A Visit to CityStars Mall

We spent most of yesterday out in the Nasr City area with Moody and Mona. They had invited us to come out and look at some of the furniture stores in the City Stars Mall in nearby Heliopolis. Far more than just a mall, City Stars is a major office, hotel and entertainment development in this area near the Cairo International Airport.

While only about fifteen miles away, it seems like much farther in both space and time. Streets in our neighborhood near the pyramids have the feeling of ancient Egypt. Merchants still sell fruits and vegetables from carts and merchandise in tiny shops directed at neighbors or tourists.

It is quite a contrast to walk into City Stars and find a modern shopping center that equals or exceeds any you would find in the U.S. or Europe.


The two major anchors for the mall are a Virgin Megastore and a huge Spinneys hypermarket. We were headed over to Starbucks so that I could pick up some coffee beans but stopped first at Cinnabon. You would recognize many of the restaurants: Chilis, Fuddruckers, Maccaroni Grill, T.G.I. Fridays Ruby Tuesday and even a Rainforest Cafe. Here's the whole list:

There are reportedly over 500 shops including such giants as Guess, Levi and Nine West. There are plenty of local shops including an area of modern shops carrying the usual local crafts and souvenirs. Before we ever got to Starbucks I found this Lebanese Roastery shop with nuts and coffee beans. I bought a pound of beans custom blended and ground in the shop. Good coffee is very hard to come by in Cairo.

We spent the last hour in the Spinney's hypermarket. As we left Spinney's, I was about to head over to Radio Shack when I spotted a sign that made me feel right at home.

Now I had thought "broasted" chicken was almost exclusive to Wisconsin! As it turns out, though, "Broasting" is a trademaked term of the Broaster Company. They are headquartered in Beloit, Wisconsin. I still think there is a Midwest bias to their locations. Via the company's store locator, I found broasted chicken stores in Gordon, Minong and Barnes Wisconsin. Northeast Portland only features six stores within a thirty mile radius!

Reading the Newspaper

One thing we miss by not staying in a hotel is delivery of The Egyptian Gazette to our room each morning. The Gazette is an eight-page English-language daily newspaper. It focuses primarily on Egyptian events but also has world and middle-eastern news. I picked one up while we were downtown today and noticed that they have a website so I (or you, dear reader) can keep up on current events. Just follow this link.

I noticed a couple of articles in today's paper that relate to my recent posts.

• An acute shortage of butane gas cylinders is threatening to cause sales of sweets for the Prophet Mohamed's Birthday next month to plummet, a senior trade official said yesterday.

• Flyover collapses in Fayyoum. This was just a small article noting that a flyover (a highway overpass) collapsed when hit by a dredger mounted on a giant truck. This didn't make the on-line edition. Glad it happened after we visited since it closed the Cairo-Fayyoum highway for a while.
  

I also note that the Analogue to Digital TV transition here is scheduled for 2015.

But the website omits my favorite part of the Gazette, a column titled "Red-handed" which usually reports on a couple of interesting local crimes each day. Today's best item is:

The Judiciary Disciplinary Tribunal has dismissed chief of an appeal court only known as H.A. in Alexandria from his position ... a citizen had lodged a complaint to the Justice Minister against chief of the court ... accusing him of committing wild acts at the villa of a friend which were deemed unbecoming to his prestigious post. The judge was claimed to drink alcohol, smoke hashish cigarettes and bring hookers to the villa. ...the law stipulates that mere suspicion is quite enough to end the career of a judge.

This gives you the flavor of the column. So you can see the website is not complete enough for me to quit buying the paper.

On the other hand, I saw a couple of items on the website that were not in the hard copy.

There is a daily poll:

Yesterday's question: Did the world media do a good, balanced job during the Gaza war?

• Yes 35 per cent
• No 42 per cent
• I don’t know 23 per cent

Today's question: Has Barack Obama done well in his first days of president?

• Yes:
• No:
• I don't know:

The front page of the website also conveniently carries the weather forecast, exchange rates and prayer times.

UPDATE: Feb 13
How did that poll question turn out?

Has Barack Obama done well in his first days of presidency?

