El Andalous - Preparing for Europe

El Andalous from the Sea

I’m off to Europe to visit a whole load of friends over the course of 18 days, so I won’t be blogging again until 21st August. Meanwhile, I’ll put a few photos up at the normal times (Mons and Thurs) of where I am on that day for your information and entertainment.

People ask me what I miss over here. I don’t think I really miss that much, but here’s my long list of purchases for while I’m away.

1. Dustbuster. Given how dusty it is in Egypt, you’d think everyone would have one. However, I couldn’t find a dustbuster for sale anywhere here. I hope it will save me from having to yank out my vacuum cleaner every day (well, truthfully, I’m just letting everything get dirty for now).

2. Book on Red Sea Fish and Corals. Oh, the irony! I’m sure there must be good books on this somewhere in Hurghada, but I haven’t managed to find the one I want. In the end, I ordered it from Amazon and will collect it while I’m over.

3. Digital underwater camera. Again, the irony! I live in underwater paradise and I can’t find anywhere selling digital underwater cameras. My current one has broken and I haven’t seen any for sale in Spinneys or Radio Shack. It seems a bit unbelievable.

4. Kindle Paperwhite cover. I can only get black here and I wanted one that I can find easily in my bag and that turns the kindle on and off. I’ve gone for fuscia. The reviews say that the fuscia colour is very bright :-)

5. Oxo cubes. Whenever I live abroad, I always buy these when I’m back in the UK.

6. Small clock to stand on a table in my lounge. My video recorder shows the time, but it’s always two hours out and initially changes to a random time for while after a power cut. I could get a small clock over here (mostly cheap and plastic), but there are more decorative ones available on amazon.

7. Printer cartridges. Apparently, the ones here don’t last very long. That must be true, because my printer has already almost run out of ink and I hardly use it (I scan more than I print).

8. Weather station. I could buy this in Egypt, but I got swayed by the reviews on amazon. I want to see how hot it really is and at what temperature I can no longer function!

9. Carotina chocolate powder. Swiss chocolate powder. Need I say more?

10. This is a test. On my writing course, Dean Wesley Smith said that when faced with lists, people read only the first two and the last one. Congratulations if you are still reading!

11. Replacement electric toothbrush heads. I haven’t actually looked for them in Spinneys, but I suspect they may not be available.

12. Vitamin B complex if it’s not too expensive. It comes in packets of 30 here; I’d prefer a jar of 100, but it depends on the price. I’m not convinced it helps with the mosquito bites, but I’m beginning to think I’m having even more bites since I stopped taking it. That could be my imagination, though. I'll probably also pick up some paracetamol while I'm in the UK, although pharmacy products are very cheap in Egypt.

13. Breakfast cereals. Only if I have room in my case. I miss Shreddies, oat cereals (not porridge), cinnamon toast crunch...

14. Wine. Only if I have room; tax on alcohol has just risen 200% here.

15. Icing sugar. Maybe. Lena brought some over for me, but perhaps some backup supplies wouldn’t hurt. They don’t seem to have it in Egypt.


Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing lots of people over the next few weeks. That’s really the main purpose of my visit.

Sahl Hasheesh - The Heat

Sahl Hasheesh - Looking Towards the Pier

Actually, it’s not as hot as it was a while ago, but there’s a load I forgot to say when I wrote about it hotting up. That exemplifies how true it is that these higher temperatures addle my brain!

One effect of the higher temperatures, though, is that I drink a lot more water. This shouldn’t really surprise me, but it did. I drank quite a lot when I first got here and I thought it got less because I was getting used to the heat, but actually, I think it was because it got “colder” (mid 20s). Ridiculous, isn't it, to describe 24 degrees as "cooler"?

I was never a person for having a lot of food in my fridge. Nowadays, though, it is stocked to the brim. Even in winter, it is piled full with drinks – lots of water, juice, diet cokes, and milk. There’s hardly room for anything else. I’ve just started using my ice dispenser, which I’m quite enjoying, although it’s difficult to get it to actually dispense. That’s a bit of a drawback. Maybe I need to grease the ice cube container beforehand? I must look that up on the internet.

