and they roll all over the place.  I think he thought I was crazy.  lol
I guess kids do weird stuff.  :D

Pictures but....

.Pizza first, as it's on the table and hot.

Will update this post with pictures in a little while.

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Okay, pizza out of the way, dishes done and time to relax for a bit.  Sounds like most of my day actually.  lol

Well I finally decided that I only liked one of the pictures of me well enough to post it, but I didn't want to just post one picture, so there is another that has been sitting around waiting.  I took it back when we lived at the in-laws, and it's just some carrots sitting on the kitchen work table along with some herbs.  I didn't arrange the carrots, maybe my mother in law did or perhaps they just ended up like that, but I've always really liked this picture.

So, here is me, taken today.

And here are the carrots

Very exciting I know.  Try to control yourselves.

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We were supposed to go for a walk last night when it cooled down, but even at 10 p.m. or so it was still around 90 and with a warm wind and severe amounts of smoggy crap in the air, we decided to bail on the walk.

In any case, we also had plans to go for a walk this morning, down in Zamalek.  We were going to get up around 8:30 and try to be home by noon or so, because it was supposed to be 100 today.

Well, we both slept through the alarm so that put the kibosh on going out this morning.  Too hot during the day without having shade to walk in.

Currently, the plan is to go for a short walk tonight perhaps around the neighborhood.  Never can tell what will happen though.  lol

What's with the ginormous cans?

I finally opened up the can of pumpkin we bought several months ago and made some pumpkin bread tonight.  Tomorrow I will attempt some pumpkin cookies.  And then I will still have pumpkin left, because the only size can of pumpkin they have is the huge size, not the normal human size. 

Not sure what else I will make.  If I can find a pie tin and can be bothered to make crust, perhaps a pie, though I'm not sure I'll actually have enough pumpkin left for that.  Maybe some muffins that I can stick in the freezer.

What I noticed, is that along with the giant cans of pumpkin sold here, I can not find a can of pineapple that isn't also that ginormous size.  Who needs that much pineapple at once?  Really?

As much as I wouldn't mind having a nosh on some pineapple, I don't want THAT much you know?  So for now, I will just have to deal with the slight cravings I get whenever we're in the store and I see the canned pineapple.  lol

Wow, my life is so hard right?  :D

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Friday tomorrow, so a day off for hubby.  We don't have any plans as of yet.  Maybe we can go for a walk at least.  I don't think we're headed to the in-laws.

Oh.  But the temperature is supposed to be up around 100.  So maybe not going anywhere til it cools down a bit at night

The forecast for Sunday had been 111, but is now down to 104.  I know I should be thankful for that but really?

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I had the opportunity to use an expression tonight that I have never used before.  It's something that I heard my father use on occasion, and not something I thought I would ever actually say myself.  But I found the perfect situation for it.

Mind you, I can't actually tell you what it is as it's not exactly.... um... polite.  But it is funny.  And can be very appropriate.  

Anyways, I guess it's our duty as kids to pass on the sayings of our parents, or they will be lost with time.  So I'm just doing the future a favor right?

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Made meatballs a couple nights ago.  Wow the kitchen and apartment smelled SO GOOD!!  They were tasty as well, though unfortunately they irritated my throat quite a bit (acid reflux) and because I ate some hot dogs today and they are a bit spicy (cos really, you can barely buy meat here that isn't spiced) instead of getting better my throat got worse.

Not sure what part of the meatballs was hard for my throat.  Onion, garlic, worcestershire?  I generally don't have a problem with that stuff when it's cooked.  But there was quite a bit of worcestershire, more than I usually use in recipes, as I'm used to using just a few drops for flavoring.

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Someone requested a recent picture of me so hopefully I'll get some pictures taken soon and post them up.
I mean not just of me but other stuff too.  Not too many interesting things to take pictures of in the apartment and I'm mostly at home so that's why I don't have so many pictures to post all the time.

104, moms and walks

First of all happy mother's day to all the mom's out there, including all of mine.
=)

I hope you have an enjoyable day and feel appreciated for all that you have done.

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It's currently 104 degrees.  Wee bit on the warm side, though thankfully humidity is only at 8%, which is lower than normal.  There's a wind blowing though, and it's not a cool breeze by any means.  lol
I'm holed up in the bedroom with the a/c set at 26 Celsius, which is about 78 or 79 degrees Fahrenheit.  Which admittedly doesn't sound all that cool, but compared to 104 / 40 C, it's quite nice.

Should cool down a little bit after another day or so, but there's no doubt about it, summer has arrived.

*** edit, it's 20 minutes after I made the post today and it now says that it's 109 degrees.  Blech....

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I used Google Earth to make a route of the walk we took the other night.

Instead of going to the mall, we just waited til it wasn't quite so hot, around 9:45 p.m. (and actually, it was still pretty warm) and took a short taxi ride (few minutes) down to one of the bridges that goes over the Nile, then we walked for about 2 hours before taking a short taxi home again.

The walk itself was nice and there's always so much to see and I always want to remember everything to write about it but there's so much I can just never remember it all.

I feel like a kid in a huge toy store for the first time and there's so many places to look and you want to see it all but it's impossible to get it all in in one glance.