• Yes 43 per cent
• No 39 per cent
• I don’t know 12 per cent
  
  
  

Extending Our Visas

UPDATE 1: The building discussed below has a name. Mugamma. And what marvelous stories you get if you simply Google Mugamma and then follow the links! But two of the most interesting stories inlude this Washington Post article from September 2005. Says the Post:

The Mugamma -- Arabic for "the complex" -- is scheduled for evacuation by June 30 of next year. Its offices are to be dispersed to all parts of Cairo, officials say. No longer will Egyptians wander its corridors in search of hidden windows that open at arbitrary hours and are overseen by gnomish functionaries.

and in December of 2006, the Christian Science Monitor says authoritatively:

The Mugamma's offices, which house some 10,000 employees, are being relocated around Cairo and, according to press reports, eventually to the outlying desert to relieve overwhelming congestion problems in this city of 13 million.

so perhaps what follows didn't really happen!

-----------------------------------------------------

Today was a "work" day for us. We were headed downtown to extend our visas.

It is possible to obtain an Egyptian visa in the U.S. by filling out an application, attaching photos and sending your passport to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington. But it is much easier to wait until you arrive at the Cairo airport. You then walk over to the bank window and pay $15 for your visa on the spot. This visa is only good for a month, so it was time to extend.

This means a visit to this prominent government office building on Tahrir square opposite the Egyptian Museum.


We had been advised to arrive early and to go to window 14 on floor 1. Presenting our request at window 14 got us an application form plus instructions to photocopy our passports and obtain a current photograph. Photocopies and photographs are made at two locations on the ground floor. (European system - you enter on the ground floor, then go up to floor 1 etc.)

After our photos were complete, we returned to the first floor to window 14. All was in order but we each needed stamps totaling 11.10 Egyptian pounds. These were to be purchased at window 43 - "and return immediately" said the helpful lady in English. She took all of the paperwork including our passports.

With the fee paid at window 14, the passports with new visas would be complete in two hours and available at window 38. We took off to tour a bit of downtown and came back after a bit more than two hours. When we got to the front of the line at window 38, my passport and application was on the top of the stack. A couple more scans of the passports and we were done. We can stay up to six more months.

Suffice it to say, there are a lot of windows at which one can conduct business in this building. All of these that I mentioned were on the narrow end. And there are lots of floors. I would love to display a photo of the windows. But one thing I have learned over the years is to not take pictures of the inside of such places. I once was stopped by the gendarmes in Paris for taking a picture of an interesting looking exterior door on a government building. UPDATE 2: And then there was the time I took a picture of a German prison. My, did that start a commotion. Glad I was close to my car!

Crime Report

I am often asked about personal safety in Cairo. It is very safe. For a city of 16-25 million (the population estimate depends on whom you ask) it is remarkably safe.

I was sitting with our young friend Moody a couple of nights ago. He is a college freshman currently studying here. He is interested in continuing his education in the United States. One school he is considering is located in Santa Monica, CA. We looked up Santa Monica on Wikipedia and noted the following:

• The city estimates that there are fewer than 500 gang members in Santa Monica, although community organizers, such as Oscar De La Torre dispute this claim.
  
• Gang activity has been prevalent for decades in the Pico neighborhood, particularly the portion of the area running roughly from 14th Street to just east of Cloverfield, and between Pico Boulevard and Colorado Ave.
  
• ...A couple of hours after the shooting of Sevilla, German tourist Horst Fietze was killed by a Culver City gang member.
  
• During the incident, Culver City gang members David "Puppet" Robles and Jesse "Psycho" Garcia entered the store masked and began opening fire ...

Now since Moody's brother is a prosecuting attorney, his sister and parents had all been involved in the court system, Moody's quick response was "If they know how many there are and where they operate, why don't they put them in jail?"

There are some things about the United States that are hard to explain, aren't there?

But, Moody and his family now don't think Santa Monica would be a good choice for college.

Oatmeal Blogging

OK, I know you couldn't believe that I just published a blog post about oatmeal. But would you believe that there is an entire "Oatmeal Blog"? Blogtoplist keeps a running "top list" of oatmeal entries submitted by dozens of bloggers.

And my oatmeal post was barely up for an hour before drawing a comment from Sandy of Traveling Suitcase.

Oatmeal is H-O-T!

