Birthday treasures: fabulous house dress from Mhairi & Joelle
Birthday treasures 2: plant from Helen
Birthday treasures 3: beautiful drawing by Katie W.
Delicious cake Katie made for my birthday
Yay! Birthday celebration on the Nile!
Sarah B. & I at the restaurant on the Nile where we went out for my birthday.
Michael Jackson's hat on display at the Hard Rock in downtown Cairo.
Two proud pieces of Wisconsin in Cairo: me & a Harley Davidson.
Yacht outside of the Grand Hyatt Cairo, the hotel where we had dinner
Enjoying our sailboat ride on the Nile!
From left: Ahmed, Joelle, Sarah B. , Mohammed, Me, Yussef. Gettin' ready to cruise the Nile
Joelle
Me, Joelle, Sarah B., and Katie
My Katie looking lovely
Roomie love
Nile @ night
Nile feet (me & Katie)
Nile @ night 2
Nile @ night 3
Sarah & I smokin' shisha
Yussef kept sticking his phone in Katie's ear and playing random songs for her
With the girls outside of the Korean restaurant we went to on the day of my actual birthday (Judy, I wore the camel dress you gave me that night....)
~
My birthday fell on a Sunday this year, and it was also the day that we began teaching. Since Friday is the holy day and the day of rest for Muslims, we teach Sunday through Thursday and then have Friday and Saturday off. Because my birthday fell on a work day, we decided to celebrate it in style the weekend before.
Since we had only, (at this point in time), seen the Nile from a distance, we decided to go out to eat at one of the many restaurants that are near the river. Helen had heard of a really good Korean restaurant that was in the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Cairo, which was right on the Nile.
Most restaurants don’t open until 9 or 10:00 here for dinner, so the girls came over at 7, and we busted into our forbidden stash of booze and each had a small drink to toast my birthday. Then we took a cab downtown and made our way through the hotel. It was enormous and absolutely breathtaking. It took us 10 minutes just to walk from the lobby entrance to the area where the restaurant was located. We arrived at 9:00 and were informed by the host that the restaurant didn’t actually open for another half an hour, so we would have to wait. However, most of us were too hungry by then to wait any longer, so we decided to look and see if we could get in someplace else.
Fortunately there was another restaurant just down the hall that had outdoor tables overlooking the river. They were open and because it was so early for dining, hardly anybody was there, and we were able to get a great table outside. As we stepped out onto the marble floors of the patio and saw the view before us, we were speechless. The moon was almost full and it cast a beautiful glow over the Nile, which sparkled and winked at us like an ancient temptress. Sailboats glided silently by, and a warm breeze lifted our hair and caressed our faces. I stood there in awe and took it all in. I couldn’t believe I was there, standing beside the Nile, one of the most infamous rivers in history. I took a deep breath and breathed her in, all of her power, energy, and history. I exhaled with her still in my lungs. I was so thankful for whatever powers brought me to this place, and I had no doubt at that moment that this was going to be the best year of my life.
After we finished our dinner, Helen, Mhairi and Katie W. decided to go home for the evening, but the rest of us decided to stay out and see what the night would bring us. A friend of ours named Yussef had called during dinner to see what we were doing, and he happened to be just a few streets away from where we were. Since we really didn’t know where anything was in the downtown area, we asked him to come and meet us, and then we planned on figuring out something to do from there.
Yussef told us to meet him outside of the hotel in 15 minutes and said that we could go with him and his friends to a place nearby that was open and had a live band playing that night. It took us about 10 minutes just to walk back to the lobby, and then once we started making our way down the entrance walkway, a few of the girls wanted to use the bathroom. Instead of walking all the way back to the restaurant, we decided to go next door to the Hard Rock Café and use their facilities instead. While I was there waiting for the girls to use the bathroom, I bought a bottle of water and looked around at the things they had on display there. I was very shocked to see a Harley Davidson motorcycle near the lobby area, and I asked the host if he would take a picture of me next to it. I also couldn’t believe that they had Michael Jackson’s white hat there--THE white hat he wore back in the Thriller days. (I don’t care what you think of M.J. now, but he was the bomb back then, baby!)
After the girls got done using the bathroom, we took some more photos, and then we walked back outside to the front of the hotel where we were supposed to meet Yussef. He phoned to say he was almost there, so we decided to walk down the street to find him. As we were walking, we saw a place that rented pontoons and sailboats that took people out for rides on the Nile. We stopped to ask how much they were, and the owner told us it was 20 pounds for 1 hour, (which is about $4.00).
By that time Yussef and his friends had arrived, and we all decided that we would much rather take a moonlight boat ride on the Nile than to go dancing. We decided to take a sailboat instead of a pontoon, and we got a lively captain who played music for us, and we danced and laughed and had a great time. It was so amazing to be there on the Nile for my birthday. I kept wanting to pinch myself to see if it was really happening.
When we finished the boat ride, it was almost 1:00 in the morning, so we decided to go to a café and have a coffee and some shisha. Yussef took us to a place he knew, and we all sat for a couple of hours and smoked, talked, and watched Ramadan programs on the TV. there. (I can only do 1 or 2 puffs of shisha because my lungs can’t handle it, but other people can smoke the stuff for a long time). By the time we got home, it was 4 in the morning, which is normal for a weekend in Cairo. I went to bed blissfully content and ready to start a new year. It was an incredible night.
On the day of my actual birthday, the girls came over after school and brought me some birthday presents. I got a plant from Helen, Katie W. drew a beautiful picture for me, and I got a red, Middle Eastern-style house dress from Mhairi and Joelle that is really comfortable to wear as pajamas. My Katie got me a battery charger and a few rechargeable batteries because I always need them for my camera, and I accidently blew up my battery charger the second day I was here.
The girls were still craving Korean food since we hadn't gotten to eat it when we were out the weekend before, so we went to a little Korean restaurant in our neighborhood that night, and they treated me to dinner. The food was great, and it was another wonderful evening with friends. I am so thankful to have such caring people in my life here, and I feel very fortunate to be in Egypt experiencing so many new and wonderful things.