Now it's summer, I've changed the way I shop. Frozen items defrost almost immediately on leaving the supermarket. I found a coolbag that the tenants had left behind, so if I remember, I take that with me.

I also have a little cool bag to take my can of diet coke with me down to the beach and it now doubles up as a container for my chocolate purchases. If I just pack the chocolates in with my canned goods and bottled water, they are pure liquid by the time I reach home. In winter, I can store the chocolates in my kitchen cupboards without a problem, but I daren’t do that just now, so chocolates take up one shelf of my fridge.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it before, but I also sleep longer. Or maybe more fitfully. More to the point, during that really hot period, I woke up feeling so hot that I would take a cold shower first thing in the morning (well, luke warm, since you don’t really get “cold” water here from the taps). I never thought that would happen in a month of Sundays.

At the moment, though, I’m back to warm showers, but am sticking with my iced coffees and chilled chocolate bars!

El Andalous - New Laptop

Hurghada - Use of Branding

Well, I'm a little bit late with today's blog and that's because my laptop of six years finally gave up on me.

Funnily enough, I'd just been contemplating this eventuality due to my complete fear of finding myself without being able to use Word or to email easily should my current one break down. In August, I'll be in Switzerland and then the UK (mostly for the Edinburgh Festival), so I thought I would buy a laptop while away as the choice will be greater in Europe. My current laptop could then serve as backup when the new one fails.

First of all, I was going to buy one in the UK, then I remembered that laptops were often cheaper in Switzerland (there's a surprising fact). As usual, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the options. My only "must" was a matte screen. There's no way I want to be sitting and looking at my reflection all day!

After much contemplation, I decided to curb my cheapskate tendencies and to go for a lightweight one that was about three times the price of my cheapo option. On the other hand, I could get that computer for about a third of the price in Switzerland vs the UK, so really it was a bargain. Also, I use the laptop for many hours each day, so it was an investment. That was my reasoning.

Then Nicole mentioned that she'd bought hers for a good price in Spinneys. I had a quick look at what they had available there, but as is often the case here in Egypt, you have to get what's available on the day you look. There's no guarantee it will still be available next month. This was also my underlying fear of what would happen if I just left it until my laptop finally broke. Perhaps nothing suitable would be around. The day I was looking, they only had one laptop with a matte screen and the size was smaller than what I was really looking for.

Chris then reminded me of the computer shop in Sheraton Road that I'd visited with Holger when he was here. I decided I may as well look and price them up. I took my current laptop with me, just in case they could clean it there and then (it turned out that they needed more than a few hours). I noted which matte screen laptops they had available and their prices so that I could look them up when I got back home.

Once home, I opened up my laptop to check them all out and, lo and behold, the screen was whited out diagonally across a third of my screen. It was as if the computer were protesting that I had just taken it to a computer shop saying that I was thinking of replacing it. I swear sometimes that inanimate objects can hear and understand. My laptop shouldn't really have been offended because I was often praising it as having been a good laptop, but I suppose I was also saying it was getting a bit defunct.

I hastily did a backup of all my data and then moved my browser to the left and right while I looked up the specs and the prices of the ones I'd seen. Generally, the laptops here cost about a third less than the European ones, so buying them in Egypt seemed like the best thing to do. And in any case, I now had no choice, since I can't wait ten days to get a new laptop.

As I searched about on the internet, my screen got worse and worse and about two-thirds of the screen was malfunctioning by the time I turned my laptop off.

On going to bed, I'd decided to go for the most expensive one (very similar to my current laptop). When I woke up, I decided to go for the cheapest one, as it would be financially better if it lasted even only half as long (it was half the price of the more expensive one).

When I got there, I ended up buying a completely different one again (mid-price).

 Esmat said that you can never be sure in Egypt whether, eg, a HP laptop is really HP or just a fake, so he said I'd be better off buying in Europe (but that was now out of the question). So, I will have to see. On the other hand, if I buy it in Europe, I won't be able to use the guarantee if I'm over here in Egypt, so maybe I am stuffed either way.

