Thanksgiving Dinner, BCA, Heliopolis – Thursday 25 Nov 2006

Today was thanksgiving so given that Chris is American we decided to roast a chicken for dinner. We bought a toaster oven a week or so ago, its pretty big so I thought we’d be able to do a small roast.

We don’t have much in the way of basic ingredients so we just put lemon juice and fresh rosemary on the chicken, put it in a little foil boat and put it in the oven. Then we had roast potatoes and sweet potato (which over here is white not orange) and steamed broccoli and beans. It wasn’t quite a proper thanksgiving, but it was very yummy.

Then we walked up to the BCA (British Community Association). It’s an expat’s club only about a 6 or 7 minute walk up the road from our apartment. It’s got pool tables (one American, one British) and a book and dvd library (books are free, DVD’s are only £8 for a weeks hire). It’s also got a big screen that they play movies on, or to play the sports channel. There is also a big outside area with a bbq and a restaurant that has ‘British’ food and most importantly ‘the best stocked bar in Cairo!’. That’s its claim anyway, and I must say it’s got more types of spirits than the couple of other bars we’ve been to. One of the guys there explained that most members bring something back when they go overseas, something a little off the wall so that there is always a good selection in the bar. Then they get all the basics off the ‘black market’ :)

So we joined up - £120 for the rest of this year – all 6 weeks of it, and then it’ll be another £250 on January 1 for 2007 (even though we’ll only be here for 4 months). They only do memberships annually and start discounting it from July.

At least this way we have a bar within walking distance and some place to go that is foreigners only (they are not allowed to have Egyptian members). It’s like being in a different world in there, a very ‘English pub’ right in the heart of Cairo.

About 10pm Yasser rang to see what we were doing and said he was in Mohandiseen and if wanted to do something. So he and Ayman picked us up and took us touring around. We drove around old Cario and saw the wall that was originally built as a fortification around the city. Then he took us past the Citadel and up a mountain where they are building a new residential area. The views were great, the lights of the city went for miles, but we didn’t have cameras with us so we’ll have to go back.

Then we drove to Heliopolis and drove around looking at a few of the sites. I was so tired at this point I could have fallen asleep in the car. Also, given the insane driving over here I also could have thrown up – it was almost an either/or situation! Finally, just when I was getting to the point of stopping Yasser to tell him I needed to throw up, we pulled over. I thought we were going to look at some building coz we seemed to be in the middle of a residential area. Then Yasser said only locals know about this place – no one else would be able to find it! The bottom floor of one of the apartment buildings had been converted into a restaurant, café type thing. They bake the bread right on the premises, very yummy. So here we were, at midnight, eating toasted sandwiches in Heliopolis.

This is part of the culture that Chris and I are both struggling with… they eat ‘lunch’ about 4-5pm, then have ‘dinner’ about 10-11pm then go to bed about 1am… this is a normal night even on a school night. I’d be dead from sheer exhaustion after a week!