Luxor East bank

Internet cafes here are quite expensive here, $2 per hour! So needless to say I don’t go to them every single day. There is a coffee shop that has wifi supposedly, but I haven’t tried that out yet since it’s full of nothing but Egyptian men who are unemployed and with no lives.... in other words they will all try to talk to me and get dates or married . I went back to the restaurant closest to my hotel again to give it another chance, since they have lunch specials that aren’t too terribly expensive. They use enough salt in their food for 10 meals, but besides that the curry chicken was alright. Now the Egyptian ice cream on the otherhand was just awesome. It is so much creamier then the ice cream in north America.

The best part of lunch however was talking with the manager, or at least I thought she was... she is actually married to the owner. She is a British woman, who is quite friendly. I think she was just thrilled to find another woman she could talk with, in English especially. She said she hasn’t learned many Arabic words, and she wears her hair down, so I know she’s not Muslim. Egyptian hospitality strikes again.... after talking with her for awhile she invited me over to her mother in law’s place for dinner! The really neat thing about this is that her mother in law lives in the village, so I will be visiting Egyptian people living as most Egyptians live, and will be able to have some real Egyptian food (yum!). We are going to take the local transit to get there, which sounds like a lot of fun, and a bit of an adventure. It is 5cents to take the bus lol. From the bus stop you just walk over to the village. I asked what I should bring along, and she suggested fruit. I have heard more then one person mention fruit as far as what to bring when invited for dinner at an Egyptian person’s house.

I just spent most of the day relaxing today, since I enjoy just doing nothing every once in awhile. I am fortunate enough to have candles, charcoals and incense now, so I can do some proper magic :). I also have some magical ink which will come in extremely handy. I’m not so sure where I can find parchment around here though without people really wondering! I have already had people asking over a dozen questions just about my request for candles! Apparently Egyptians just don’t burn candles very often. Candles are pretty much only used for romantic times, which I hear don’t happen very often (perhaps this would explain the desperate attitude of many of the men here). So needless to say everyone thought it was quite odd I wanted candles, and I’m sure even odder when I asked for 30 candles lol. They are all also starting to wonder why I want to spend a month in Luxor, as this isn’t standard tourist behaviour. Well I can’t help it if most tourists are lamers that only spend 2 days here!

I’ve noticed something interesting in Egypt; the more time I spend here, the lower the prices get. I’m not exactly sure why this would be. These are stores I walk into for the first time and don’t even haggle, and I am now getting lower prices then when I first got to Egypt. I’m not even more tanned then say someone who is from California yet. I have to definitely say it’s quite nice though, and helps with the budget. Of course I know the locals still pay half to one-fifth of what I do, but my income is also higher then most of the locals. Some only make in an entire day what I make in an hour.

Even though this is a very poor country (from what the locals tell me) they definitely do have some luxuries. With many of the jobs the staff do get to laze around a lot. I don’t see the western attitude of always work faster and look busy. Of course I’m sure it’s different for the factory workers, but I mean anyone I see working with the public, or when I see people farming. One of my favourite luxuries about Egypt is the fresh squeezed juice! There is nothing in the world like a nice glass or two of fresh squeezed guava juice in the middle of a hot day! Paying 50cents for a large glass isn’t too bad either lol. At home I generally can’t afford fresh squeezed juice from the coffee shops more then a couple of times a week if I want to stick to any sort of budget, since it’s $5 for a large glass. The fresh fruit stands all over the place are nice as well. The fruit is picked from the trees fresh daily, not shipped in from somewhere warmer while still green, then sprayed with a chemical to make them ripen faster (like in many places in north America). It really is too bad I won’t be here when mangos come into season! Another luxury the Egyptians have is lots of good food. Even those who are pretty poor manage to eat quite well, since it is all cooked at home. Those who don’t cook at home eat a lot of takeout kahsari I guess :>.