Good Times in Egypt

Egyptians LOVE fast food.  It is a tremendous passion here.  And every restraunt will deliver. Every McDonalds is equipped with a fleet of motor scooters to deliver a Big Mac and Fries to your door within 30 minutes.  But then again, so are all of the other vendors.  Although I often discribe Cairo of a place of chaos, this isn't always the case - in some ways it is much more sophisticated than most cities in the United States.  For example, check out the website http://www.otlob.com, and you will see that it is possible to order food from anywhere in the city via an online menu, and it will be delivered to your door within an hour.  Within my neighborhood of Zamalek you will see a list extending from the local Abdul Abel's all the way to Chilis, Fudruckers, and KFC.  Fantastic.

The other night I went to a big fancy Fulbright dinner, located at a massive medieval fortress called the Saladin Citadel.  As you can see in the adjacent image.

It was a rather fancy affair, with the U.S. Ambassador Margaret Scobey, a former Fulbrighter herself, as a guest.

I also happened to sit next to a man who was one of the first Fulbright recipients, in 1953, who left Egypt to attend schooling at MIT in mechanical engineering.

The dinner also included a traditional shadow puppet performance, traditional arabic music, and a dance performance of whirling Sufis', similar to the acts of whirling dwirvishes.


Afterward I went out to a place called Pub28 with a couple of the grant recipients and ended up meeting some other really cool people, like a journalist from the New York Times and a Phd candidate in Comparative Literature from Yale.  Overall it was a rather good night.