Looking for Food

So one of the goals everyone seems to have is to go as long as possible without eating American food. Pizza Hut, Hardee's, KFC, and Cinnabon are pretty prevalent here. Every night so far we have wandered about looking for hole-in-the-wall restaurants or anything really that looks interesting. Besides allowing us to continue our Egyptan-only food kick, it also gives us a chance to practice our Arabic. As it turns out, the Arabic we learn in school, Modern Standard Arabic, isn't really spoken anywhere except for important government business. It's much like learning to speak Latin and trying to get around Italy, or learning to speak Elizabethan English and trying to get around Mobile, Alabama. So basically when I first got here, not only had I been out of Arabic practice since last semester ended, but what little I did remember was fairly useless. After three days of survival Arabic, where we practice the local Egyptian dialect for three hours a day, its gotten easier to make simple conversation with street vendors. It's always a rush attempting to speak only Arabic when ordering food and it's always exciting when the vendor hears you and continues with your order without looking at you twice.

Last night we took a walk over to Downtown Cairo, where the Rameses Hilton and the Sheradon are located. It also has the famous Tahrir Square. This required crossing over bridge from the island of Zamalek into central Cairo. As I've mentioned earlier, the traffic is insane compared to American standards. There's a whole language of beeping horns and flashing lights that allows traffic and pedestrians to communicate. Lanes mostly aren't used and cars go wherever there's space. The bridge we took, the 26th of July bridge, is very busy and sidewalks are non-existent on the on-ramps for the bridge. Once we crossed, we had to "frogger" our way across a main road as packed as a rush hour highway with cars going about 40-50 mph. Crossing the street is an adventure in itself.

On a corner somwhere over in Downtown we asked a guy for directions to a restaurant. He knew English fairly well and said he had lived in the States for a while. He gave Jim some advice about speaking 'ameea (the Egyptian dialect) and led us to a restaurant. We decided it was too expensive (even though it was a deal in American dollars) and continued our search on our own. They guy seemed genuine but its hard not to be cynical in your approach to people being overly helpful to Americans; plus Jim thought he might have been chewing cod.

On the 26th of July bridge

We eventually found a great sit-down restaurant (I forget the name) with good deals. The seven of us got food for the equivalent of 25 USD total. The majority of us ordered kosherie, a kind of pasta-ish dish which Egypt is famous for. It's baked with tomato sauce on top with noodles, rice, onions, and some other carb-ish and fiber-ish things on the inside. The others had kofta, which is spiced, grilled meat, usually either lamb or beef. Breakfast and lunch usually consist of tamayya or fool sandwiches. Tamayya is the same as fewalfel, and fool is like refried flava beans. They are served on the inside of a split grilled pita.

After dinner we sometimes stop by Versaille Palace, a fairly upscale place where people order drinks, shisha, and play backgammon. Stella (unaffilitated with Stella-Artois) is Egypt's native beer and isn't too bad. Other than that alcohol is pretty scarce except around areas that might cater to Westerners or Western liftstyles. The Palace has good "cocktails," which are similar to fruit smoothies, are flavored with things like hazelnut syrup, and are non-alcoholic.

School starts February 1st, so its good to get out and walk around before we have any work to do. I'm sure it won't be long before we eventually break down and pick up some American fast food, but searching for food is a good way to practic Arabic, immerse ourselves in Cairo's culture, and explore the surrouding areas.