One of the exciting things about Cairo is how easy it is to get food delivered, cheaply by American standards.  Even McDonald’s delivers – even Cinnabon delivers if you want.  For the past two nights I’ve been exploring the exciting culinary possibilities of a website that serves as a database of all the delivery restaurants … Continue reading →

This all starts with a call to an insurance company.  My British travel insurance has a service where they can provide you with the names of local services, like doctors.  I needed one of these because my asthma has really been troubling me since the sandstorm.  For a day or so I sounded like I … Continue reading →

Last night I went to Samantha’s house for iftaar dinner.  I was picked up in a taxi by one of the girls working in the same theater.  Naomi is Romanian, a dancer, actor and assistant choreographer for the show in which she and Samantha work.   We took a yellow cab down Pyramids road.  As … Continue reading →

At one point today all three of us in the apartment noticed that the sky was darkening earlier than usual.  We looked out the window and beheld a dark gray smog enveloping the buildings on the opposite side of the river.  We could see it billowing and creeping towards us, shrouding this building, then that … Continue reading →

Just because I’ve found an apartment doesn’t mean everything is smooth sailing from now on, my friends.  Oh, no. We have a lovely gas oven and stove, but they are extremely old fashioned.  To use the oven, you have to turn the gas on and then basically throw a match in a little hole in … Continue reading →

Okay the reason I haven’t regaled you with all my moving in adventures is that our flat wireless isn’t up and running yet.  Right now we’re stealing from the neighbors, but I absolutely had to tell you about the very dumb thing I just did.  In the spirit of spiffying up my new digs, I … Continue reading →

I am most pleased to announce that after much trouble and strife I have signed a lease agreement! I’m moving in with two AUC students, Eva and Lucy.  They’re both undergraduates.  When I went to visit the flat the first time and they found out I’m a graduate student they both sort of unconsciously straightened … Continue reading →

I’m still hunting for an apartment here in Cairo, and tonight one estate agent agreed to meet me at 9 PM.  The time came and went and half an hour later I called to ask what was going on.  “Because of Ramadan all the people are praying late, so this is why I didn’t call … Continue reading →

At the end of yesterday evening, a family friend told me she’d sent an e-mail to the Registrar’s office at AUC on my behalf.  She’d shown them my blog entry Research Fellowship: A Comedy in Three Acts, in which I describe my first day at AUC, and­ she showed me their response. Basically they accused … Continue reading →

I’m watching the news on the blast at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.  Even though that’s about two thousand miles from where I sit, I found the news rattling.   I met an expat the other day who described the Marriott as being like a little city, and so it is.  It has its own … Continue reading →