With the girls outside of the restaurant 55. Note the Ramadan decorations, the lanterns and the beautiful red and blue tapestries
One of the waiters at the restaurant
Fabulous gypsy lady who was giving henna tattoos at the restaurant
From left: my Katie, Sara B., Mhairi, me & Joelle
Mhairi, me, and Joelle
Mhairi admiring her gorgeous new henna tat
Katie getting hennafied
Katie looking bad ass: tats, piercings, and shisha smoking
Katie and Sarah B.
Woman playing the tambourine during the Thursday night Ramadan festivities in the downtown plaza
Colorful Ramadan drinks
View of the Ramadan crowd
Another view of the crowd
Katie W. showing off her Ramadan treats
Ez bought us each some jasmine necklaces that an old lady was selling in the plaza
Joelle, me, and Katie
Karim and Ez
Ez buying necklaces
Helen and Katie enjoying their delicious fruit drinks
From left: Mahmoud, Mohamed, Ez, Karim, and Sarah B.
Mahmoud, Mhairi, Sarah & Shayma
Thursday night Egyptian Ramadan style: shisa and juice with friends
The first Thursday of Ramadan, we decided to go out to dinner to celebrate Iftar, (the meal that ends the day's fasting after the sun goes down). Mhairi converted to Islam while she was living in Turkey, so she had been fasting all week, and we wanted to support her. Fasting is really difficult to do and because this was her first time partaking in fasting, it was especially hard for Mhairi.
Thursday nights in Egypt are like Friday nights in the States; many people go out to dinner here on Thursday night, and everyone goes out on Thursday night during Ramadan to celebrate Iftar. We went out to a restaurant called 55 that is located on Road 9 in Maadi. Road 9 is a very popular street here that has everything imaginable: stores, banks, restaurants, the post office, the metro, etc.
We left for the restaurant around 5:30 that evening, (which is normally an unheard of hour to eat dinner in Egypt because it's so early), but we wanted to get there before the sun set for the day because we knew it would be incredibly busy during the Iftar dinner hours. 55 is a really nice restaurant that serves both Western and Middle Eastern food, and the best ice cream I've ever eaten. Because we were so early, we were able to sit wherever we wanted, and we chose a table outside that was surrounded by beautiful palm trees decorated in lights to celebrate the Ramadan season.
While we were waiting for our dinner to arrive, Mhairi and Katie decided to get a henna tattoo from a random gypsy lady who was there. After dinner, there was a traditional Egyptian band with Udes, (a type of Arabic guitar), and a singer. We ordered shisha and sat and enjoyed the music for hours. It was a very nice evening. The weather was warm and breezy, Ramadan lights and lanterns lit up the night sky, and everyone was in good spirits.
The following Thursday Mahmoud wanted to take us to a few places in downtown Cairo where the locals celebrated Ramadan. That evening we met Mahmoud and his friends in the main plaza in the center of the city where everyone hangs out. It was so crowded you could barely move, but there was a festive feeling in the air and everyone was smiling and laughing and having fun. There were street vendors selling food and drinks, people playing music and dancing in the streets, and large groups of families and friends sitting together on blankets talking, playing cards, and smoking shisha.
We walked around for a while and took in the sights, and then we sat at a cafe to get something to drink and smoke some shisha ourselves. We each ordered one of Cairo's fabulously delicious juice drinks and then we just hung out and watched the people go by. I said this before, and I'll say it again..it's quite a different experience to be in a culture where people have fun by drinking juice and talking instead of going out with their friends to bars to hang out and get wasted. It's nice, and I really like it.
Mahmoud's two best friends are a couple of really nice, (and attractive), guys named Ahmed and Karim. Ahmed, (who goes by the nickname Ez), is a typical Egyptian who loves to joke around and have fun. He is always pulling pranks on Mahmoud and making fun of him. Ez has a girlfriend named Shayma, who is one of the nicest girls I've ever met. Shayma is from Egypt, but she just returned from New York City where she has been studying Journalism for the past two years. Besides living in the States, Shayma has also lived in a few places in Europe, and Ez loves to tease her about her "American" accent and how terrible her pronunciation of Arabic is.
Karim is the type of guy who is a boy at heart and will probably never grow up. He is a self-proclaimed bachelor and doesn't understand why either of his friends have girlfriends. For him, it's all about "hanging with the guys." Mahmoud and his friends are a great bunch of people, and I really enjoy spending time with them.