The shop offered to load Windows and Office for free, which I accepted (and gave a baksheesh). They told me it would take two hours, so I started off having a pleasant wander on my own down Sheraton Road. I don't have that many photos of Hurghada, so I was enjoying having a bit of a photoshoot, only my camera packed up in the heat (which is also my mobile phone; I tell you, these phones are just unreliable. I should have got just a cheap one).I was a bit concerned as I needed to phone Esmat to collect me.

I wandered down to the Marina to sit somewhere cooler and to have something to drink (two drinks, actually, because it was very hot and I was sweating pints). This also seemed to fix my mobile phone. I can see I will have to buy my mobile phone a cool bag, which is a bit ironic since I don't think my mobile is particularly cool and the cool bag will make it less mobile.

I returned after two hours to collect the laptop, and they said it would be another half an hour. After half an hour, they said it would be another hour. Or maybe after 9pm (the shop is open until midnight). I knew Esmat wanted to be back for the breaking of the fast, so I left it for the next day (today). As Esmat said, I'd made the mistake of thinking they meant two hours in European time. Two hours in Egypt time means it will get done at some point. Maybe.

So, I am now the proud owner of a laptop with an Arabic keyboard. Actually, it's dual English and Arabic lettering and I have it set to English, but I'd like to try out the Arabic one day. At least that's one thing off my shopping list.

El Andalous - Mice

Sahl Hasheesh from El Andalous Rooftop

After my rats incident, I’m still a little nervous every now and then in the flat if I hear an unidentified noise. One night I thought I had heard a thump in my kitchen and the next night I heard a plastic bag rustling. I went to look and it was a mouse.

Compared with my previous saga, this was mild. The mouse scuttled away and I’m pretty sure it was a mouse and not a rat. It was about a third of the size of the rodents I’d seen before and, like the previous rodents, it looked pretty clean and healthy. I think I would have been more freaked out if it looked as if it was about to starve to death or ridden with disease.

My fear was in approximately the same proportion as the size of the mouse (ie, only a third of my previous state of fear). My heart sank, but it felt nowhere as near as scary as before. This time I didn’t have a broken foot and the creature was considerably smaller. It was also more timid. As soon as I went to look at it, it scooted away under the dishwasher.

I was a bit disheartened, as I still have a sonic rat deterrent on in the evenings and the mouse had ventured forth despite that. I’d bought two different kinds, so I promptly switched over to the other one, just in case they emit different noises and the new noise would deter the mouse. Perhaps the mouse had adapted to the old deterrent. I didn’t see or hear the mouse at all after that.

I spent the rest of the evening looking up how best to kill them. I’d done this a million times before, but each time, I hope to find something new. Anyway, this time, most sites seemed to be praising the glue mats, even though I am really not convinced by them.

Anyway, I was pretty sure I still had a glue mat sitting under my sofa. Sure enough, when I pulled the sofa out, it was there. It had rather a lot of dust clinging to it, but it was better than nothing. I put it by the dishwasher, although I wasn’t really sure if it had any stickiness left. However, at least I felt I was doing something.

I went to sleep. Or tried, at any rate. I put the light out, which is more than I did when I had the rats. After a while, I heard what sounded like rain. This didn’t seem possible. Last time I heard a noise that I thought was rain, it was a burst pipe (I can’t remember now if I’ve told that story).

Anyway, I was curious, so I went over to the balcony doors from my bedroom to have a look. As I was trying to work out whether the ground was wet, in scuttled a tiny mouse from underneath the mosquito netting doors, right in front of me. I gave a yelp of shock and in turn it ran for its life out of my bedroom and into the lounge.

I leave the doors open at night for fresh air while I sleep, but I had really thought that rodents wouldn’t be able to get under the mosquito netting doors that I’d had installed. I think the mouse must have just pushed its way underneath and the sound of rain was the sound of the netting moving backwards and forwards on its castors. I closed the door so that no more mice could enter, although I was aware that the mouse was now basically trapped in my flat. With me.

It was a tiny field mouse; I would say about a quarter of the size of the mouse I’d seen earlier that evening. I had no idea that rodents came in so many different sizes, shapes, and colours. I didn’t really know what to do. I thought that once it realised it couldn’t get out from the lounge, it might try to come back and get out through my bedroom, where it had come in. This worried me. It might even communicate this fact to the other mouse and I'd have both of them dashing into my bedroom trying to exit. What if they couldn't escape, the two mice became friendly and decided to spend their dull evenings mating. My flat might quickly become infested.

