King Tut and Kushari

Cairo, August 25/26 2006

I love food. I like the fellowship that you get when eating with others. I like shopping for food, and the reaction you get when you cook someone special a good meal. But what I especially love is going to some shady street vender or hole in the wall local joint and ordering something that you can't pronounce, let alone identify what exactly it is. For me, finding a new dish is like reading a really good book for the first time. Each bite, each turn of the page brings a new set of flavors, and the realization that this is definitely a keeper and that you'll be coming back to it again. Yesterday over breakfast at the hostel I met a really lovely couple from London, and it lead to a couple of really good meals and wonderful company.
David and Francis were planning to go to the Egyptian Museum, which is about a mile from our hostel, and about a block away from my school. I joined them on the walk there and by the time that we got to the museum I decided to go in with them rather then head over to the school. The Egyptian Museum is a huge red brick building, and houses some truly amazing things. Unfortunately, it is very poorly organized, and explanations of what you are looking at are short and outdated. That all being said, it was well worth the time that we spent in it and I'll be gong back. I saw King Tut's treasures- they gave me serious goose-bumps- but my favorite thing was a little room off the second floor that housed the animal mummies. There was everything from a 20 foot mummified croc, to a pharaoh's favorite hunting dog. It gave me such a sense of connection with the ancient people to see how much love and respect they had for their animals. I also saw some of the Tel Armana tablets, which are around 4000 years old and are Akkadian tablets. Akkadian is the earliest known form of writing, and this set of tablets mentions the ancient city in Israel that I did the archeological dig at two years ago. I had to write a huge paper for school about these, and it was really neat to see them in person.
After the museum, we decided to shower back at the hostel and go grab a bite to eat. I'm staying on street called Taalat Harb, which is in the heart of downtown. It's the Fifth Avenue of Cairo, and shops and vendors crowd the narrow sidewalks. You can hear them trying to sell their goods well into the late evening, and traffic is pretty crazy. Because there are so many shops, there aren't very many restaurants. David remembered a place that was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide that was close, so we headed out. The restaurant was called Kushari, although we had no idea what that meant at the time. We into the wonderful smelling doorway, grabbed an upstairs table, and waited for the waiter to bring a menu.
Well it turns out that the only thing that this place is sells is Kushari- and there was a great amount of confusion on all of our parts when we tried to order. Finally we figured out that there was only one dish on the menu and got it and some water. After a couple of minutes, the waiter came back with three large bowls of starchy goodness. It turns out that Kushari is a combination of noodles, macaroni, and lentils that has a tomato and onion sauce on top. You can add a lemon or spicy sauce to it, and I decided to add both. The first couple of bites were great, and then I literally felt like someone had lit a blow torch in my stomach. I gave a quick prayer that I wouldn't be worshiping the porcelain god the rest of the day, and dug in. About half way through the meal I glanced out the window and saw that there was a juice stand across the street and excitedly suggested that we go there after dinner. Both David and Francis were agreeable, and we finished up and asked for the bill. The waiter brought it by, and it made grin. Our three bowels of Kushari, and a bottle of water came to a whopping eleven pounds. Now keep in mind that the exchange rate is very much in our favor at 5.7 dollars to the pound- which meant that our meal came to a little under two dollars, and my part of the tab was an astronomical 67 cents. It was fresh, tasty and dirt cheap- my kind of meal. It sure beat a big mac.
We dodged the traffic to cross the street, and I was able to order us two glasses of mango juice and a fresh glass orange juice in Arabic. It felt really good to be able to put enough words together to make some kind of sense. It was freshly squeezed and was just as good as the kushari. The the rich mango juice put out the fire in my belly and was almost a meal in its self. Like the kushari, it cost under two dollars. Feeling much better we set out for the underground metro to see Coptic (Christian) Cairo. The metro is clean, somewhat easy to navigate, and was going right to where we wanted. We hopped on the first car, and almost right away figured out that we had done something wrong. Turns out that we had gotten into the women's only car, and boy were we getting looks. They weren't hostile stares, but I was enormously aware and uncomfortable never the less. At the next stop we got into another car about five minutes later, changed lines and made it our station. By that time, the three of us were totally beat ( I had been up since about 4 AM) and when it turned out that most things were already closed, we spent about 15 minutes walking around and then headed back.
I went to bed not long after that, and today I've been so exhausted that I slept most of the day. Tomorrow I check into school, and so the next couple of days will be busy.
It was really nice to hear from some of you, so if you get a chance, thrown me an email. It will be a couple of days before I'll have enough time to sit down and pound out another email, but it would be lovely to hear for you. Also, some of you may know that my best friend Laura is doing the same thing that I am doing, but in China. She has a fabulous blog that is really funny here- http://batgirldrivesbatmobile.blogspot.com/
Also, if you would prefer to just keep up through the blog, or want me to use a different email, let me know and I'll gladly take you off or change your email on my list.

Wish you were here!
Sarah