Everything is Different in Egypt

We frequently tell people, "everything is different in Egypt!" Until someone comes here and experiences life along the Nile, they tend to doubt that. But as I looked at my breakfast the other morning, I was struck by just how true it is.


Now I happen to enjoy oatmeal with a touch of milk, some raisins, banana slices and brown sugar for breakfast. So what is different about my breakfast here?

• The oats came in a can instead of a box. More about that later.


• The milk came in an aseptic package so it didn't have to be refrigerated until opened.


• The raisins are golden - I can't find the usual black raisins here.


• The banana has turned black - but it is just fine under the skin. I wonder what treatment is given to our bananas at home to keep them yellow for so long.


• The dark brown sugar is almost black. It is molasses sugar and is very yummy.

I forgot to include the cinnamon in the picture. That was purchased loose by the 100gm unit at the supermarket. Otherwise, it looks the same as back home.

Let's look more closely at that oatmeal. When I began searching for oatmeal, I found two distinct brands on the store shelf.

The blue and red carton sure looked like Quaker Oats. I prefer "old fashioned" to "quick cooking" but took this one home since the Hahne White Oats didn't look quite right. It turns out that the Quick Oats is a product of Ralcorp Holdings of St. Louis, Missouri. They are a private label manufacturer and also recently acquired the Post brand.

But the Hahne White Oats was intriguing. I kept seeing it at small and large markets. It is a German product. It has preparation instructions in both English and Arabic. But, the preparation instructions are for Hahne Oats Soup. You will be adding tomatoes, meat, cinnamon, salt, pepper and cardamom.


I bought a can. When I opened it, I found oats identical to the quick cooking oats from St. Louis. I have been eating them almost every morning. The Hahne oats are cheaper.

But the really unusual thing is that both containers hold almost identical amounts of oats -about 500 grams. I opened the Hahne can and poured it into the empty Quick Oats carton. The can overfilled the carton!

The German company hasn't gotten the technique down of making 500 grams fill a bigger package. They really pack the oats in tightly. And just in case you thought that maybe the diameters are different:

Koshary for Dinner

Last night we visited friends for dinner. The meal served was Koshary, my absolute favorite Egyptian dish. You might see the English language spelling with a few variations but the pronunciation leads me choose k-o-s-h-a-r-y.


Koshary is a uniquely Egyptian dish served from carts in the street, at specialty restaurants and in almost every Egyptian home. It is a bit like chili in the United States. Everyone recognizes it. No two recipes are quite the same. And, the best version is the one we serve at our house.

Koshary is a vegetarian dish with a base of rice, lentils, pasta and chick peas. This combination is sometimes layered, sometimes mixed. It might be garnished with carrots or other vegetables. It always contains "some garlic" and "some onions." Crispy fried onions on top are a must. It is then served with a delicious tomato sauce. Here are a couple of other variations we have had in recent years:


This became a dish I wanted to be able to prepare myself. So in November, I picked up this cookbook in downtown Cairo at Lehnert & Landrock.


I gave it a try about a week ago. I had to wait until we had a few more cooking pots. The result was "OK" but not anywhere near great. I was pretty sure that the problem was in that "Basic tomato sauce" at the bottom of the left-hand page.



Something told me I'd find part of the answer here:


I needed more information -and I didn't think that the Internet was the place to look.

Linda happened to go next door to visit our neighbor early this week. As it turned out, the neighbor was preparing Koshary that evening. Linda confirmed that not only were red chili peppers essential, but I was also missing that critical ingredient in middle-eastern cooking, cumin. Later that afternoon, the neighbor's daughter showed up at our door with this bowl:

Notice the two containers of sauce. The one in the center is merely delicious. The one on the right is hot and delicious!

Last night we had that invitation back to Nasr City for Koshary with Mona and her son Moody. Moody's brother and sister joined us. Mona served up a large plate of Koshary for each of each of us. Two sauces. Linda took notes in the kitchen as Mona prepared a second batch of the hot sauce for us to bring home with the leftovers. Now we have our own secret family recipe.

Oh, and those leftovers that we brought back to the apartment. - Moody recalled the first time he had heard that word in Minnesota. I had told him we were having leftovers for dinner. He understood the words. - But what did it mean? How would it be different from "right overs" or even a "left under?" We all had a good laugh.

