| Monday, Mar. 31, 2003 The webpage of the German Embassy in Cairo is a joke. If they have anything about the current situation, I can’t find it…. What a T:O:T:A:L joke. Instead had a look at the US department of state and the Foreign Office webpage. Not a peep about Egypt, and they have lists of countries to be avoided as long as my arm. Ta. Friday, Mar. 28, 2003 Have I mentioned that I think this war sucks? I’m sure I did, just thought I drive this point home…. Had an e-mail from our boss telling us to keep our heads down. Yeah, no kidding. I actually ordered bread online today, as the bread I had went moldy and I did not want to leave the house around prayer time… Fucking hell. Generally it is ok around here though. No funny looks or anything. All my Israeli colleagues are not allowed to leave the hotel, they stay cooped up there in their spare time. Did I mention that my landlord asked me other day if I was Jewish? Because of my last name…. No, actually, people, not everybody whose name ends in –mann, is Jewish. Most of the time though, when I tell people I’m German, I get “Football, yeah! Hitler, yeah!”. Well, gee… I’m happy you’re happy about Hitler…ahem…I just can’t win, can I….. Sunday, Mar. 23, 2003 Not been up to much. My Arabic classes started again last week. Nice to see Marina and Heather again. We have a new teacher, Jihan. Takes a little getting used to, especially her handwritten Arabic. Quite a change to the very accurate writing we had in the previous course. But I think lessons with her will be fun. A fresh breeze. The mood on TV has changed from “Oh, look at all those Iraqis surrendering to the allmighty American troops” to “Our condolences!”. Not really sure what to say to that. What were they thinking? Oh, yeah, sure, let’s walk in there and beat the crap out of those underdeveloped, deprived idiots. No boots, no weapons….Let’s meet for breakfast in Baghdad in 4 days…. Business as usual in Cairo. Did not go out on Friday, just to be on the safe side. But I don’t think it is much of an issue here in Heliopolis. Downtown is probably a different kettle of fish. Evetually I will have to go, to buy furniture for my balcony. About time, have been talking about it for months, lazy bitch that I am. Tomorrow night Arabic class, Tuesday meeting up with Anne, need to go and change some dollars, let’s see how that little war is going by then… I really hope Saddam Hussein is not going to get further inspirations of grandeur and attacking Israel or some such shit… Exactly what we do not need. Friday, Mar. 21, 2003 Was at Anne’s place last night till 3am, watching CNN and CSPAN and BBC and MSNBC and whatever else we could find. We downloaded a RealPlayer for her, so she can watch news live over the internet – Anne does not have satelite and only gets NileTV, which is heavily censored and shows sod-all. Everybody giving statements gets voice-overs, no live-footage etc. If those nice reporters travel on aircraft carriers, we want to see them, yeah….My mum already called this morning, to see if I was packing my bags or running in circles in a frenzied panic. Well, I will stay in today, the planned shopping tour downtown is postponed. There were some demonstrations yesterday, which the police apparently graced with some high pressure water (how on earth do you call that in English? You know, shot at people from a hose....) to disperse the people. They don’t fuck around here. Prayers just started, not a good time to travel anyway, people always get really wound up during those things, lots of propaganda…. Wednesday, Mar. 05, 2003 Stood in front of my house last night with the realization dawning on me that I had left my house keys in the car that morning. Called Mustapha to explain my predicament, when my phone crapped out. Slight anxiety attack (imagine Tom & Jerry…). Luckily my neighbour was home and consoled me with a glass of wine and the unlimited use of his phone. Turned out that my keys were safely back at the office. Why the driver did not bother to find out, which poor soul had forgotten them on the back seat of his car in the first place….Who knows. Self-initative and Egypt are two things that do not go together. Mustapha, elhamdulilleh, went back to the office and fetched them for me. Several glasses of wine later that evening I had my keys and happily went home…. Sunday, Mar. 02, 2003 Hatchepsut’s temple – the guide told us that it was more impressive from a distance and he was right. It looks really good from further away, sitting in front of that high rock face. There is not that much to see though, when you come up closer. I kept thinking, “ok, this is where all those people got shot”. There wasn’t an awful lot of police presence though. Well, not more than ususal. Because of the delayed flight from Cairo we were still on a tight schedule, therefore we had about 2 minutes flat for the colossi of Memnon. Am I allowed to say that they look bigger on photos? Sometimes I think you see all these things so much on the screen and you read so much about them, that when you finally get there, it’s “oh, that’s it? I expected it to be bigger….”. It was the same when I saw the pyramids for the first time. Only know, after living around them for a while, I have come to appreciate how friggin big the pyramid of Cheops actually is. Sahar brought in Mashy (no idea how to spell this) today that she made over the weekend. We are talking rice wrapped in wine leafs, Egyptian style, rice wrapped in cabbage and gherkins stuffed with rice… Doesn’t sound very exciting, but is actually quite nice. Gave me major heartburn. But it was very tasty and we really stuffed ourselves at lunch. Had to take a Rennie. Will have some salad now, if I eat more of that stuff, I will be up all night, burping…. Saturday, Mar. 01, 2003 I am having a Saturday off. Such a rare occasion, it was great. I ran my little errands, then went by the bakery shop and bought some Danish and chocolate croissants and finally went over to Liz and David. Sat on the balcony with Liz for hours, drinking red wine they brought back with them from Cyprus, chatting about life in general and work. Had some Irish Coffee and finally toddled home, slightly intoxicated. Took a cab over to Oscar Supermarket and bought some PORK saussages and other bits and bobs. Started investigating furniture for the balcony – it was so nice and sunny today! Now I will make some salad and watch ‘Bond, James Bond’ on Showtime. Thank the Lord for living in Cairo, where you can find shops that sell alcohol, pork and other assorted nice things. Now where can I buy buffalo mozzarella? That would be great….. |
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