There wasn’t a lot I could do, though. I couldn’t be bothered trying to block the bottom of my bedroom door, since I’d failed miserably last time with the giant rodents. If that little mouse could somehow get underneath my mosquito netting (it was not damaged in any way), I had no chance.

I decided just to try to get to sleep; the sooner I could fall asleep, the sooner I would stop worrying.

The next morning I woke up and wondered what had happened to my new residents. I went into the lounge and to my horror I saw that I’d left the balcony doors from the lounge open all night (albeit with the mosquito netting doors closed). I could have had hundreds of mice just flooding into my flat! I usually close those doors before I go to bed, but I must have forgotten.

On the other hand, it also meant that the mice could have escaped. If that other mouse had adapted to the noise of the first alarm, maybe it would make a run for it on hearing the second sonic deterrent?

I went to check the glue mat. To my complete surprise, the tiny mouse was lying there. I thought it was dead, but when I turned the kitchen light on, it started to writhe about on the mat, squeaking away. Part of me felt sorry for it and part of me was petrified that it would manage to yank itself off (it was doing a very good job at squirming) and make a run at me.

I went to security to ask them if they could get housekeeping to dispose of it. However, I’m not sure they understood me. They definitely understood that it was a mouse, but I’m not sure they knew what I wanted from them. Anyway, the answer was that they’d see to it tomorrow. It’s Ramadan just now, so no-one is keen to do too much.

I went back to the flat and looked at the mouse again. It squeaked and wriggled about. There was no way I could just let it stay there. What if it got loose? I returned to security and told them they had to do it now.

Once they saw it, they understood what I wanted. The guy picked up the glue mat and folded it over the mouse, which squeaked again as he did it. The poor thing!

Anyway, that was the last time I saw that mouse. I’m not sure what happened to the other one, but I haven’t heard or seen anything for about a week. I now keep the doors closed at night.

El Andalous - Admin

El Andalous - View from Rooftop

It’s difficult trying to lead the perfect life because life always wants to ensure that it’s not possible.

I’ve been here for over nine months now and I’m still haunted by administrative tasks from Switzerland. I blame the tax office.

Earlier this year, I paid up my Swiss taxes according to the demand I’d received. This was painful, but I was expecting it and had planned accordingly. Everything could be done by bank transfer, so all very easy. I even got an acknowledgment of receipt. So far, so good.

But then, out of the blue, I received a letter from the federal tax office informing me that I needed to pay them an extra 12k CHF (around 8k GBP). Were they having a laugh? “Oh, she’s paid her first bill, let’s see if she’ll pay another one too.” I was shocked. Fortunately, I had the money, but that wasn’t due to any good planning on my part. It had been earmarked for something else entirely.

Weirdly, maybe a few weeks after receiving the request for payment, the tax office sent me another letter with all the calculations, requesting that I sign it in duplicate to confirm that I agreed with their estimates. You’d think they’d give the calculations for signature before asking me to pay, but no. You pay first and then sign later that you agree. Bizarre.

To be honest, I don’t have much of an idea as to how they calculate it, so I looked at it and saw that they’d included my statement to take into account that I shouldn’t be double-taxed, and decided it was probably OK. I looked at my previous tax bill and saw that it was for the district tax only, and this was the federal tax, so I don’t think they were having me on after all. Consequently, I signed it.

Then I needed to get my rental deposit back. You know, that one where I paid that extortionate amount for the cleaning of my rental flat in Switzerland in the hope that I would retain most of my deposit. Rajashree had warned me that it takes up to a year for your deposit to be returned (you get the interest, so it’s not a con). I confess that I didn’t really believe her, but nine months on and I still hadn’t received it.

I went to email them to complain, but decided I should check my Swiss bank account first, just in case. Indeed, there was no sign of any amount deposited in my bank (shame!), but I did have a letter from the bank sitting there from January asking me to inform them of my change of address.