Our Trip to Fayyum

Our trip to the Fayyum Oasis to visit the Hawara pyramid turned out to be very interesting in itself.

Many people ask us, "is it safe in Egypt?" Well, yes, it is very safe. Women and small children stroll the streets at night. Street crime is virtually unheard of. There are no burglar bars on the doors of shops and no one here has heard of a "stewmaker." In short, this isn't Chicago or Philadelphia, much less Tijuana.

But the government wants tourists to feel safe as well as be safe. When tourists leave their hotels in Luxor for their visit to the monuments, buses and vans form a convoy with a police escort. Everyone heads out together to the Valley of the Kings or Abydos, etc. While it does make people feel safer, it also crowds the sites with everyone arriving at about the same time.

When we arrived at the Fayyum Oasis today, we were greeted at a police checkpoint by the Fayyum Tourist Police. Since we were Westerners traveling alone, (just our friend and the two of us in a private car) the police assigned us an escort consisting of five officers. A driver and an armed commander sat in the front of this pickup truck and three armed police sat in the rear.

That shell covering the bed of the pickup is made of about an inch of steel.

They were very nice folks, like all Egyptians. When we stopped to buy ourselves some water, we bought two large bottles for the police. Since we didn't want to feed them too, we didn't stop for lunch while we were with the escort.

Besides making us "feel safe" they knew the route to the pyramid and bumped the siren occasionally to help gain us a right of way. Very handy. We should have this service back in the states. Have you tried to get through Yellowstone in July?

While we were at the Pyramid, our escorts stayed in the parking lot. Guard duty was picked up by two monument Tourist Police who accompanied our guide and helped him out by pointing out stones and signs as he talked. About a hundred yards out from the pyramid in three directions stood armed guards.

No, they weren't fending off any terrorists. They were preventing any locals from coming to steal the rest of the bricks or other antiquities on the site.

As it turned out, the police escort came in very handy, though. As we left the pyramid area, our friend (and Linda) heard a high-pitched squealing from under the hood. We stopped at a mechanic's shop and soon had five heads from the neighborhood under the hood. After some pushing and pulling, a verdict was rendered. "Loose fan belt. I'll have it tightened after we get back to Giza."

After about ten miles, the noise grew much louder, the idler pulley flew off, and belts quit turning. I got to take some nice pictures of an agricultural area while everyone else studied the problem.

Fortunately our friend always carries a rope. I've noticed the same equipment in the trunk of several taxis. Soon we were tied onto the back of the police escort.

They towed us about ten miles to the edge of the Fayyum district that is their base. From there we made a few phone calls but finally settled on getting a tow from another passing truck. That truck towed us the remaining 35 miles into Giza. This was my view for that part of the ride. We are about eight feet behind the truck.


We got into pretty heavy traffic on Pyramids Street. People trying the "dodge and weave" technique to cross the street between the truck and us were surprised to find that rope. At least three successfully jumped it and no one was run over.

Breakdowns are more common here than at home. You probably don't appreciate just how reliable your car is. If I recall correctly, we experienced three flat tires and one "run out of gas" situation during three weeks here last November. And those were all in taxis except one of the flats. On a previous trip, a couple of years ago, our driver lost a u-joint and dropped the drive shaft right in the middle of Pyramids Street in very heavy traffic at around midnight.

The Pyramid at Hawara, Off the Beaten Path

Most of our friends think that Egypt is an "off the beaten path" location. Most tourists that visit this country see a pretty standard group of sites.

• The Pyramids at Giza near Cairo
• The Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor and the great temples on the east bank
• The temple of Abu Simble
• The famous Islamic sites in old Cairo

But there is a lot more to see.

Today, we headed out into the Fayyum Oasis to see the ancient pyramid at Hawara.

The Fayyum Oasis is a large sunken area lying about ninety miles to the Southwest of Cairo. Technically, Fayyum is not an oasis since it is fed by the Nile river. But it is called an oasis and certainly looks like one. You pass through about thirty miles of serious desert without a living plant on it to get there.

As soon as you reach the oasis, the view changes remarkably. Known as the "bread basket" of Egypt in ancient days, it is still a very active agricultural area.


