Back Home

Hmm, I’m getting lax with my postings.

After days of visiting people and getting myself down to Gatwick I finally arrived in Egypt after long delays.

In the airport I was waiting in the queue next to a lady who I got chatting to.  Turns out she was the nutter.  Turns out she sat next to me on the plane for 5 hours.  Oh well, made the flight interesting.

Arrived at the airport and cabbed myself back to the apartment.  There was water all over the streets and the cabbie explained that they’d had the worst thunderstorm for 14 years the previous day.  Picked up a bottle of vodka for Khalif on the way. Let myself into my apartment and total darkness, but after 2 minutes of panic I flicked the fuse box switch and power was restored.  Down to the El Hambra, a couple of beers and a curried prawn and I was ready for bed.

I’d just had a bath and readied myself for a good nap when Ashraf called me and invited me down to the Hard Rock Cafe, so I redressed and taxied it up to him where I had a couple of beers with him, tried to talk business over the loud rock music and gave up when I realised that it wasn’t the music stopping me from understanding him, he was too pissed to talk.  He’d drank himself through a hangover from the night before.  Lift home from a couple of Hard Rock staff and bed.

Up at midday after a good sleep, bath, coffee and then round to Amgad’s to catch up.  He was just up and looked really tired.  Coffee and arranged to go with Ashraf and his friend/customer Rami over in Sekalla at Joli Pub.

Went to change some money and get phone credit, met up with Nessim and dropped into the Caco Bar to catch up with the guys there. Ashraf called and met me in Shahrazara where he proceeded to down a couple of beers before we got a taxi to Sekalla.

Met Rami, lovely bloke, in his bar Joli.  His friends Abu Ashara (owns some rather large supermarkets here) and the director of tourism for Hurghada were there as well.  No business was discussed but Ashraf promptly got to work on a few beers.

I jumped a cab back to the apartment as Amgad had arranged for the local internet cafe to run a CAT5 cable across three streets to my apartment for me, so I met the guy there and bingo! I’m back on the internet.

Amgad called and arranged to pick me up about 10:30pm to go to Senzo Mall to buy some bits that I needed.  He arrived in a minibus with Hani driving and said we were picking up Nasiya along the way.

At Senzo bought a 5 hob cooker, 1400W microwave, satellite receiver, 32” LCD TV (more than I intended), plates, crockery, mop bucket, you know the kind of stuff.  Back at 2am.  Khalif couldn’t manage the cooker up the stairs so he’s going to grab another Bawab tomorrow and get it in for me.

Crawled into bed with my book and fell into a restless sleep, up at 6am now so I’ve got some laundry ready to go and decided to update this little bloglet.