I had avoided doing this, because once they know you are living abroad, they start charging you 30 CHF a month for keeping the account, plus charges for each transaction. Given that they are doing absolutely no extra work, I object, so I had just kept quiet about having moved. Oops. I’ve been waiting for my deposit back before closing my account. Anyway, I decided to ignore the letter for now. It will no doubt come back to bite me at some point.

As it turned out, the rental agency replied to say they’d just sent me documentation that very week for the return of my deposit. I requested they email it to me since I was now in Egypt and they duly did as requested. They managed to find excuses to rob me of 1000 CHF, but I should get the other 5k CHF back now that I’ve signed the forms. That’s almost half of my tax bill, so it helps.

Another administration difficulty arose with changing my address on my Swissquote share dealing account. They wanted me to provide proof of address. I sent them my electricity bill, but I got a phone call saying that I also needed to fill out and sign a form and provide not just proof of address but proof of residency. Also, they hadn’t received my electricity bill (this is where I start worrying about whether my signed Swiss tax documents will arrive).

I tried to explain that proving residency would be difficult as I don’t have a work permit here (since I’m not employed, I hasten to add!). However, the guy was insistent that the Egyptian govt (we didn’t have one at the time) would be able to issue something. However, the problem is that I have a tourist visa and not a resident visa. I cannot get a residency visa unless I marry an Egyptian and I think getting married would be going a bit too far just to be able to register a change of address on my trading account!

Anyway, I let it hang for a while as I really didn’t know what to do (as you can see, a bit of a theme is developing here on my coping techniques). They then wrote to me with the form requesting an electricity bill, so I have now signed that and sent it all off. Hopefully they saw the light and that will be it.

I hope that once I close my bank account in August (assuming the deposit wings its way into my bank account before then), my Swiss admin nightmares will be gone. I’m sure there will be other types of admin nightmares, though. A life without admin seems to be impossible.

El Andalous - Learning to Read

El Andalous - Engineering Office

My French took a big leap forward when I started to read in French; and at one point in my youth I was an avid reader of French literature in the original language. I don’t think I could even attempt to understand a novel in French now.

Anyway, I’m keen to get to the stage where I can read Arabic as I’m convinced this will help me make quick progress in vocabulary and in getting a sense of the grammar. After the shock from looking at my Early Intermediate Egyptian Arabic book, I remembered that I’d always intended on going through all the Arabic scripts of the dialogues at the back of my current book to help me get a handle on reading before I did anything else.

Surely, once I could read all the dialogues in Arabic script in my current book, I should be able to move onto the second book?

Learning to read Arabic reminds me of being a child. I’m having to internally utter each syllable and then work out how to put those syllables together to form a word. It takes forever! Was it really this hard work as a child? I guess it must have been. Having said that, I would have had the advantage of total immersion in the language that I don’t have here.

At first, I found it impossible to read the first dialogue of my current book in Arabic script. I just couldn’t get it. I don’t know why. However, I’m not sure what happened, but one day, it suddenly clicked. Not in the sense that I could suddenly read, but somehow I could, with great effort, work my way through those four lines of text and get them to match up to what the dialogue actually was.

I’m now up to Unit 5 (out of 14) and I am getting better, so it’s quite rewarding. However, it probably takes me an hour’s solid concentration to get through two dialogues of ten lines each. As I mentioned before, Arabic is written in a kind of text format – for instance, the Engineering Room next to my flat is labelled “engnrng” (see photo). So, it’s like you expend a lot of effort just to get a clue as to what the word is. Once you have the clue, you still have to work out what the full word is. And, of course, if your vocabulary isn’t so great, you don’t even know if it’s a word that you have a cat in hell’s chance of guessing.

Sometimes, I get the letters right, but I still don’t guess the word correctly. This is frustrating, because if I can’t do it even when I do know the words, what chance do I have when I don’t know them? For example, I failed to realise that my transliteration of “awm leet” was “omelette” and I had tarabayza (table) as trbyz and couldn’t make the link. Once I looked up the “answer”, it seemed so obvious!

I can remember as a child reading words that I didn’t know, but I can’t remember reading words and not knowing whether I knew them or not. Perhaps this is special to Arabic? On the other hand, I suspect the sensation of saying all the right sounds and not getting the word is something that I did as a child as well. I wish I could remember more clearly what it was like to learn to read, but I think some of those memories are coming back as I try to learn to read Arabic.

