A bit of randomness

It's been awhile since my last post. The start of the school year has been a bit rocky, but now things are settling down again.

For the month of August, Ryan and I had some interesting times in Cairo. We had a few weeks in the city of sand, at a time of year when there were fewer expats than normal, and even fewer Egyptians, since Ramadan was keeping everyone at home. We were able to drive downtown in 20 minutes, without any traffic, and hardly anyone walking around. Though Ryan almost cried when we realized the Hard Rock Cafe downtown had closed. It's a sad but true mark of how much the loss of the tourist industry has affected Egypt.

It was also a time for seeing lots of strange things that pop up Cairo, like trucks driving down the highway with 5 cows stacked in the back like dominoes.  Or jumping for joy in the supermarket to see premade pizza dough being sold in convenient little balls, only to realize on close inspection that these are not dough, they're butter..... yeah cause I buy my butter in 5lb balls, don't you?

So between the start of school being hellishly busy, fraught with injury and sickness, Ryan and I have been plugging along.  We even joined a gym in the hopes of climbing the stairs without an aneurism. It's working so far, though we have to trade the role of bad cop back and forth.  Someone has to be the hardass every 2 days and tell the other to put the shoes in your bag cause we're working out after school.... dammit! Then the whiny one pulls faces and threatens to climb back into bed because this is such unfair treatment.  But eventually we go, there's huffing and puffing, and no houses fall down, but we leave feeling a little bit better about our cardiovascular health.  Until we follow the workout with a trip to Chilis where we devour chips and queso with ravenous workout fed hunger.

We've also become a bit obsessed with the punch buggy game.  You know, that game you used to play in the car when you were 8 where you get to slam someone in the car on the shoulder and scream "punch buggy blue" when a blue Volkswagen beetle drives by.  Believe it or not there are a remarkable number of vintage beetles in Egypt, we see them all the time.  I have the bruises on my arms and legs to prove it. Don't worry they're from the overzealous teenager Bill brought home with him this summer, not from my loving husband who just gently touches my leg with his knuckles.  This may or may not have something to do with the death glare I gave him when he accidentally beaned me in the shoulder one time.  And apparently it's not enough to frantically scope the horizon for beetles, we've also added a Cairo twist to the game and you can get points for a "punch donkey" (a donkey pulling a cart down the road/highway/parking lot) and also "punch campfire" which is harder to explain.  Feel free to add these exotic Egyptian twists to your own punch buggy escapades.  :)

Ok, sorry about the delay in insights into what's happening in Cairo.  I'll try and post again later this week about our trip to Dubai last week.  Here's your teaser... I've never spent so much time in malls in my life.