We have seen some of the sites in the actual town of Fayyum on a previous trip. We knew that there was an old, somewhat deteriorated, pyramid at the nearby town of Hawara and that is what we wanted to see this time. A good friend had offered to drive us and we accepted his offer.

We passed by the saltwater lake and stopped briefly to take a picture of a fishing boat and buy a shell necklace from some of the children.



When we neared Hawara, we saw the sign for the pyramid and soon saw the pyramid.


Only a couple of hundred feet tall when originally built, the pyramid is even shorter now. As you approach it, there is a display of some of the artifacts from Greek and Roman times.



The necklace pattern on this statue is recognizable in Egyptian souvenir necklaces available today.


We picked up a guide at the entrance along with a couple of Tourist police who showed us around the area. There is an entry passage that is easily visited. You can only proceed a hundred feet or so before encountering water that blocks any further progress.


The pyramid was built with mud bricks and covered in white limestone. The limestone was removed long ago. The mud bricks have held up quite well over what might be a thousand years, all things considered. Their condition probably serves as a good answer to "how often does it rain in Egypt?"



You can see the bricks on the pyramid and get a nice close up shot with a telephoto lens.


But, it is hard to judge the size until you pick up one of the fallen bricks and hold it in your hands.


That lets you take a close look at the straw in the brick too. It is amazing to see a 4200 year old brick with pieces of straw throughout.


The ancient Greek historian, Herodotus, wrote about an incredible labyrinth that also existed at this site. Nothing remains of the labyrinth site although this Youtube video presents some interesting new discoveries that relate to it.

Since there were no other cars in the parking lot, we were not surprised that we had been the first two visitors to the pyramid this day. We were surprised, though, to discover that we were the first two visitors to the pyramid since January 5th. Now, that's off the beaten path!

Watching the Superbowl from Cairo

We finally did get a satellite dish installed. That will be worth a post of its own, later. I have 560 free channels to choose from and found two carrying Superbowl XLIII. RAI Sports had the game coverage in Italian and ARD "Das Erste" provided a German version.



Both networks provided commercial-free programming. Usually I would think this was great but, of course, for this game I'd like to see them. I'm sure there will be plenty of coverage of the ads available on the Internet, tomorrow, though.

I found the German station to have a slightly better version of the game. During the unseen commercial breaks, the Italian coverage generally just showed a long shot of the stadium.


The German station showed sideline shots and player interviews.



The Germans had two commentators and a third reporter on the sidelines.

Both stations covered the Springsteen halftime show in full.

And the remarkable part is that it was a great game. I kept thinking that Pittsburgh was going to find a way to run away with it. Then I thought the Cardinals would just give it away with penalties.

But no, this was one of the best Superbowls ever and well worth my staying up past 5:00 a.m. to watch. Certainly the best final three minutes!

The Neighborhood Entrepreneur

I've mentioned the construction project out in front of our building a couple of times before. It is pretty disruptive to traffic and to general peace and quiet. There is a constant traffic jam on Marioteya road.



The project has also closed most routes across the Marioteya Canal. In our neighborhood, this presented one person with an opportunity. He set up a ferry to help people cross the canal. It has been in operation since at least early November and does a brisk business.

A Great Place to Read a Book

The weekends generally bring clarity to the air in Cairo. I'm not sure how much of the usual haze in the air is due to pollution and how much is just from vehicles kicking up dust but the air almost always clears on the weekends.

Weekends begin on Thursday afternoon and include Friday's day of prayer, Saturday and Sunday. We chose to spend this Sunday out on the balcony. The air was clear and warm and we both read. I am finishing up "The First Computers, History and Architecture." Linda is reading "The Last Days of Old Beijing."

The view from our balcony to the Southwest was particularly good today. We could see the pyramids at Sakkara, about fifteen miles away. Most days we only see the farm fields just beyond the apartment when we look in that direction.

Here's the view to the Southwest (Click any picture to enlarge)

Yes, those are the pyramids at Sakkara on the horizon:


And here I am reading about Conrad Zuse' relay-based computer from the 1930s

If you visit Cairo, try to make it out to the Giza pyramids on a weekend. A picture that includes the Giza pyramids in the foreground and Sakkara pyramids in the background is a rare prize.