When I’m watching films on TV, I often try to see if I can read any of the Arabic subtitles. Honestly, it completely amazes me how fast humans can read. It seems absolutely impossible to me that anyone could have read all that Arabic script in the space of a few seconds, but then occasionally up pops some English subtitles and I realise I need only glance at them to understand the text. It’s mind-boggling how fast the brain can process. However, I’m pretty chuffed as these days I can on the rare occasion decipher a word or two on the subtitles, so that’s another sign of progress.

Another problem with Arabic script is that many of the letters are very similar, so I often have to squint to see, for example, if a letter is a u with one dot underneath (a “b”) or a u with two dots underneath (a “y” or an “ee”). Sometimes, the two dots are written as a dash and it’s equally hard to tell whether I’m looking at a dash or a dot. I guess that once you have a large vocabulary, it’s much easier to tell as you would know that there is no word that would have a “b” in that position, for example. For now, though, it’s tricky!

An additional difficulty is that when some pairs of letters are joined, they sometimes change to a different shape. The letters “l” and “a”, for instance, form a separate letter that’s not in the alphabet. This is something I’ve had to pick up, since I’ve learned only the alphabet. I’m sure there are other ones I’m missing, since I’m certain I’ve seen an o with three dots on top, but this letter doesn’t exist (I think I’ve now worked out that this is a “v” to transliterate European text for a letter that doesn’t exist in Arabic).

Also, as soon as script becomes anything like calligraphy or of a special design, I’m lost. It needs to be in the standard shape for me to recognise it at this stage. You don’t realise how much of a liberty is taken with the alphabet until you’re not familiar with one and you struggle to cope. Is that squiggle supposed to be a letter or is it just a decorative flair?

I was at the KFC the other day (surprise!), and I tried reading the Arabic script under “KFC” on the umbrella. It was the mirror image, so it took me a while to work out that I was reading the word back-to-front because Arabic is written from right-to-left, so it will be reverse in reverse (if you get what I mean!). All these little things that you do automatically when you know the alphabet (it’s relatively easy to read mirror-image English) become very difficult when you don’t!

El Andalous - Learning Egyptian Arabic (Chapters 9-14)

Getting Around in Sahl Hasheesh

OK. I admit it. I’ve fallen a bit behind on my Egyptian Arabic. I’m not quite sure how, but it’s probably because I’ve taken on the three writing courses instead. My final writing course ends this week, so maybe I will get back to learning Egyptian Arabic in earnest. It’s not that I haven’t done any; it’s just been rather sporadic.

I am, however, prepared for progress. I’ve bought myself a follow-up book (Early Intermediate Egyptian Arabic). Being the ambitious person that I am, I couldn’t help but peek ahead to see what I would learn and was a bit horrified to find that I couldn’t even get started with it.

The next book is all in Arabic script. I knew this when I bought it and I thought it would be fine as it would force me to struggle through. However, I’d failed to take into account that even the grammar would be explained in Arabic script and the vocabulary for that is beyond me at this stage. Even looking at the easiest dialogue, which is actually very basic compared to my current book, I couldn’t make out a single word. It was a bit depressing.

Anyway, it got me back to going through my current book. I’ve now pretty much finished it, although, to be honest, I haven’t focused too hard on learning the declination of the verbs in the past tense. I’ve looked at it and understood how it works (it’s not difficult), but my main aim is really to get a general understanding in the first instance rather than to speak grammatically correct language, so I would rather spend time on gaining more vocabulary and just recognising the verbs when they happen.

Arabic continues to surprise me with its weirdness. Look at this, for example. In the singular, nouns can be masculine or feminine and their corresponding verbs, adjectives, pronouns etc will all take the relevant, singular, masculine or feminine form. This is standard for most languages. But in Arabic once any non-human word (eg, objects, ideas) becomes plural, it’s always treated as if it is feminine singular. That’s not normal! The plural is used only for humans or human nouns (the word “teams”, I think, takes the plural, because a team is made up of humans). It makes me wonder why I spent all that time learning the plural since you hardly ever need to use it.

