Mandy: 27th May
It is not that bad living on a low budget…. i am not only cutting the already inexpensive scouring pads into tiny squares but using a bar of soap instead of hand pump soap. And as if using soap was not saving enough, i am sticking bits of old soap to the new bar!!!!! (I know!) My Mum will be proud… (Grin)
I have also started picking up random screws and nails off the pavement in much the same way that tramps would pick up cigarette butts in the UK, (Mum would NOT be proud!) UK tramps would have a field day here….there is the equivalent of a packet of 20 cigarettes every three metres as we walk along the ‘pavement’ (I use the term loosely!) you would be surprised how often we need odd screws and nails in the apartment….. those rickety old clothes airers don’t mend themselves! (Smile)
It is not always a hardship to keep the costs down, last night we had our cheapest meal to date. We went to a Koshary restaurant in Sekala. Downstairs there was one plastic table and a few odd plastic chairs and what i assume was a take-away counter. So we walked upstairs to the small open sided balcony level. They did not speak English but they pointed for us to sit down. It was full of local Egyptians and they all looked at us as if to say “i think you are in the wrong place, McDonald’s is down the next street!” There wasn’t a menu so we tried to order Koshary, not difficult as that is all they sold. However i did not want the meat version. I thought it best to stick to the vege option and therefore did an impression of a cow (well i made horns on my head with my hands, which i thought would cover any horned animal such as a sheep, goat or cow!) and said “la” (NO!) job done! So we sat politely waiting, ……excited as to what we may have ordered in our signing, my impression of ‘meat’ and by pointing to a fellow diners beverage choice. Bingo! A short while later the waiter returned with two medium bowls of Koshary and a bowl of the tomato and garlic sauce that we had heard they serve with it (grin) the young waiter looked as pleased at taking our order correctly as we were for ordering it against the odds! Everyone was happy.
We enjoyed our meal, despite the fact that children from the various tables of locals kept walking back and forward, bumping Glen’s chair as they did so, to get a better look at the funny tourists who (they thought) had taken a wrong turn when they arrived in their local restaurant! And that we had to raise our feet off the ground midway through our mixed lentils, chick peas, macaroni and crispy fried onions and garlic, to allow the enthusiastic cleaner guy to brush under our table …….it put me in the mind of doing the same for Mum when I was a child as she hoovered around us…….We felt at home there (smile)
So we then went up to pay the bill……. A total of 11.5le (£1.08p!!!!) bargain!! i felt like we were robbing them!!! I felt sure the police would run after us down the road saying we hadn’t paid enough!!! And yet we could have made the bill even cheaper if we had the free (what i assume was from the tap) water that was on the table….but as it was in metal jugs and beakers like school dinners and they didn’t seem to change then between diners we thought it best to splash out on a bottle of coke. (Thanks Samir and Jo for the recommendation…. not sure how I would have ordered the liver version that you have Jo!)
So you can see why I am so upset with ‘loosing’ my white bowl…. That was the equivalent cost of three meals in our new found eatery.