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| Typical Shop in Egypt (Sheraton St) - Courtesy of Holger |
A young female shopping assistant shadowed me as I went round, but generally she was helpful rather than invasive. The store didn’t have any study tables appropriate for my needs and none of the lights inspired me either, but the assistant said that they had another shop selling lighting just a bit further on from Metro. I felt exceedingly pleased with myself because I now knew where Metro was (hey, I’m almost a local!), so I listened carefully to her directions.
As instructed, I walked all the way back to Metro and beyond. Sure enough, I needed to go only a little bit further than I’d gone before to find the shop. If only I’d known! It turned out that I’d been there previously with Safi when I was searching for a sofabed.
In the shop, I got quite excited when I noticed that they sold the fake plant that Nicole had in her flat, along with lots of others. I will definitely buy some of these as it’s hard to grow plants indoors here. It’s maybe too hot and dry inside for the plants and not enough light, since, opposite to Europe, in Egypt you need to keep your home dark and cool. Consequently, you draw your curtains if you’re out during the day; the last thing you want is for the sun to stream indoors. However, before getting the plants, I wanted to go home and picture where they may or may not fit in.
None of the lights really took my fancy, although there were a couple of possibilities if I couldn’t find anything else. Again, I needed to go away and have a think.
Nevertheless, despite not buying anything at all, I somehow felt I had achieved something as well as having made progress with getting my bearings. All that, and I hadn’t even spent much money!
There was a coffee place next to Metro, so I went in there for a drink and phoned for Esmat to pick me up. I still wasn’t really too sure about where I was – I hadn’t spotted any road signs, if they even exist here – so I asked the guy in the coffee shop how I should describe Metro and whether it was in Village Road. He looked at me as if I was a bit mad and said I could just get a taxi outside if I needed one, but I said I wanted to stick with my own driver. Then he informed me that this was El Kawser.
This confused me, as I was under the impression that El Kawser was a district, but now I wondered whether El Kawser was the name of the long road; and if this big street wasn’t Village Road, then maybe the road with the two new furniture shops is Village Road (I think it is!)? One day I will understand all this, but as a relative newcomer, it’s quite befuddling! Egyptians tend not to go by addresses for directions, but by landmarks – so you will say that the furniture shop is opposite the Toyota store in El Kawser; you want to be picked up by the café opposite the Metro in Sheraton Road, etc.
Anyway, I returned home feeling very pleased with myself. Of course, my lack of spend was just deferred, but it did feel like a cheap day out with lots of achievement.
In the evening, I had a call from Cheers (yes, my mobile was switched on! I am learning!), the shop that sells alcohol, to ask whether I wanted to order anything. There’s usually a minimum charge, but I’ve noticed that they phone me whenever they are delivering to Sahl Hasheesh. This gives me the opportunity to order without having to purchase the minimum and, of course, makes their delivery time more worthwhile. Anyway, I was delighted, because somehow I’d run out of wine (had I really drunk that much?) so I asked for another box of white wine and another box of rose.
I thought it was strange when they asked me which wine I wanted, since previously they did the 3L boxes for only one type of wine, so there shouldn’t have been a choice. However, I hadn’t been on their website for a while and assumed that maybe they’d added some further options. Consequently, I just said I would stick with what I had before, which was the Sheherazad (sp?). After all, I didn’t want to linger on the phone for longer than I had to, and I wasn’t going to start discussing what options there may be, thus potentially spoiling my day by getting myself into a series of embarrassing misunderstandings. Anyway, I ended the call feeling very pleased. Now with my wine ordered as well, it was turning out to be a perfect day!
I sat there, expecting delivery of my two 3L wine boxes to put in my fridge, when there was a knock on the door. To my complete shock, the guy came in and deposited one box of 12 bottles of white wine and a box of 12 bottles of rose wine. This was four times more wine than I was expecting (and four times the cost, of course!)!
I couldn’t really complain as they had brought what I’d asked for and it’s not as if the wine will go off (that amount will last me a year, I would think!), so I took it. However, I only just had enough cash on me. So, having started off being so pleased with myself for spending so little money, by the end of the day, I was broke!
Nevertheless, to be honest, once I was sitting in the front of the TV with a glass of wine, I could no longer care less!
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