Super Market Day

May 1^st

Today we headed off to Hala Habibi Market, one of the oldest markets in Cairo. It’s pretty crazy there. At this point we are pretty over the constant loud beeping, loud people, crowds and the various ways you can get lost on these streets. Once at the market this was amplified by about 100%. Since it is already loud people now have bullhorns to yell things out at people. Music playing people snapping their fingers in front of your face to get your attention, touching you, trying to shake your hand (this you really have to watch for because someone tried to do this to me and some other guy came out from behind his stand and literally kicked his ass, like took his foot and kicked his ass. I wasn’t quite sure why, but it probably wasn’t good.) The clothing they have here is quite fancy and if we had the money I would so be buying shirts and shirts and dresses. Not to mention the scarves...every fancy scarf in every colour...oh yeah baby this is really the way I would dress forever if given the chance...

A few hours into this super adventure I am fading fast. Too many people, too much noise so we look for a place to get some tea, which is also interesting, so they have tea stations all over the streets, but you have to have your own cup or you can use their cups but you have to stand around and drink it there at the station because the cups are either glass or silver. So we looked for a shop with a cup I could walk around with. Finally we found a place that was mostly a place with water pipes where people smoke Sheesha, not sure what Sheesha is exactly drugs are illegal, but men seem really like it here and sit around smoking it at these places so it is probably good... After tea we went to get some ice cream and then we went to the mall, which had more men’s shops than I have ever seen. The markets have lots of women’s shops, but the malls and many stores about town have men’s shops galore. Men really like to dress to impress here. Women do too, but you really see it in men, like you will never see a man wearing shorts or anything sloppy. They are usually wearing nice shirts and dress pants or nice jeans. Most women are wearing head scarves and long dresses. Some covered head to toe some only a head scarf and regular clothing, but most women have their arms covered somehow. There are these very thin long sleeve shirts women wear everywhere with things. Clothing is not that expensive either, usually about $10-$12 for a shirt or skirt. We also had some of this local food that we have grown to love. It consists of macaroni, spaghetti, lentils, tomato sauce, vinegar and hot sauce. IT is pretty good and super cheep. A whole big bowl of it costs about 75cents.

We were out today to find empty bottles for the oils we got a while ago at this essential oil/perfume place in Aswan. (We got totally taken by this guy, they talk you up and give you tea and relax you until you believe all the things they are saying about their oils, but don’t believe them. I thought I was getting pure Sandalwood oil, but later I started to realize that it was mixed with coconut oil. Rats...but we also bought some fragrances that were made to smell like popular perfumes. I got one that smells like Angel and he got one the smells like Jean Paul Guiteier. So the reason why we needed different bottles is because the ones we got had lids that didn’t close very well.

So we searched and searched, but couldn’t find anything that worked so we found our way back to the hostel.

We got cleaned up and caught up on some blogging. Had some chats with some people staying here at the hostel and then watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Pirates of the Caribbean.