Another blow to my progress happened when I discovered that I pretty much have to learn the past form separately for each verb. There’s a lot of rote learning in Arabic! I spent ages drumming in the masculine and feminine words for each of the major colours and I still can’t really remember them. Anyway, the past form does at least look similar to the present form (for instance yinzil is to get down and the past stem is nizil; yishrab is to drink and the past form is shirib; yaakul is to eat and the past stem is kal), but I still need to learn them all. I’ve tried, but like the colours, I suspect a lot of it hasn’t really stuck. I think I will only “get” it with practice as it’s too hard to learn just in the abstract. This is where I miss being at school, where you had writing exercises and you had to try speaking your own sentences. There are exercises in the book, which are helpful, but none of them are writing exercises (because it’s not until the end that you’ve learned all the letters of the alphabet).

My heart also sank when the book went through the ten basic forms of verbs, which are supposed to help you guess the meaning if you don't know a word (because the verb form tells you whether it’s a verb about doing something to someone, to yourself, with someone etc). As far as I can see, these ten forms are impossible to memorise. I think it will be easier to pick it up intuitively as I go along.

For instance, if C stands for any random consonant, a Form 1 verb is yiCaCCac or yiCaCCCaC; Form 2 is yiCaaCCCaaCaC and so on for ten different combinations. Ugh!

This is why I think it’s easier to learn through reading and seeing more vocabulary in a breadth of contexts. I’m sure it will stick in and become more obvious once I can read. I have been trying to improve my reading, but I’ll leave that for another blog.

El Andalous - Ramadan

El Andalous Entrance With Fanous

El Andalous Market - Close-Up of Fanous

Well, we’re about a week into Ramadan now. The clocks have gone back one hour, which is good for those fasting (hence the change in time), but means that it gets dark an hour earlier on the beach, so I have to make sure that I don’t delay my afternoon. It’s quite surprising what a difference that one hour makes as evening seems to appear so quickly. Or maybe I’m just getting more disorganised and getting to the beach later. Or perhaps a bit of both!

At Ramadan, many establishments put up a fanous – a lantern – in front of their building. The ones I’ve pictured are in front of El Andalous and the El Andalous market at the bottom of the building. That’s Russian you can see in the background due to the number of Russian residents here in Hurghada.

Another custom during Ramadan is to provide for the poor. I’ve been told that Spinneys puts on free food in the evenings. Once night falls, eating and drinking can begin and I’ve heard that, despite the daylight fasting, many Egyptians actually put on weight at this time of year! I mentioned this to Esmat and he claimed that the hardest bit about Ramadan wasn't so much the fasting, but the psychological aspects that you should not speak ill of anyone and you should not have sex.

I started off Ramadan with an ethical dilemma. I usually eat my breakfast and lunch out on the balcony, but it seemed a bit cruel to sit there feasting myself to my heart’s content while watching the gardeners and pool hygienists working away with no recourse to food or water. Consequently, the first two days of Ramadan I decided I should sit inside to eat and drink. However, it’s quite depressing to stay in a relatively dark room when you know you could be relaxing in the shade looking at the sun, the garden, and the pools (and the sea in the distance if you look very hard).

Anyway, after two days, I gave up. So much for ethics! Actually, to be fair to myself, I noticed that the snack bar was still serving people at the pool (non-Muslims, obviously), so it seemed a bit daft for me not to eat or drink outside, as the workers were having to watch other people do precisely that anyway. Also, technically, I am sitting in my home and nobody should be watching what I’m doing in my home environment. Practically, though, it’s not possible and in any case I like the fact that everyone says hello to me as they walk past.

During Ramadan, in many areas shops will work for reduced hours; however, because Hurghada is a tourist location, most shops remain open as usual. However, government buildings, and that includes the post office, work one hour less each day during Ramadan.

Sahl Hasheesh has its own post office (this is quite a coup!). I’ve often wondered if Sahl Hasheesh will be able to continue to support a post office, as there aren’t so many people here. Anyway, I needed to post something and felt pleased with myself for supporting our local facility. First of all, I went on a Saturday, not realising it was closed on Saturdays (the weekend is Friday and Saturday, but most shops are open every day until late at night; however, this doesn't apply to government offices).

