Shawerma

n.   Middle Eastern sandwich wrap of beef or chicken

My first meal in Egypt was beef shawerma and it did absolutely nothing for me.  Except activate my gag reflex.  I felt pretty bad about this and quietly wrapped it up to "save for later."  Later being when I got back to my hotel room and found the trash.  I'm sorry to admit I waited probably a month to try it again.  My sister Sarah finally convinced me that it was the beef and that the beef shawermas are never good.  She loved the chicken kind and luckily for her we lived right next to, and eleven stories above, Abu Mazen, the best shawerma in all of Cairo.  I tried it out and I'm definitely happy I did.  After everyone at school found out I lived next to Abu Mazen, I was the official shawerma provider for all the dish parties through out the year.  I found out through trial and error that I wasn't a big fan of anything made of Egyptian beef and kofta (beef nuggets) was at the top of my hit list.  I still don't approve and probably never will. Malish. Oh well.

One advantage to being a foreign woman in Cairo was that I could pretty much get whatever I wanted. Here's the rational: 1) foreigners are crazy and don't speak Arabic; 2) women are just crazy.  My friends thought they had gotten the better of me when I won a bet and received a torn five pound note I was supposedly "unable" to use.  But I have a super power.  Confusion. I am the Super Woman of Confusion when it comes to getting my way.  I am a foreigner.  I am a woman.  I used this super power to evade hall monitors mainly, but today I was hungry.  When the bus dropped me off at home I went to Abu Mazen and ordered shawerma frakh and my food was already underway before I handed over the torn bill.  I felt a little like Neil Caffery from White Collar when I started to speak fast English and gave my confused foreigner face.  However, the heist was a small sandwich not a artistic masterpiece.  The shawerma guy finally gave up on the crazy blonde girl and with an exasperated click of his tongue, waved me on to get my food.  My friends didn't get the best of me after all.  I had some free shawerma and I'm pretty sure that goes down as a win in any Egyptian's book.

Movie theaters were pretty popular in Cairo, and I'm guessing in part because of the air conditioning.  When I think back, maybe I should have been trying out sand boarding in the desert or drinking coffee in a little ahwa or something cultural near the end of my stay, but instead I was enjoying my newly single life with my friends Lamees, Douda, and Essmat at the Citystars Mall watching the Avengers.  It was a good time and in my defense even the movie theaters were somewhat foreign.  You could not sit where ever you wanted and each trailer at the beginning started with a little hand written note on the projector telling the audience the name of the movie in arabic and sometimes english.  Lamees and I had fun discussing the best super hero (Captain America for me and I think she was trying to argue Iron Man... nice try Lamees) and each Egyptian got a little shout out from Iron Man when he suggested going to a "SHWARMA joint" after saving the world.  On my way home I stopped by Abu Mazen just for him.