My new favorite way of getting dinner

It's been a long while since the last time I actually cooked - pretty much every day this semester, I've been eating dinner out. You see, some of the motivation of cooking for yourself disappears when you can eat out for the same price or less (not necessarily as good food, but I'm a student - I'm happy as long as I'm fueled).

My new way of getting food is pretty simple, really - and it means that I can get dinner from as low as four pounds Egyptian (omtrent en femmer). I merely go to the closest Koshari(http://www.touregypt.net/recipes/recipeweek03152004.htm) place and ask for a medium koshary to go, without the "macarona". Then I take the little plastic bucket of koshary to the closest streetfood spot and ask them to put some liver (kibda) on top. The liver and the koshary can cost as little as two pounds each (possibly less, I don't know). This gives me a meal that's healthy enough, pretty tasty and very cheap.

I usually sit down at a nearby cafè to eat the meal as well, which means I usually feel I have to order a glass of tea from them as well - wastefully bringing the total close to six pounds, like a true decadent westerner :p

It's going to be hard to start cooking again when I return to Norway - but I don't think Koshari is very difficult to make, and liver can't be too expensive even there.

Right, a quick and lazy effort to make the blog look slightly more presentable. It shouldn't directly stab out your eyes as it did before - though it's still very hacked together :p

Also, some crazy saudies:

Okay, it's still the day after the last post - even though I'm a tad late - so here goes:


New years is approaching, and for the first time in my life I'm thinking of making some new years promises. Here they are in order of difficulty:

3: Sugar and caffeine only one day per week (honey and decaf the others)

2: Some sort of exercise at least two times per week - three times if I don't have a good excuse

1: I shall meet up 10 minutes early for every appointment I make and spend the time waiting going through arabic or german flash cards

I am publishing these in order to amass the necessary social pressure for actually managing to go through with them. Anyway, those are the easy ones - there's also the issue of having my business succeede (www.fortelle.no - tell all your rich friends) and stuff of that kind - but I don't feel they fit the spirit of new years promising.

To the end of having my business succeed, and for making flashcards more enjoyable - I've been learning arabic calligraphy. The kind I'm learning is called diwani and is probably one of the more popular ones for logos and headlines and such. Some examples:

My name, written by my teacher, just to show how it's done:



A couple of words I wrote:




And then my favorite letter in this kind of calligraphy, the Kaf. Sorry about the bad image quality:


I've also, for no good reason really, been learning 3D modelling, using the free open source program blender (that's a link). This is the best I've done so far:



Bringing me to promise four: do some none-cutesy art. Less puppies and children, more guns and gore. At some point I'll have to draw a picture of the pope - wielding two flying v guitars and being flanked by barely dressed women armed with.. either battle axes or oversized sci-fi guns. Humanity needs this!

Speaking of humanities needs: new years promises are unfortunately jokingly refered to as fragile - and because of this, the true new years promise is becoming a thing of the past - one of those great things that people used to do in the old days. Like being polite, wanting to be a scientist when you grow up or wearing a hat.

In the last words of this post, I'll lift my cup of tea while typing (disregarding the risk!) - me keeping those promises won't merely be for my own well being, it will be striking a blow for all great things lost - and here's to that.

I've been missing home a lot more this semester than I did the last one - I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it's the fact that this semester I left a beautiful summer in Norway for a boilingly horrible Cairo - while last semester I left sludge and winter for I-don't-even-need-to-wear-a-jacket-weather. Maybe it's the fact that I had so much to do last semester that I barely had time for anything else. Or part of the reason is that Cairo isn't as exotic and exiting as before.

The possibility that it could also be because I've been worse at keeping contact with people back home has also comme to mind. Which is partly why I'm writing this now - expect more soon, that is, check back tomorrow evening. I'll have a bigger update then, promise!

While the workload last semester kept me from travelling then, it's the finances that've kept me from doing so this semester - it's a shame, and I'll really have to find some way of making up for it in the future. I think I've found the perfect time to travel to muslim majority countries now, but I ain't tellin'



PS: I don't know if I mentioned it, but comments can be made in Norwegian - only I have to write in English

Oh, same thing happening as last time. Either too much or too little to do.

Well, for the sake of giving some kind of update: I have an appartment, it's £E 700 per month, which is a bit more than I was planning on spending. The arabic class won't be very intensive, but the trip to the school will. There's no subway in Mohandessin, leaving me with the choice between bus and taxi. And I can't afford to take taxi every day. Combined with the weather and the fact that it stops a rather long walk from home, the busride home today knocked me out, and I haven't had time to do much of anything. Especially not homework. I hate homework... and I asked the instructor if he could give me extra homework, since I discovered I'm only taking half as much as the others.

Argh.

Mass mailings have now gone out :l

The heat here is pretty unbearable, though I'm getting used to it. The first couple of days, going outside at all was a chore and I've spent a lot of time at the airconditioned AUC library, my airconditioned hostel room and the extravagant, decadent, über-posh cafè cilantro (also airconditioned).

Unfortunately, to find an appartment, I have to, at some point, be outside. Which explains why I haven't found one yet.

On my trip down I read through a book from 1938 about the Egyptian peasant (also the title of the book). Aside from containing charming attributes of it's time (skull measurements, "racial traits" and the like) it stressed quite a few problems that needed taking care of. Many of them still exist today, both in greater (overpopulation) and lesser (illitteracy) degree.

I think there's a lesson in that.

Right, my third day here (haven't gotten much done yet, the weather is killing me) and I've decided to make a post about what I'll miss in Norway.

Most of all, I'll miss my family and my friends, of course, but that's a given - what I'll also miss is a lot of material things. Like tap water that tastes like water, supermarkets, how clean the air is, how clean everything is, the woods, the mountains and a lot of other things I can't recall right now. I hadn't planned to write so much in this post anyway:












edit: oh, and by the way, my rucksack was returned to me yesterday evening. Barrels of thanks to the fine gentlemen and ladies of Austrian Airlines.

As I stepped out of the airconditioned airplane cabin, the heat hit me like a wall. Kind of like Cairo had decided to greet me with a big, sweaty hug, filled with smog. It felt wierd to be back at first. I've not re-met with anyone I know here yet, so it's still not exactly the same - but it all felt a lot more familiar after arguing with the cabbies at the airport (I think I gave up too soon, though. £E55 is too much :l)

My rucksack is still hanging around in Oslo, or at least it was so when I arrived in Cairo. First time I've experienced that particular brand of trouble. Luckily all my valuables are in my carry on bag. Except my clothes and a bunch of books. I think I'll make do until they return my rucksack.... though, I'm not quite sure I should have told them I'm staying till december.

Yahoo weather tells me it's 33 degrees here now, which is a little less than when I left, I think. It feals a lot worse. In fact, it feels pretty horrible. Unfortunately, I know I'll get used to this, and freeze my.... everything off when I come home for christmas.

Dunno how often I'll update the blog, but it seems people actually read it, so maybe I'll put some more effort in it this semester.

شهفك(that's probably misspelled)