The Four Seasons

An educational poster in Arabic and English that we have on our wall:

Autumn

The storms rage and the tree leaver fall down
The pupils go to scoole
We cultivate the land and sow grains
It has three months: September, October and november

Winter

The rain fall down and so the snow.
Its fruits: Orange and tangerine
We wear wool and heavy dress.
It has three months: December, January, and February

Spring

The trees bloom and the grass sprout
The weather becomes moderate and the sky brightens
everybody celebrate in spring day
It has three months: Marsh, April, and May

Summer

the sky brightens well and the temperature intensifys
Its fruits: Grapes, Apples, Strawberry and watermelon.
They go out to summer resort
It has three months: Gune, July, and August.

Glistens the evil spirit to send the element

My sister Katy is a beautiful, talented, glamorous young woman. As you can see from this photo, she was right at home in Cairo, hoiking her suitcase over the building site that is currently the main train station:

So what better to give her for Christmas, than a selection of Egypt's finest Chinese imports:

Nice, huh?  Let's take a closer look.

We begin with those well-known brands "Mas Factor", "Chamel" and "Bourjuis"

Closely followed by ever-favourite "Dvoe"

And if Dvoe doesn't do it for you, why not substitute another four-lettered bird beginning with 'D':

In case none of the above have worked, you can change your look entirely with the "Disguise Brush", favoured by glamorous spies and secret agents the world over.

 Finally, I can't believe anyone can live without this product:

I think it is hair glitter, but I'm not entirely sure. I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the description on the back of the bottle. Suggestions on a postcard please...

TLDSITD TPSTA

Glistens

the evil spirit

to send the

element

Moves the feeling modelling

202ml

Characteristic: Increases luxuriant lives with

the elasticity; Forms the hair surface protector,

Saves After dyes burns suffers injury sends the

nature.

Effect: Contains the rich persistent effect to guarantee

the wetfactor, the fresh fruit element and the tension

essence And so on, can rapidly moisten, repair each Kind

to surfer injury sends the nature, the instantaneous

supplement hair needs The nutrition and the moisture,

improve the hair structure prevented the split end, breaks

off and Withered, causes the hair to change smoothly, the

rich elasticity immediately.

Ingredient: Rose volatile oil, protein hydrolysate, vitamin B5

Application method: After cleans the hair, dries the moisture

content with the towel, takes right amount this Uniform tubs

scratches then.

Matters needing attention: Avoids contacting the eye, if

has carelessly moistens into intraocularly, namely uses the

clear water Flushing.

This contains Uygur it to assign E, the heat

preservation factor, and so on protects sends

the essence, increases seven colour films

Decides The factor beautifully sends, the

cosmetology, the beautiful body multi-purpose

puts on makeup the essential thing.

Horse or Bird - you decide

Patrick & I want to buy a new phone, but we disagree about which one to buy. We have narrowed it down to two choices.

The horse:

Or the bird:

In the name of domestic harmony, we have decided to throw the choice open to the forces of democracy. You choose: horse or bird. Vote on the poll opposite.*

Voting closes on Christmas Eve at midnight in some time zone or other.

*Terms and conditions may or may not apply. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. Whatever, really. But I promise we will abide by the results, give or take availability in store, or domestic crisis, or my right to get really stroppy and stamp my feet if I don't get my own way.

Drastic measures for combating homesickness #1

Missing the sub-zero temperatures and snow-covered wasteland of home?

Why not recreate the experience by defrosting the freezer and building a snowman out of the ice?

But remember: this will only be a brief experience, as your new friend will quickly succumb to the 20 degree air temperature ;-)

A few things.

I have been trying to write a serious, informative post about life in Alexandria.  So far I have four or five half-drafts saved, but I have given up on all of them because they are too boring.  So while I am teaching myself to write sensibly, here are a few less serious things which have caught my eye:

So near and yet so far: more menu items

It doesn't take much to go wrong in English (and to be fair it doesn't take much to keep me entertained.)

• Spaghetti polonaize (dancing noodles, anyone?)
• Fruit salad with wibed cream
• Transh Cake
• Cream Cramel
• Mongo juice

Sometimes things look like mistakes, but actually they aren't.  Here is a great example.

At first glance, I assumed this was a mistake: surely it should be "cake filled with raisins and coconut".  The ingredients also say "raisin" singular.  However, sure enough, the cake does just contain one lonely raisin:

 
Day one in our flat (back at the start of October)

Cleaning products that we bought on day one (just the start):

Please note the very important pair of rubber gloves in the middle of the picture.  These were VITALLY important in removing the following from a bathroom cupboard (click to read the text):

Things that remind me of Twickenham Rowing Club


It might look like a sheep on a stick, but actually the guy is selling bags of candy floss.  More importantly, they feature my two favourite colours.  "Twickenham Rowing Club, sponsored by cheap, sugary confectionary" - sounds good to me!

Here's a great rowing motto:

Just plain random

To make Cow Jam Tart - Desperate Dan's favourite dessert?

And finally...

Cairo - life from a tourist's perspective

Miaow!

Crotch Fur, and other delicacies

So last week we went to the British Consulate and discussed Crotch Fur with a nice lady from the embassy in Cairo. Not the typical conversation you'd expect over coffee and cakes, but hey...

Anyway, apparently this was a menu item she once saw in Malaysia, whilst dining out with her mother-in-law, along with "vegetables, pulpily pulpily grown."  I love these crazy translations, or spelling mistakes, or sometimes just utterly made up words.  In India I saw a "humburger" on one menu which pretty much described the meat in that restaurant.  If that wasn't tempting there was always the option of a "paper streak" (which I think was their version of a pepper steak.)  If anyone can enlighten me what "egg on a plate, raw wishing" might be (seen in Budapest) I'd be very grateful!

So naturally I have been making a list of such fabulous delicacies we have seen since arriving in Egypt, and here is a sample of my favourites so far:

Selections from "Abu Ghraib" restaurant:
- soap with chicken lever (I might try and illustrate this one)
- macaroni in haven
- bowl of soup with cows legs (We really wanted to order this, but it would have been so disappointing if it didn't arrive with whole cow legs sticking out of the bowl)
- lenition soup
- loaf of stuffed vina
- today jarret (this is my absolute favourite.  We have no idea what it means.  The word in Arabic was something entirely different that isn't in the dictionary.  I am currently using "jarret" to describe the type of cooking I do when I'm using up random leftovers from the fridge, such as the "oinksaka" that we had the week before we came to Egypt.  Anyway, back to the list.)

Selections from Marcuous Cafe
- Pizza Barcelona (4 peace): part chicks, bstrmp part, part of minced, part of sausage (yes, that was bstrmp, not a typo on my part, those exact letters)
- Each additional component of the vegetable 5LE
- Each component of meat 7LE
- Each additional component of the marine species 9LE (good use of a dictionary there)
- Kind of fish: shrimp, tuna, clemery, crab, oncojp (I'm guessing calimari for clemery, no clue for 'oncojp')
- Season juice: watermelon, peach, apricot, quintalob, Tin wire (The Arabic for 'quintalob' was 'Cantaloup', but there was no translation for 'Tin wire')
- Browns with ice (ewww)

- Builder chicks (this is a type of sandwich, dontcha know)
- Hamburger pillow
- Hamburger Paljbnp and white
- Sbit builder or roasted (I kept mis-reading that first word)
- Ice Late
- Medical Li Hookah
- Melliferous Hookah (words fail me... I wouldn't let Patrick order this one though!)

I'll keep collecting.......