I walked over there again in the blistering heat the following morning and, to my surprise, there were about ten Egyptians queuing. I came back later, but there was still a huge line of people. I’m not sure if everyone gets paid through the post office; I can’t see any other reason for there being such a crowd. Eventually, I decided to wait inside, but was informed that I would have to return the next day as it closed at 1pm (instead of 2pm) due to Ramadan.

When I got there the following day, again, there were loads of Egyptians. Maybe they all celebrate Ramadan in the post office? For some reason I was served first. However, I’m pretty happy as I’m now more confident that the post office will be there to stay.

Otherwise, life goes on as usual during Ramadan, although Sisi seems to be using this period to introduce a lot of new austerity measures (petrol increase by 78%, so now 2.6 LE a litre; cigarette tax up 50%; alcohol tax up 200%; but Egypt needs the money).

So, that’s Ramadan so far.

Hurghada - Eating Out

Sahl Hasheesh - Fish Having Lunch

It takes a while to know where to go out when you’re new, but I’m slowly gaining experience of several eating establishments in Hurghada.

I’ve already reported on the Viking bar where we listened to a live band one evening. A similar place was recommended by Nicole’s hairdresser, so we decided to go there one evening for a meal. It’s called South Beach and, believe it or not, is on a beach. It’s just off Sheraton Road.

There were loungers by the beach, but the main area was a wooden platformed area facing a stage with some very fancy kit for the band. The menu was fairly standard, although Nicole said the mussels were really good and I have to say we had the best cheesecake that I’ve had in years. Apparently, it’s frequented quite a lot by the Brits. The waiters spoke perfect English and it was very clean. 

We were accompanied by Nicole’s beautician and the beautician’s two (male) friends, who had come just for the music (the guitarist was very good; the band was a bit heavy and very loud, but maybe I’m showing my age!). One of them made a comment of “what a waste” along with a few other similar remarks when he realised I was single, which is the closest I’ve come to a compliment for quite a while (I could have regarded it as crass, but I was old enough to be his mother, so I decided it was a compliment – may as well look on the positive side!). I found it quite funny, anyway.

I’m looking forward to taking visitors to South Beach as it makes for a good evening with both food and music and a little more lively than Sahl Hasheesh (although Sahl Hasheesh has its beach parties).

Apparently, there’s supposed to be an ice bar (ie, a bar made out of ice) coming in the same location, although it will cost a bomb to keep it all frozen when temperatures are 30 degrees at midnight! Let’s see if it ever happens. Hurghada is a place full of rumoured expectations that never materialise (but the speculation is always good fun).

Another evening we went to a Chinese restaurant on Sheraton Road. The original idea had been to try out Retro, which is just opposite South Beach and has a deal on Mondays for steak, chips and a wine for 55 LE (around £5). It’s always full, which is a good sign. However, when we got there, the World Cup was in full flow, we couldn’t get a seat and the TV was blaring, so we decided we would try it once the World Cup was over. Consequently, we walked to the Chinese restaurant instead.

We sat inside to benefit from the air conditioning and we still couldn’t quite escape the World Cup, but we were at least the other side of the restaurant and it was all nicely set out. I took the duck with pancakes, which was very good; the menu had a large selection, the prices were reasonable, and the food was good. I would be more than happy to eat there with visiting friends.

Finally (for now!), I went to Thai Garden on the Touristic Promenade with Safi for her birthday (happy birthday, Safi!). Kath and Tom had also recommended this restaurant, commenting that it had been reliably good over the last six years, which is quite something for Hurghada. It looks small from the outside, but goes back quite a way. When you enter, you walk past all the Asian cooks who bow as you come in and then you step over a small bridge to get to the dining area. Very nice! The menu had a good selection and Safi and I shared our dishes. I decided to take a non-alchoholic cocktail since one of my characters in my book (Space Shapes) had just ordered one (I'm such a copy-cat)! Absolutely everything was super. Again, I am looking forward to bringing visitors there.

So, I’m slowly building up a few recommendations. I am hoping that maybe this will persuade some more people to visit!