nrrraaarrr!

Max has the awe-inspiring capability of transforming himself into a velociraptor. Scary!

meh

I went to the catacombs below Paris when I was there in April. Walls and walls of skulls and bones. Creepy, eh?

In other news, my head still hurts.

i feel gross

Like I've mentioned before, pollution is terrible in Cairo this time of year and its really getting to me now. I've been having a constant sinus headache and generally feeling awful. I should probably irrigate my sinuses, but I don't really like putting things up my nose. Ah well.

pepper paper peepers

I roasted some peppers last night. Mmm mm.

A restaurant we went to in Alexandria misspelled "peppers" as both "papers" and "peepers" in the same menu, hence the title for today's post... as well as the inspiration to roast some pepper... paper peepers.

saving myself from emphysema

Ben, Max and I went up to Alexandria for the weekend. We basically sat around and ate and read and breathed in the fresh, unpolluted air. It was fantastic. Apparently, Cairo is the 2nd most polluted city in the world after Delhi, and the average Cairene ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day. Yum.

you can't wish for more wishes

Another picture from the desert, this time of an oasis in Baharia, with hot springs and everything. Also where Genie helped Aladdin escape to after being trapped by Jaffar in the cave where he found the lamp. For real.

squishy and fleshy

I stepped on a dead cat today.

I was walking home from work around 7pm and when I turned onto my street, I stepped down from the curb and my foot encountered something squishy and fleshy. I stumbled a little and almost took a spill, and for the split second while it was still a possibility that I'd fall on my face, I thought that I'd stepped on a human body part, perhaps a thigh or kidney. I managed to recover and not make a fool of myself, and when I looked at what I had stepped on, I realized it was a dead orange and white calico cat.

:-(
.

daily dairy

I eat laughing cow cheese a lot for lunch. It's good with tomatoes and bread. Mmm cheap and creamy.

what's this liquid falling from the sky?

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a truck backfiring, but it turned out to be thunder! Yeah, it actually RAINED in Cairo today. And for more than 10 minutes too! You can't really see the rain in this picture, but look at those clouds.

Max doing what I can only guess is a rain dance. Or rather a holy-crap-it's-raining-in-the-desert happy dance.

back from london

I look like an idiot, but Jon and Goutami look badass.

i'm going to london!

My cousin is flying me to London for Eid! Isn't she grand? I'm leaving tomorrow morning and getting back on Monday night. We'll see if my bank balance can handle this...

now in color!

I bought this journal from the bookbinders behind al-Azhar Mosque the other day. I don't actually journal, but it was too damn pretty not to buy. I have to figure out what to use it for.

green on green

The other day, Ben found a worm in one of the green peppers he bought. It seems to have laid eggs and everything. Delicious!

symmetry is kind of rad

Somewhere in Islamic Cairo again.

dammit there's sand in my eye!

I need more contact lenses. Crap.

zippy

The Cairo metro. It's surprisingly clean.

96% desert

Laura on the crest of a sand dune in Baharia. The stars at night were amazing.

ohmygod i love your phone

It seems like everyone in Egypt is obsessed with mobile phones. Here's mine, a Nokia 1110 or something. It's the cheapest one that they had at Radio Shack. Triple-banded GSM goodness. Mm hmm.

m.i.a.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I love M.I.A. and especially love this video.

apartment (again)

The sitting room again (view from the door).

apartment

The sitting room of our flat.

loveliness

It was Christal's and Nisreen's birthdays this week. We had baklawa cake! OK it wasn't a a cake, but really a tray of baklawa with some candles stuck in it. Still delicious though.

tart il-frawla

Strawberry tart yoghurt. Delicious.

fanouseen

We got Ramadan lanterns (called a fanous) to hang from our balconies. They're very pretty.

ramadan mubarak!

Door to a mosque somewhere in Islamic Cairo.

ugh

The building that AMERA is in is shared but several other offices. The other main tenant is a certain French bank which occupies maybe three or four apartment/units. Recently, they’ve been complaining about AMERA’s refugee clients using the elevator. According to them, “Africans don’t know how to use elevators and will break it.” Effing racist assholes.

mugamma-rama

I had to get my visa renewed at the Mugamma again today and of course it took three-times as long as it should have. But at least they didn't lose my passport. The Egyptian visa itself is rather pretty.

delicious and nutritious

All of these vegetables cost about US$0.75. Also, Egypt is apparently the third largest producer (or maybe exporter?) of tomatoes in the world.

nanu

DHAKA. I was in Bangladesh last month for my cousin's wedding, so I got to see my grandmother.

useless trivia

Everyone else read this years ago, but I didn't get around to it until now. I now know more than I ever wanted to about the subject. Good stuff to know if I'm ever on Jeopardy, though.

ben plays the oud

Roommate Ben is back! He was in India for the entire month of August, but finally returned last night. I missed him like whoa.

politically incorrect fun with scarves

Roommate Max is back! He was in the states for the entire month of August, but finally returned last night. I missed him like whoa.

a snickerdoodle of sorts

There are some things that you can't get or are hard to find in Cairo, like Snickers Ice Cream Bars. As its incredibly hot in Egypt right now, I've really been craving them. Mmmm.

knick knacks

Egyptian cabbies tend to decorate the dashboards of their taxis with crazy stuff. This is by far my favorite. Just to give you a better sense of the creepiness, the doll's dress covers the entire dash... I fear it may have formed a symbiotic relationship with the car and one day will engulf the entire thing. Also, the doll's eyes move, but they mostly just stare at the person in the passenger seat. Creepy.

inaugural post

Ok, I know I said that I would start this blog months ago, but better late than never, no? The goal is to post something every day... most posts will probably end up being pictures, but there’ll be the occasional humorous anecdote or rant, and maybe even a few doodles here and there. I can't promise it'll be interesting, but I'll try my best. Yayaya!