El Andalous - More Food

Happy Birthday, Margaret!

Well, I’m quite tempted to skip this week’s blog since I don’t have an awful lot to write about. This is a good thing, since sometimes having something to say just means that something’s gone horribly wrong.

Life continues as usual and luckily for me this means more socializing and more going out for meals. It was Margaret’s birthday so a small group of us went out for some Thai food in Hurghada. We went to the White Elephant and I’d never been there before, but had heard that it had a good reputation. It’s situated on Mamsha. Drivers don’t usually know where restaurants are, so our taxi, true to form went right past it, while pretending that he knew where it was. We  had to stop him and point out that he'd already gone too far. Still, it was a nice enough evening and not so far to walk back.

To my astonishment, Mamsha – a semi-pedestrian street (that doesn’t make sense, but there’s a wide road for cars but an equally wide or maybe even larger area that’s pavement) – has had some very arty sculptures erected along some of it and they are very tasteful. It really makes the area seem a lot more upmarket, although the shops are still full of the same touristy items that are always sold. However, it is a vast improvement over what it used to be.

The food was good – quite spicy – and we had our own champagne with us to toast Margaret (and Yuen, happy birthday Yuen back in Zurich!).

On the way back, on arrival into Sahl Hasheesh, we had a group photo taken by the Christmas decorations at the top of the Entrance Plaza (or is it Piazza, I can never remember), which you can see at the top of this blog; I really like this photo (courtesy of Stephen, but taken by the security guard) because we all look so happy and the decorations themselves are lovely too.

I was also invited round to Jeff and Ness’s for a meal because I’d printed out their boarding passes for them. It wasn’t necessary for them to do this, but it was a good evening; last time they were here, they brought me spaghetti Bolognese (I felt like I was a Meals on Wheels charity case!) and this time they have given me beef stew, tarte tartin, and peach crumble on leaving. They are so kind; everyone here is very generous and I’m lucky to have such good friends.

On another evening, I went out with Stephen, Kathryn, Wendy and Les for a meal in Sahl Hasheesh. I was hungry, so took 3 courses (tomato soup, fish and chips, and banana split). It was all very nice. The fish and chips was actually battered fish (in several bits rather than one large ones) and French fries, so not a million miles off proper fish and chips. Banana splits here are always a bit of a gamble since each restaurant has its own interpretation. This one was a glass of vanilla ice cream with banana all round the edge of the glass (a bit like flower petals) and then M&Ms sprinkled on top with a little bit of chocolate sauce. I really enjoyed the meal but had diarrhea the whole of the night and an unsettled stomach for the next day, so maybe it wasn’t so good. I’m quite surprised as it didn’t seem there was so much that could have gone wrong.

So that’s me, really. I was tempted not to write because every week seems to be variations on the same at the moment (and so a bit too dull for a blog), but I’ve written it now!