Delicious Explosion

Hello! Well, this has been a very update-filled week so far! I really seriously am going to start having more in-depth things to say other than just blow-by-blow 'what I did' posts. But! That will be AFTER I tell you about the delicious times I had yesterday!

We had a meeting at the American Cultural Center (Alexandria's branch of the US Embassy, I guess) which was anti-climactic. Afterwards, me and a couple other people went out to find this fateer place. Fateer is crazy delicious: it is like some kind of flaky pastry dough, thin, in a pancake shape. It is then stuffed with stuff, and cut into pieces. There are savory and sweet ones. We got to this restaurant, Dahab's I think it might be called, and sat down. I ordered a chicken fateer, and got the most amazing meal I've had recently. It was literally packed with chicken and cheese and red and green peppers. The pastry was so flaky and good, and it was all hot and lovely. Very filling. After that we got a sweet one, which was just a ridiculous concoction of cream, sugar, raisins, and who knows what else. I only had a bit of that.

THEN, we went to a juice place next door. I'm sure I've talked about 'juice' in Egypt before, but here is a refresher (haha! Is that funny? I feel like it is): the juice you buy at juice stands here is very thick, basically pureed fruit. Of course it has water and sugar too, but still. The most common kinds are mango, strawberry, orange, guava, and sugarcane, along with lemon (more like sugary lemonade). But there are places that have much more, and this was one of those places. I got kiwi (which was less tangy than I would have liked but still good), and my roommate got watermelon (which looked tasty, at least). The place had a really big menu, and I'm not even sure what half of it is. There are lots of fruits that aren't in season right now, I think, (like pomegranates!!!), so I'm going to have to frequently go back there and check on what's new.

After THAT, we went to Helwiaat Misr (Egypt Sweets), which was probably a bad decision, but oh well! I've told you about that place before, right? Amazing dessert place? Ok, well, I was already beginning to be incredibly sleepy by that point from all the food, but we still went there and ordered delicious nonsense. They have really, really good chocolate mousse! It is unbelievably light and fluffy (imagine clouds made from chocolate mousse), has a tiny bit of chocolate cake in the middle, and is covered in chocolate sauce. And it's a pretty big portion, all for 5LE ($1 or less). Amazing.

We rode the tram to all of these places, and the tram is kind of growing on me. It's nice to ride in the later afternoon and evening, when the sun is not too bad and it's breezy (it's been very windy here lately). The windows are open (and sometimes the doors hang open), you can just sit or stand and watch Alexandria go by. Very nice. I felt more comfortable here yesterday, but it may have just been a side effect of all the food. Oh well!

Today I have like a four hour meeting with my language partner. We were all assigned Egyptian people (students or people affiliated with the program in some way) to meet with four hours a week to practice our Egyptian colloquial. A lot of people seem to have really, really cool partners (tatoos, taking them to get nose piercings, inviting them home, etc). Not to say mine isn't good! We just haven't met that much yet, and she seems like the kind of person that you need to spend a little time getting to know (I'm the same way, so I guess it works out?). We didn't meet enough last week, so this week she declared that today we are going to meet for four hours: we're going shopping, then something else maybe, then eating, then maybe something, then hanging with her friends and a club somewhere??? I'm nervous!!! (NOTE: by 'club' I do not mean like 'in da club'. Clubs here are more like a community center/country club type thing. At least I THINK that's the kind she meant...)

OK ok. Time to go do some homework! I don't have class until 11 today, so hopefully I can at least try and be productive. Ma'asalaama!