What would you dooo-ooouuooo!

So, it seems that Fall has been teasing us for a while here, coming and going as it pleases.  I'd appreciate it so much more if it would just stay for a while, until Winter lets say.  The temperature at the moment is 104 degrees!

I know that even in November we could get an occasional day of 90's, but 104 in mid October?  Bleeehhhhh.....

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We have a game here at the apartment that we play.  I'll call it "What's That Noise?".

As it so happens, Cairo is a city that is chock a block full of more noises than you could possibly imagine.  Hence the title of our game.  Sometimes I think we can guess fairly well, and other times we are both left wondering.

There are often sounds which resemble a gunshot, but which could be a car back firing.  And really, it could be either.

Quite often we hear loud bangs, as if someone has dropped a load of something heavy from a tall building onto the street.  This is also quite possible but hard to verify unless it's happening within sight, which isn't likely.

There is one sound in particular which I hear, though hubby doesn't usually hear it as it seems to be more of a daytime sound.  It's reminiscent of something you might hear at a fair.  Kind of a squeaky horn type of deal.  Or a badly tuned violin.  The thing is, sometimes I hear it from further away, and sometimes it sounds very close.  So it's apparently a mobile sound.  But it's not the kind of thing you'd think would be a car horn, it's not loud and insistent enough to perform a horn's intended purpose.  And it seems too loud and unlikely to be a bicycle horn.  So this one is really a mystery.

We hear a lot of yelling.  Sometimes from actual fights and sometimes people just talking over a longer distance.  There is also a couple of periods during the day when kids get out of school (they have staggered start times so they get out a couple times a day) and they are very loud in the street.  I wouldn't call it yelling so much but perhaps shouting.  There's a difference ya know!

We hear so many noises that I can't begin to describe.  It's kind of amusing.  Because if we don't let it amuse us, it will drive us crazy.

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In a slightly related issue, we also have a "game" called, "What's That Smell??".  This one is usually food related and so mostly enjoyable, but occasionally it is not food related and then it becomes quite less enjoyable. 

The bad smells are usually coming from the kitchen drain.  I don't know what people use in there but the variety of bad smells is truly amazing at times.  It was actually fine for a while but recently I've taken to having to keep the plug in the drain so the smell doesn't permeate the entire kitchen and outwards.

We have a neighbor somewhere nearby that likes to cook up seemingly large batches of garlic at odd hours.  We keep pretty late hours, so we are often up at 3 or 4 and we can smell the garlic as if we were standing in a field of it.  It's just crazy.  And this is with windows closed mind you.

I love the smell of garlic but sometimes it's a little much.  The eyes water and I get a little sneezy.

I think the most fun is when I can smell something familiar cooking and I can't quite place it, so I kind of walk around doing whatever, sniffing every so often trying to figure out what it is.  Sometimes I can catch part of what it is but am left wondering at other parts.  Or I know that I've smelled it before, say at the in-laws, but don't know what it is.

And then there is the ever present smell of exhaust/bbq/smog.  I know I've talked about it before.  To me, if I was asked to pick one smell that represented this city, that would be it.  And I have to say it's not all together a bad smell.  I mean, it's not like having a bowl or roses on the table, but it's not stinky.  Just a smell.  The smell of home.

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We recently saw the movie Cairo Time, and I have to say, although the story was a bit slow, and that might be an understatement, the scenes from Cairo are amazingly real.  Of course, they shot the movie here so it should seem real, but sometimes even when shooting a movie they can make it seem like something that it isn't.  This film really gave a pretty good look at some ordinary life here.  I'd say it's well worth a look if you're interested in seeing what daily life looks like here.

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The breast cancer walk is coming up this Saturday but I'm not sure if we're going to make it or not.  We had wanted to go, or rather I had wanted to go, but sometimes things just don't pan out.  I'm trying to remain positive but I just have a feeling we're going to miss this one. 

We did talk about going to City Stars on Thursday though, which would be nice.  It's the 5 story mall here that is actually one of the largest malls in the Middle East?  It's certainly the largest mall in Egypt.  It's quite huge.  It might even be more than 5 stories, I can't remember.

But we thought we could walk around and maybe catch a film in the theater there.  We tried to find the theater last time we were there but I think it's located in a slightly separate area than the mall itself and we weren't able to locate it.

And I've only been there once.  And all we kind of did was take 5 hours to walk around the whole place, without actually really getting to look at too much in the stores themselves.

Sooo... not sure what the rest of the week will bring but hopefully we'll get out one way or another.

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Hopefully some good news coming regarding my mostly broken computer.  It's at the HP certified repair/sales place right now.  They said to call Thursday and they would let us know what was wrong.

We think it's a power issue, as it seems to be dying all the time.  But weather it's the battery or the power cord, or possibly both, or something else all together we don't know.

We are hoping for an inexpensive fix, at which point we will fix it and sell it and get something better insha'Allah.

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Here's hoping for some cooler weather!