My Wedding Dress....

Okay, okay....

so technically not my wedding dress

but more the dress i'm wearing to a wedding,

but seeing as i'm not going to have my wedding dress anytime soon

and i've fallen in love with this dress i give myself the right to refer to it as

My Wedding Dress

from here

awwww man,

i hummed and hawed over this little beaut,

mainly because its way way out of my price range

but i was smitten

and then eventually i found a measuring tape and guess what,

it just happens to be in my size,

it must be fate

and so i gave into my credit card....

besides i've only got one big sister

(okay so i have 3 other sisters but lets not think about them just now)

and hopefully she's only getting married once....

thats a special enough occasion to blow your bank account right?

i also loved this one but figured i shouldnt wear white to a wedding,

(but then again if Pippa can to her sister

Princess Kates' then maybe its allowed now.....?

Balloon Bombing....

I'm not sure if this video is available for people to watch,

(or click here)

but this is how i spent my Friday afternoon this week.

A new sport we like to call Balloon Bombing.....

Friendship Truffles.....

This afternoon i heard my door bell rang.

I dont normally like to answer my door when i'm home alone

if i'm not expecting company,

but this time i did.

And it was my friend who lives across the street,

And she was carrying a plate of homemade

chocolate covered truffles

And she handed them to me

And told me that they were for me and only me.

And she didnt bring it up

but i knew that she knew that the previous night

had been a tough one.

And her simple gesture will be something

that i wll never forget.

And i hope that one day i can pass on her homemade truffles

to someone who needs them.

A Hair-raising Experience....

I went to the hairdressers today.

I find going to the hairdressers very much

akin to going to the dentist,

scary.

As i sat in the chair and some Egyptian guy started hacking

(being the most operative word)

at my hair, it suddenly dawned on me that living in a Muslim country

where a high percentage of woman have their hair covered,

that my hairdresser may never have actually ever seen a woman's hair.

As i started to panic i noticed a few pictures

blatantly cut from American magazine's from the 90's

of woman with blonde hair and shiny white teeth.

Okay.

So at least he had some point of reference.

Besides he didnt seem particularly fazed.....

in fact he spent most of my haircut (which took about 15 minutes)

watching the tv which was directly behind him.

And so although it was the fastest/most multi-tasked hair cut i've ever had

and perhaps i had asked him to cut it up to my shoulders

and he actually cut it up to my chin....

but its not the worst haircut i've ever had.

That one is completely undocumented,

seeing as i refused to be around a camera for the next 3months after it took place,

and besides this one cost me less than 8 times the price of that one....

Bargain!

Let the juice loose.....

Last night out i went out with friends for dinner.

Some americans, an english gal and myself.

My British friend and i kept breaking out into a

dance routine through out the evening.

One of us would declare ,

'there's some juice loose aboot this hoose'

which start us both into singing the song and twisting around in imitation

of a tv advert from the 90's which included a Scottish man

dancing in a similar style in his kilt.

We found it hilarious.

The joke didnt tire for us all night long.

Unfortunately we were the only two who knew the advert and nobody

else found it quite as entertaining,

in the end they didnt even stop the conversations

whilst we danced in between them.

I think its sad that they didnt benefit from the joy

of dancing around like a crazy Scottish man,

so i thought i'd share the joy here......

just incase your in need of some.

Let the juice loose....

.

Food makes me your friend....

Yesterday my new roommate arrived from America.

And just casually sitting in the front room getting aquainted

she pulled out a Rice Crispies Squares Bar

(although i think that it had some other American name)

from her hand bag and offered it to me.

I cant even begin to describe to you the ridiculous sounds

i started making. First I squealed with joy,

and then oohed and aahed whilst i unwrapped it

and then oooooeeed and mmmmed whilst i ate it.

It was bliss.

I'm like a small child,

give me candy and i'm your friend for life.

And then i remembered how earlier on in the week i had danced

with excitement as i poured myself a class of Robinson's Orange Cordial

that i had found in a shop here.

And how last week when in a restaurant when everyone was sampling

each others desserts i was wolfing mine down in glee,

and day-dreamed about it for the rest of the night.

i quite enjoy the fact that it doesnt take a lot to excite me,

i told my new roommate to hold onto the second Rice Crispie Bar

for when serious housemate issues began to arise....

Popeye the Sailor man....

On moving into a new apartment

(i couldnt deal with the cockroach infestation in my last one)

I discovered Popeye who had been left behind by the previous owner.

Having had a sailor in my life for a couple of years now

and now being Sailor-less he fills a void,

and is also quite hugglable and good to watch movies with.

