Home, sweet spare bedroom

I'm sorry if in the previous post I didnt make it clear, I'm pleased as punch to be homeless. I mostly think its pretty funny.

After arriving last night I drank Pam's duty free vodka, smoked her cigarettes then fell asleep on her couch, she woke me up and put me in the spare bedroom. Come 8 a.m. I walked around the house in my underwear singing at the top of my lungs to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Pam and Brian don't mind. I make an awesome house guest.

We started exploring the apartment after I packed up all my stuff. We found tons of clues to the previous tenants, including a photo of a ugly chubby 20 something white dude bouncing on his knee an even uglier baby wearing deluxe headphones, a gulfie towelhead namebadge, a picture of a creepy looking girl, scary stuffed animals, then the goldmine.
--the previous roommates left a bag of old clothes in the corner of one room, and a slutty dress behind a chair in my room. (oh, and five pairs of slutty underwear was found throughout various rooms in the house Hot.) The best part about the pile of old clothes was the thigh high hooker boots in the middle of the bag, my size no less. I snagged some clothes for pam, left the underwear for the cleaners and high tailed it out of there.

I'm debating about wearing the anonymous slut outfit tonight to our secret Surprise Flip Cup Party for Pam. Yay or Nay?

"Bakshish, mister" my new life mantra

As many of you know I have been apartment searching my heart out with AIESEC. We've tried hard, and sadly fallen short.

As of tomorrow morning:

I am officially a vagabond.

That's right. I have no home.

What it comes down to is I can't afford put a deposit down and first months rent on a 3-bedroom apartment without 2 roommates, no matter what district of Cairo I chose to live in. (that's right, I'm probably going to have to give up on the dream of staying downtown)

Who cares really, its all semantics. Despite my and AIESEC's best efforts I will spend a little time sleeping in people's spare bedrooms, getting ready in their bathrooms, using their hair spray, eating their ice cream when I think they can't tell.

In the end, there aren't any really good options for me at the moment with housing. I can wait and hope for a sublet to come up, or I can sit tight and wait for the new AIESEC trainees to arrive. Either way, I have to be out of one place tomorrow, and I have no permanent home yet.


(Even this horse has a home. Sadly, there is no room at the inn for Megan, and this stable is a little far from work for me to roll like Jesus.)

Luckily, I know some amazing people here, who have offered an empty half of a bed for as long as I need, and more excitingly, complete strangers saying I can stay in their spare rooms, and friends risking hellish Egyptian mother-in-lawesque landlord screaming matches in order to put me up in their extra room.

Thanks all of you, I appreciate it. And I will promise not to leave my underwear on the bathroom floor more than twice a week.

Welcome visuals.

Picture 097
Originally uploaded by feralcats.

As you all know, the kind of nerd I was in high school didn't involve being in the AV club.

I was the kind of nerd who dated a guy for two years who only wore jean shorts and black t-shirts with WWF celebrities on them. I still remember the first day I saw him at drama club, with his "The Rock" t-shirt and his chubby pasty legs. Oh, I was also the kind of nerd who wore the same pair of $5 drawstring Walmart pants 5 days out of the week. What? They complimented my spikey bleached blond lesbian hair. (You should see my passport.)

What this means for you, loyal readers, (mom & dad*) is that I started a flickr account in June, didn't add photos until July and just now decided it to tell any of you about it.

the address is easy to remember:
www.flickr.com/photos/detrie_megan

I went to an Island of poor people, carnival games and starving horses with open sores. It was probably the best day of my life. I got to ride bikes.



* I can't do the old blog "A Readership of One" gag of directly addressing Pat Hayden in every entry, because sadly, he's sold me out to adulthood. Boo! Pat Hayden!

A Wisconsin Girl and Egyptian time

One thing I was warned about before I came to Egypt was that Egyptians aren't very good with the concept of "on-time." I was told to prepare myself for constantly waiting an hour or two every time I had plans. Based on everyone's comments, I'm sure that this is true and I've just been lucky that my co-workers and AIESEC Cairo University are such diligent people.

Regardless, the reality of "Egyptian time" accidentally got me drunk yesterday.

I had an hour or two to kill before dinner plans with Nisrin, my Arab American friend, who has managed to absorb all of the worst quirks of both cultures. She's mastered the "American Bitch" concept, while also adopting "Arab Scheduling." Not only will she fall asleep for six hours and leave you waiting at a coffee shop, but she'll remorselessly chew you out when your eighth phone call wakes her up. God Bless her.

For those of you non-American readers, I come from the homeland of beer. Wisconsin produces most of the country's cheap, dirty and delicious beer. And our people reflect it. It's pretty normal to finish a pitcher or two with friends after work, go home and nap, then meet those friends for after-dinner drinks.

As a Wisconsin native, sometimes, I just want a beer. Yesterday was one of those days.

I went to our favorite downtown (and damn near only) drinking spot: Horeya. Its got that right mix of cheap prices, cold war-inspired interior design (pale yellow walls and dirty mirrors) and sad middle-aged Egyptian men. Needless to say, I love it.

I figured I would have a beer or two while waiting for Nisrin's call. This is where Egyptian time screwed me. 7:00 p.m. turned into 8:30 p.m. and I had drank four beers on an empty stomach. The waiter kept telling my friend in arabic that he loved me while I poured beer from my bottle into my friend's and flicked these little yellow beans at other patrons.