You can't walk down the sidewalks or streets without keeping at least one eye on where your feet are going because you will trip for sure.

Which leaves only one eye for taking everything in.

The area we were walking in is called Maniel.  It runs along the Nile for a ways.  It's an older area, but it seemed nice enough, though of course it was dark out and hard to see exactly.

There has yet to be an area of Cairo that I have been to where I didn't see some crumbling buildings and piles of dirt/brick.  Litter everywhere and always there are the people who you can see are just beyond poor.  They have some kind of built up grime that not even a shower will take off.  It's something inside of them.  It's sad but what can you do?  You can see some of these people and families will never break out of the cycle of poverty.

And of course, for anyone who has visited here or moved here that is Muslim, there is always the shock that not everyone is adhering to Islamic principles, whether it's in manner of clothing or actions towards others or other things.

Walking down the street, anywhere in Cairo, I will see girls that cover their hair, yet they are wearing clothes that are so tight that there is nothing to be imagined.  This really just kills me.  I'd rather they not cover their hair and wear some looser clothing.  There is nothing I can do about it, I surely can't go up to them and tell them that they might as well be naked for all that they are wearing.  But I wish I could!  Women need to have more self respect than that.

Anyways, it is one of the things that I think is ... well, I won't call it the biggest disappointment about living here, I'm not sure I could qualify that, but it is disappointing.  That this country which is populated with something like 90% Muslims, is so un-Islamic in so many ways.

So many people are Muslim in name only.  You actually have to list your religion on your ID card here, and your only choices are Muslim, Christian or Jewish.  You are not allowed to put anything else and you can't put nothing.  So people have to put something down.  Which of course doesn't mean they adhere to or follow the principles of their named faith.

I couldn't guess at the percent of people actually at least trying to follow their religion faithfully here, but it's not as high as people would guess, people who have never been here and seen how life really is.

Anyways, all that is a bit of a digression from me posting the image I did of our walk.  I'm posting one that is a little further out and one that is tiny bit closer up.  I wish I could zoom in more so you could get more detail, but it was such a long walk that if I zoom in any closer for detail you can't see the whole path.  lol

I outlined it in green, and there are several pins pointing to where we started, where we stopped, and pin 2 and pin 3 are just to guide you along the path.

I don't know how many miles it was, but it was more than I'm accustomed to walking.  I was pooped by the time we got home.

If the path direction isn't clear, let me know and I'll explain it a bit more.

This is the closer up version.  Click on it for a larger view.

And this is the further out version.  Again, click on it for a larger view.

Howdy doody time!

You know, I get songs stuck in my head all the time.  Most of the time when it happens, I get the music without the lyrics because I've either forgotten the lyrics or never knew them properly.

Such is the case at the moment with the song for the Howdy Doody show, which I barely remember seeing.

I get all kinds of songs stuck, quite often television themes, though not always.  A couple of months ago I had the theme from I Dream of Genie stuck in my head for over a week.  A WEEK!!!  lol

I tried to do some research online about why people get songs stuck in their head but I didn't find any satisfactory answers.

Sometimes I keep it in my head, sometimes I hum whatever song it is and sometimes I sing it.  Not sure how hubby feels about it but he hasn't complained yet, poor guy.  lol

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The time moved forward here last Thursday.  I forgot to mention it was going to change in the last post I made.  It's a bit disconcerting to have the time change on a different date than other places.  Even the UK changes on a different date than us and different to the States.  As long as they're going to keep this time change malarky, I wish they could at least make all the countries change on the same day.

I enjoy having light later in the evening though.  I won't complain about that.

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Might take a trip out tomorrow and go to a mall and one of the major grocery stores.  It's been a long while since we've been.

It is, however, supposed to be around 102 degrees tomorrow.  Saturday is no better at 105 degrees and Sunday at 104.  I guess summer has finally arrived.

Anyways, looking forward to a grand day out insha'Allah.  Will try to take some pictures if we go.

Field Trip

Well, I've not been ignoring the blog, just being a little lazy.  Plus, nothing much exciting going on.  And still didn't decide about the logging in thing.  lol

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We went to the in-laws yesterday for lunch and had a nice walk around afterward.  We picked up some more cocoa since we were out of it and hubby wants more brownies, and also picked up some more cheddar cheese, imported from Ireland.  Good stuff.
It's a shame that these items are so expensive.  I don't think they cost that much to import, but I think that the stores think they can price gouge people coming from other countries, and since they get away with it, I guess it's true.

:::

Going to attempt some stuffed mushrooms in the next couple of days.  When hubby said he wanted some I thought I'd just look up some recipes online and pick some that sounded good and mix/match.

However, it turns out he had a specific recipe in mind, something he ate at a restaurant once while in Kuwait I believe, and not something I've really heard of, which was mushrooms stuffed with cheese and oil and butter.  Without knowing what kind of cheese and how much oil and butter I'm not sure I can pull it off.

I found recipes that call for cream cheese but I don't think that's what was used.  I'm thinking of trying romano or something like that, as I'm not sure a cheddar would work?  Perhaps it would though, maybe I'll try a half with each.

Anyways, adventures with fungi coming soon!