He will also come in handy if any nasty arabs try to kindnap me i'm sure.....

Luxor Temple.....

After the Karnak Temple,

the Luxor Temple didn't have quite the same WOW! factor.

But it did have some cool things,

Like the avenue of Sphinx's which used to join the two temple together...

Some pretty big stuff.....

ummmmm....

a rather overly excited hieroglyph...

and some hieroglyphs that were painted over with Roman Murials

when the Romans hijacked the temple for their own use...

and its own MacDonalds....

not many super ancient temples have one of those.

The Forbidden Karnak Temple.....

The highlight of Luxor can only have been The Karnak Temple.

Its colossal size and excellent preservation makes it a wonder to see.

Funnily enough i think that we may have been slightly

over-excited by the whole thing,

seeing as on numerous occasions we had people coming p to us telling

us what we were doing was Forbidden.

I guessed they were just after Baksheeh (tip)

for hush money, but now i look back on the pictures

i think that they probably had a point.

For example -

Cuddling with ancient monuments - FORBIDDEN

(i'm of the opinion that James Cameron may have got his inspiration for the blue skinned folk of Avatar for these hieroglyphs)

Standing on top of ruins -FORBIDDEN

(apparently when Obama came to Egypt he pointed out this hieroglyph and said it looked a bit like him)

The workers took some time off for lunch so we thought we'd help out -

FORBIDDEN

Sitting on ancient relics- FORBIDDEN

Danny and Ksenjia act out a scene described in tour guide book of human sacrfices - FORBIDDEN

Touching Broken Statues with string around them - FORBIDDEN

Swimming in the Sacred Lake - FORBIDDEN

Posing on the giant pillars -

FORBIDDEN

but it was so

amazing to see how detailed and preserved

some of the hieroglyphs are....

Sometimes

I wonder if ancient Egyptians built their statues life-sized

and human beings have just got smaller over the years.....

5 days in Cairo with a lovely lady.....

Last week my bestest bud and loveliest lady of them all came to visit me.

In the dance world holidays are rarely planned,

normally there are rumours flying around and about 2

days before the holiday will start your given some information....

it makes planning for anything exceedingly difficult.

So i had just found out i had a 9 day holiday only to receive a message

from the Lovely Nina from Ljubljana that her ballet company

had pretty much just informed her that she would be having holidays too,

whats more part of our holidays even over-lapped.....

it seemed too good to be true.

It was,

tickets to Egypt arent cheap and Ballet dancers salaries arent high.

So it looked like our desire to meet up would be culled,

and i went off to Luxor slightly heavily hearted than

i wished only to receive a text message half

way through my trip to say that she was coming,

pretty much the day that i got back to Cairo.

I literally couldnt sleep for the next two nights planning an agenda for her 5 day visit.

(no she was given no choice in the matter)

So

She was taken to a Coptic Christian Mass at the Mokatan Cave church....

mainly because we had heard that they do exorcisms,

but apparently no-one was possessed that night....

is it wrong that i wished there was?

and we watched a large Egyptian man squeeze himself into a

belt at Makan, that was a 'musical instrument'

he shimmied his butt around for a good 20mins making sweet

Egyptian folk music with that 'instrument'.

I laughed so hard i cried, it is an instrument i would greatly like to learn to play,

i feel that i have great potential to become an excellent goat belt shimmier.

and she was forced to eat Koshary whether she liked it or not,

as it would make her an authentic Egyptian

(for the grand price of 5 egyptian pounds)

and she felt what its like to be a celeb, when every tom dick or harry wants

their picture taken with you.

i've started asking for baksheeh when they want this....

so far not got any!

and taken on a tour of the Islamic Cairo Mosques by a friend of mine who

knows way too much useless yet interesting information about these kind of things.

and was taken to the second hand book market in Attaba,

because its one of my favourite spots,

even though i'm sure she has no love for second hand books

(i'm doing some serious haggling in this picture)

And we got lost in the market for a while,

but became excellent tag team hagglers playing good cop bad cop to perfection.....

and rode on a camel at the Pyramids

(for what i thought was a good price but found out afterwards wasnt)

on a Camel called Charlie Brown,

which coincidently was the name of the only other camel i have ridden on......

and ate Egyptian food in Felfela a tourist restaurant,

because we be tourists dont ya know.....

and there were a few more things ,

like a trip to the Egyptian Museum,

a Felucca ride down the Nile

and what-not

But for me the best part was just getting to talk to her when ever i wanted.