December 05, 2010

Out of Africa

After a certain amount of time in Cairo, you get a "pollution cough." I'm pretty sure I have the black lung now, after the unbelievable amounts of dust, tar and smog I've inhaled. In order to keep loving Cairo, you have to leave periodically. So this week we spontaneously decided to head to the US and the UK for thanksgiving.

As soon as we arrived in London I had to outfit myself with boots and gloves. We returned to all our favourite haunts, caught up with friends, indulge in cider and were happy to be 'home' for a few days. In NYC, we went to Duane Reade probably every day, watched too many episodes of Top Chef, went out too much in Brooklyn and spent time with the fam. Then we headed to New Hampshire, and stuffed ourselves silly with green vegetables, turducken, and pumpkin desserts. P is used to eating meat all day every day, but I can't really handle that, and Egypt is particularly hard in that respect. I kind of just grabbed every single green vegetable I could see on this trip, to make up for the lack of fresh produce one is forced to suffer through in Egypt. When we got back to London it was snowing (eek) and miserably cold. We had just enough time to see the Christmas decorations up in Carnaby street before we left for home. I was kind of sad to leave, but I was so relieved to arrive in a warm climate. Here's hoping that our little break will give me renewed patience to deal with al-shawar'3a, aka the mean streets of Cairo.

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