Travel, Egypt, Cairo, Vacations

Continued from March 4 post . . .

Since Riba behaved like he was my long lost cousin, I asked him where we could find some vegetarian meals. He quickly pointed toward a corner restaurant and took us there. The joint looked okay and we decided to venture in. We thanked Riba and he left.

B & I went to the 2nd floor of the restaurant. There was bathroom in the back, which was reassuring in case the food we ate did a number on our stomach.

We were greeted and seated by a young, smart looking maitre de. He brought us the menus and the moment we saw Pizza we felt very lucky. The vegetable and cheese pie we wanted was 18 E. Pounds. We asked the maitre de if one pie would be enough. He clasped his hands together to form a circle to show us the size of each pie and said that we would need two. Sounded reasonable. The pie he formed with his hands was about 5-6 inches in diameter suggesting it was like the Pizza Hut personal pizza. So we ordered two pies.

Soon we got more comfortable in our seats, began sipping the diet coke and beer we had ordered and the pies arrived. It was immediately clear that we had over ordered.

We began digging into one pie and also beckoned to the maitre de to come back to our table. We said that we wanted to return the 2nd pie as it was one too many. The size he showed with his hands was much smaller than the nine-inch size that we had before us. He said in broken English something that to me translated to mean that Egyptian men ate a whole pie in one sitting. I said that he had misrepresented the size and that he must take the 2nd one back. He said he’d get the manager and did so.

Soon an important- but not a very impressive-looking man in a suit showed up and the maitre de in rapid fire Arabic said things to him holding a defensive posture. The manager listened to him and looking somber uttered a couple of words to the maitre de, who was still in a defensive posture and then looked at me. I got the feeling that I had been persuasive enough and that I could return the 2nd pie.

Actually, I could have doggy bagged it but we were to have a heavy dinner with a host family that night. Anyway, hoping that I had read the manager’s intention correctly, I said shukran as he left. Then when I looked at the maitre de’s face to get a confirmation to my read, he said, "Manager say no."

I kept insisting to the maitre de that he had misrepresented the size and had made us order more than what we needed. He tapped on the table close to the 2nd pie and gestured that he could doggy bag it. I said, okay but that I’d pick it up later after I finished my shopping in the market. He didn’t quite understand but eventually, after some violent gestures back and forth, I made him understand.

As we waited for the bill, I scanned the dingy room. At one large table, there were several young and noisy girls (all of them with a head scarf) and boys trying to order. When the maitre de came back with the doggy bag I asked, "Won’t these kids be ordering pizza?"
My intention was to have him sell my 2nd pie to them. He said, "no, no," his eyes wide open in a way that seemed to tell me to behave myself.

My next option was to give that pie to the staff at the hotel. Then I thought that I’d give it to my cabbie (he was supposed to pick us up at 2:30 p.m.). He seemed like a nice guy. The pie would be his tip although in Egypt tipping a cabbie had not been suggested to us in our instruction list from our tour operator.

Finally, the bill arrived. When I looked at the amount it didn’t seem right. It looked like 70. I asked B to do the math. No, it didn’t add up to 70. When I asked the maitre de about this, he said that the 7 was actually a 6. So much for Arabic numbers I thought. When we converted the 60 E. pounds to dollars and were ready to pay he refused saying, "only Egyptian pounds." We had very limited time, not enough pounds and didn’t know where we could convert our dollar to pounds.

Earlier, a few tables away from us, I had noticed a medium-sized, angular- and mean-faced and tight-jawed American woman chewing and spitting out her words while talking to her companion, a burly American. The only option I felt I had was to go to her (though my instinct told me not to but I was feeling desperate) and ask her to convert my dollars. I approached her and asked her nicely if she would mind doing this. She gave me a dirty look and barked out a nasty "no." Her personality did suggest she was not a very charitable person (other than if her charity would get her some photo opps; yes I am quite good at judging people from their face and body language) yet I approached her for a favor. My stupidity!

My husband who rarely gets ruffled other than by my own ruffled behavior was digging into every single compartment of his wallet to see if he could come up with enough pounds. No such luck! I told the maitre de that we would give him dollars and he could give me back 55 pounds, which he’d owe me. No, he won’t. Instead he brought someone in a chef’s cap who looked like a butcher because of his bloodied apron, to take us to a bank across the street to get pounds. B went with him while I went downstairs and stumbling upon someone who looked like the accounts guy for the joint asked him if I could pay in dollars and he could return the change in pounds. He seemed amenable but the butcher had already escorted B to the bank.

I came out of the restaurant, and began walking back toward the spot where we were to cross the street later, and a waiter followed me presumably because he was afraid we’d leave without paying. The doggy bag was in the kitchen. A few feet from the restaurant was Riba watching the ruckus. He came up to me and asked how the food was. I said that they won’t take pounds (he said he’d have helped us out. I said that B was already at the bank getting the pounds) and that we had been made to over order. He said that I could give the extra pie to a poor person. I looked around and asked, "Where can I find one?"

Without blinking an eyelid Riba replied, "I’m poor." I said, "Then why don’t you take it?" thinking "OMG, how stupid I was to ask in the middle of a poor section of Cairo where I could find a poor person."

Riba answered that, yes, he could and would. I told the waiter who was still hovering around me to go get the doggy bag from the kitchen. Once it arrived, I handed it over to Riba who was very happy and taking it he said that he was going to give it to his spiritual mother. I looked in the direction he pointed toward. Behind a stall of souvenirs and other knickknacks was an old woman in a black galabeya. Riba offered to introduce me to her, I said, no, I was in a hurry. By now B had settled our bill and joined me. We both crossed the street under ground to get to the Khan el Khalil market (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmwzaJzOOvY). Note: I stole this video at random from the Web.

At this point, B told me told me that the 60 was actually a 65; apparently, earlier we had not noticed a hook somewhere in the number, which made it a 5 and not a zero.

Once at the market, we just strolled through it taking in its sounds and sights. In the market, yes, the vendors tried very hard to get us into their store, but this is part of the territory called adventure and travel and our saying no to them is part of their age-old experience.

Anyway, soon we returned to the spot where we had been dropped off a couple of hours earlier and almost immediately the cabbie and we spotted each other though he was parked several yards from us.

I dozed off in the cab because I was beat or I was experiencing jet lag. Either way, the power nap helped, and I was fresh again when we got off. B wanted coffee. We walked over to a gas
station mini-mart nearby where he had bought a cup the previous night after dinner at the hotel and had received a two Chiclet pack in lieu of the 25 piastres the cashier owed him at the end of the transaction. The 2nd time too he got a pack of Chiclet in lieu of change.

Travel is so much fun!

More to follow in the coming days.

Ciao!
Ro.