Every time my friend would suggest we get food I'd yell "No, Nisrin and I are gonna eat soup. I made it myself!"

8:30 p.m. rolled on into 9:30 p.m. and Egypt time had gotten me hammered.

Nisrin never called, I never ate any soup. I turned my phone off out of fear someone might call and discover how drunk I was at such an early hour. (May caught me anyway)

Sorry, there's no real moral to this one. Well, maybe: never trust Nisrin.

In the club lookin' so conspicuous

I know I've said it a million times, and most of my posts focus solely on this theme: Egypt is a random and endearing place.

Things happen here that would never happen in the United States. Even if they only happen because I am foreign, there is a lot to be said for a culture that is so willing to share their most meaningful moments with strangers. Especially when most Western strangers rarely try to learn anything about customs or tradition before they begin their tourist safari.

Last night I went on a typical evening event for me, yet another "lame adventure." We try our best to get lost, then unlost, then have tea and shisha in a back alley.

The adventure started around 10 p.m. and in our typical lazy fashion, we took a left randomly off the main road and walked. Eventually we passed what looked like a cozy restaurant or bar. I knew it was something else; no restaurant would play such loud Egyptian music on such a shitty speaker system. They would lose all their tips after the customer's eardrums burst. And let's be honest, there are about five bars in the city. I would know if one was this close to home.

We started peering in the windows from the sidewalk, and my friend accidentally catches the eye of a 14-year-old Egyptian kid. The kid comes out of what is shaping up to look like a dance hall, grabs my friends hand and pulls him inside. I follow them without being invited. I'd rather be somewhere I wasn't invited with a hulky looking white guy than standing alone on the sidewalk late at night in a place I don’t know.

Weddings are very extravagant events in Egypt. I've been told by an Egyptian friend that many people remain unmarried simply because they can’t afford the wedding ceremony part of the process. Some poorer people get around the lack of money by having street weddings, others become legally married with a document, but it isn't recognized by society until there is a ceremony. This leads many couples to marry in secret and continue living in separate houses, never telling their parents that they are married.

It took us a while to figure out what exactly is going on- it was a wedding celebration. There were only around 30 people in the room, mostly dressed in street clothes. The kid that brought us in sat us down in the corner next to the speakers making our sad attempts at broken Arabic conversation even more impossible.

There was a circle of men dancing in the middle of the room, and women in the back part of the dance floor simply watching. The young Egyptian friend pulled my companion onto the dance floor and gestured for him to watch and repeat an intricate dance focusing on a lot of wrist flopping, hip jutting and leg spazzing.

My friend's reaction- the most embarrassing display of white middle-class man dancing I've ever seen in my life.

You know that guy at the club, feet glued to the floor, a little movement of the shoulders and a facial expression of complete defeat. That was him, in the middle of a bunch of rocking Arabs. Awesome!
Our young host eventually ran back to the chairs to retrieve me. He pulls me onto the dance floor and gestures for everyone to circle up. I knew what he wanted. It's what all men want when they get a chance to see Megan Detrie on the dance floor. I was being challenged to a dance off!

I was all set to go, and all of a sudden the music switched. No longer was I listening to what I affectionately call "Habibbie Rock," no, suddenly it was something far more familiar and terrifying.

Usher featuring Little John and LudaKris.

Those of you that know me know I have a secret love for dance club music. Those of you who've seen me at a dance party know I dance best when I'm shaking it like an overweight Mexican is shoving a five dollar bill down my top.

(Last weekend I playfully hit a male companion in the side while we were walking down the street in a ritzy part of town. The action worked up a group of five or six Egyptian men into such a frenzy they immediately broke into cheers and "Hello! Whoo!, Whoo!" Which almost made me fall down laughing.)

I knew my club-ho dancing was out of the question, and I was at a loss of how to move. Luckily I was pushed aside within seconds to clear room for my dance-off opponent, a teenager who could breakdance like he was grandmaster flash.

The boy laid out some head-spins, a couple flares, a "Thomas" or two. His skills were mad fresh.

Dance competition over, music returned to the Arabic variety and eventually we snuck out.


All in all you're typical night.

Wine Experts

Americans in Egypt, you feel a little homesick?

This week I've learned to recreate your favorite cheap drinks purely by accident.

Tuesday night, I learned the recipe for Boon's Farm.

3 parts Green Apple Miranda soda
1 part Gin.

Tastes exactly like apple Boon's. Fellow Americans agreed.


Friday Night, I've given us the one thing we all don't miss: Boxed Wine.

There's a drink here called Kirkadee, its sweetened hibiscus tea, and it's delicious. Friday night in the middle of a party, I spent an hour in the kitchen brewing up a batch of this tea with my friends. We then managed to defrost the entire freezer trying to cool it, then mixed it with egyptian vodka (tastes like rubbing alcohol). the result:

Cold: Franzia's Red Chardonay.
Hot: Plum Wine (actually not terrible, though not reccommended)

so, after two hours of effort I managed to create not only boxed wine, but the worst flavor of all boxed win. Red Wine. I'm a fucking champion.

an unlikely 'Anything you can do I can do better' battle.

Yesterday Wisconsin reached a heat index of 110, while Cairo held its usual heat index of 95.

I never thought I would come to Egypt to escape the July heat. Hope all of you back home have installed air conditioners and are comfortable looking at your roomate sitting naked on the couch.

Atta boy Midwest, way to prove you can threaten me with sun stroke just as well as the Middle East.