Greetings from Egypt
Posted: August 1, 2004 6:50 am
Ezayik!
That is Arabic for "How are you?" Is it the usual greeting. The usual answer is "Qwoiessa. Il hom d'Allah. = Good. Thank God."
We are having a great time. Our typical day is we wake around nine, make our ablutions and stretches (me), and are breakfast around ten or ten thirty. It is a buffet (not buffett!
), though you can have eggs made to order. I have scrambled eggs with basturma (a kind of Armenia meat; we eat it in the States also), and some kind of bread that tastes and looks and feels like pumpkin bread. And lots of tamarind juice. There are lots of other things to eat, but I am trying to watch it. The first day I REALLY overdid breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I felt awful. So now I am behaving. Then Joujou (oh, that's hubby Alan's nickname, and that is what all the family calls him and I call him at home; his Christian name is George) goes to Mother's room and has Turkish coffee. Sometimes I go, too, sometimes I go to our room and mess around for a while. Then we go the beach, except today we came to the internet cafe. We also came here last night. Before last night, we were using the internet at the hotel, which is s o o o o s l o w. And the hotel charges twenty pounds an hour or any part of an hour. Here it is about two pounds an hour. One dollar equals about six and a half pounds. So the hotel internet is not expensive for us, it is just very, very frustrating.
Yesterday around four, Joujou stayed on the beach, but I went with some of the others sightseeing. They were places we went to last year, but I was glad I went because we saw some in more detail. There is a place called Cleopatra's, where she supposedly used to go to bathe. Last year we looked from afar, but these kids were more adventurous, and so we walked out toward her cave in the water. Most of us didn't go too far. but one of the teenagers went all the way out. It is not far, but it is slippery, and the waves come in, sometimes up to your thighs. I wanted to go, but when I saw those waves, I decided that discetion is sometimes the better part of valor. Me and my back don't need any falls on the rocks.
Then we went to Agibba. It's kind of like a mini, mini Grand Canyon. Beautiful wind-sheared rock formation on the sea. Again, last year we did not go far, but this time I did with my more adventurous group of relatives. Besides the seven of us who are related, there were a few other hotel guests, including a couple and their two kids from Clifton, NJ. And while I was talking with the Clifton family, Alan was busy on the beach talking with a man from Ridgewood, NJ. Talk about a small world!
Dinner at the hotel is also buffet. The cuts of beef are melt-in-your-mouth tender. And there is fish, and chicken, and french fries , and scalloped potatoes, and soup, and pasta, and rice. Variations on each every night. And desserts! Creme caramel! Loukamadies, those little Greek donuts with the sugar syrup. Baba au rhum sans rhum - this is a Moslem country! And cakes and cookies and rice pudding or mahalbiya ( a rice starch pudding). Fresh fruits - figs, watermelon, cactus pears. An embarrassment of choices! And lots of water and LOTS of Stella beer.
Then we go to an outside area (by the way, the dining room is a semi-walled, thatched roof, semi-open aired place). We have a sheesha. And then home to bed. This year we have a full frontal view of the sea, and every room has a small balcony. It is truly glorious.
So, back on the home front, my Aunt Helen told my Aunt Mary that my Mom is in a nursing home (she's at assisted living for the two weeks). My cousin, Olga, went to visit Mom. Then her mother, Aunt Mary, called my sister, Mary, to tell her she would visit this weekend, because my mother was in hospice. My sister thinks she must have meant respite, but she didn't correct her, because my aunt can hardly hear and talking with her on the phone is an adventure. It is a circus! My sister was going to go visit yesterday, so I will call her today to see how things went. I think it will hit her a little hard, because although I am used to it, and although it is a lovely place, all of the people are old, and even though they are not incapacitated as in a nursing home, it is still a bit depressing. It is difficult to realize that your mother is one of them.
More reports later!
That is Arabic for "How are you?" Is it the usual greeting. The usual answer is "Qwoiessa. Il hom d'Allah. = Good. Thank God."
We are having a great time. Our typical day is we wake around nine, make our ablutions and stretches (me), and are breakfast around ten or ten thirty. It is a buffet (not buffett!
), though you can have eggs made to order. I have scrambled eggs with basturma (a kind of Armenia meat; we eat it in the States also), and some kind of bread that tastes and looks and feels like pumpkin bread. And lots of tamarind juice. There are lots of other things to eat, but I am trying to watch it. The first day I REALLY overdid breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I felt awful. So now I am behaving. Then Joujou (oh, that's hubby Alan's nickname, and that is what all the family calls him and I call him at home; his Christian name is George) goes to Mother's room and has Turkish coffee. Sometimes I go, too, sometimes I go to our room and mess around for a while. Then we go the beach, except today we came to the internet cafe. We also came here last night. Before last night, we were using the internet at the hotel, which is s o o o o s l o w. And the hotel charges twenty pounds an hour or any part of an hour. Here it is about two pounds an hour. One dollar equals about six and a half pounds. So the hotel internet is not expensive for us, it is just very, very frustrating. Yesterday around four, Joujou stayed on the beach, but I went with some of the others sightseeing. They were places we went to last year, but I was glad I went because we saw some in more detail. There is a place called Cleopatra's, where she supposedly used to go to bathe. Last year we looked from afar, but these kids were more adventurous, and so we walked out toward her cave in the water. Most of us didn't go too far. but one of the teenagers went all the way out. It is not far, but it is slippery, and the waves come in, sometimes up to your thighs. I wanted to go, but when I saw those waves, I decided that discetion is sometimes the better part of valor. Me and my back don't need any falls on the rocks.
Then we went to Agibba. It's kind of like a mini, mini Grand Canyon. Beautiful wind-sheared rock formation on the sea. Again, last year we did not go far, but this time I did with my more adventurous group of relatives. Besides the seven of us who are related, there were a few other hotel guests, including a couple and their two kids from Clifton, NJ. And while I was talking with the Clifton family, Alan was busy on the beach talking with a man from Ridgewood, NJ. Talk about a small world!
Dinner at the hotel is also buffet. The cuts of beef are melt-in-your-mouth tender. And there is fish, and chicken, and french fries , and scalloped potatoes, and soup, and pasta, and rice. Variations on each every night. And desserts! Creme caramel! Loukamadies, those little Greek donuts with the sugar syrup. Baba au rhum sans rhum - this is a Moslem country! And cakes and cookies and rice pudding or mahalbiya ( a rice starch pudding). Fresh fruits - figs, watermelon, cactus pears. An embarrassment of choices! And lots of water and LOTS of Stella beer.
Then we go to an outside area (by the way, the dining room is a semi-walled, thatched roof, semi-open aired place). We have a sheesha. And then home to bed. This year we have a full frontal view of the sea, and every room has a small balcony. It is truly glorious.
So, back on the home front, my Aunt Helen told my Aunt Mary that my Mom is in a nursing home (she's at assisted living for the two weeks). My cousin, Olga, went to visit Mom. Then her mother, Aunt Mary, called my sister, Mary, to tell her she would visit this weekend, because my mother was in hospice. My sister thinks she must have meant respite, but she didn't correct her, because my aunt can hardly hear and talking with her on the phone is an adventure. It is a circus! My sister was going to go visit yesterday, so I will call her today to see how things went. I think it will hit her a little hard, because although I am used to it, and although it is a lovely place, all of the people are old, and even though they are not incapacitated as in a nursing home, it is still a bit depressing. It is difficult to realize that your mother is one of them.
More reports later!
