"Saturday Night Fever"

I know you're not supposed to 'drunk dial', but can you 'tipsy blog'? We just got in from a typical 'thursday' night [Egypt's version of Saturday night- they have Fridays off] with one of our producers, Rob. I've had two 'Stellas' (no, not Stella Artois, just 'Stella', one of Egypt's national beers) and I'm well into the beginings of 'the spins', watching a boxing moving with Barbara Streisand- the name escapes me right now. I smell like an ashstray. I wonder what the life-expectancy is here? I've never gotten all my minerals all in one breath.
A small word on the traffic here; there are no lanes, no traffic signals, no use of the indicator (turn signal), etc. The most used part of the car is the horn- unlike L.A., it's not used in anger; it's more of a warning. Like, "hey, I see you there. Can you see me coming?". Here, you assume that no one is going to know what they're doing so everyone is extra curteous and cautious. No one gets angry(much), no road rage. I have seen very few accidents, and our driver says they are few and far in between. The traffic is tough, and the worst tie-ups are caused by stopped traffic because a Minister is passing through with their entourage. I don't know if their system would work everywhere, but it seems to work here.

One week

One week in and we still don't have our stuff. Eeeesh. Production assures us that our kits and supplies are in London. Great. How about our stuff being in Cairo? I know they can't do anything about it, but shooting starts on Saturday and things look grim. We have gelatine and fake blood. I've worked with less. :)
Chris is just getting over a little stomach bug. I think it was lunch from the other day: smoked herring or 'ringa'. I had some too- definitely an acquired taste. Chris hasn't been acquiring a taste for anything these past two days. One of the medical consultants, Dr. Khaled, took a look at him this afternoon and gave him a little something for the nausea and to clear out his system. He seems to be fine. "Pharoah's Curse" they call it [aka "Montezuma's Revenge" in Mexico]. I haven't had any problems yet. Yet. Must be all my mom's cooking growing up; I'm impervious to pretty much anything by now. Hah hah. (love you, Maman!)
Walked around Zamalek last night. Got lost, got found. Not really all that lost if you're exploring. We just had a little trouble finding our way back to the apartment. Wouldn't have been too big of a deal otherwise, but as Chris put it, the herring was 'trying to swim free'... Our neighbourhood is really nice. Beautiful architecture, lots of tree-lined streets. It was fun exploring a new place. Notwithstanding, we are definitely going to buy a map today.

Ya'kul & Yashrab

So I've just come up from the lobby cafe, 'Cafe Cornish'. I've been wanting for a while now to try something you can only get out in these parts: Turkish Coffee. Yah, yah, I know, I'm in Egypt, not Turkey, but Egypt was occupied by the Ottoman Turks for a while. They don't call it "Turkish coffee" here, but " 'awah ", and you can get it either bitter, medium or very sweet. As it was the first time I was having it, the waiter suggested I try it 'medium'. It came in a small esspresso-like cup, poured out of a small brass ewer. I took a sip- thick-ish, but not entirely unpleasant and not remotely bitter. The jolt, however? As I sit here, I'm having to type and retype lines because of the jitters. I may have found something wayyyyy more potent than Redbull, Monster or even Redline. Whhhheeeeee!!! Chris is just shaking his head.
There's lots of great food & drink here. Every morning since we've been here at the hotel, we've been lucky to be able to try a variety of local dishes. My favorite so far is 'fuul'- topped with onions, tomatoes, parsley and a sprinkling of spicy dry herb mix. It's stewed broad bean and the only thing I can liken it too is refried beans. Fuul is eaten typically with 'eesh baladi- a whole-wheat pita bread. There is also fiTiir, a puff-pastry used like pizza dough and topped with sweet stuff or savory. The 'regular' coffee is awesome too- when they set down the cup, I couldn't quite put my finger on the smell until Chris mentioned what it tasted a bit like; dark chocolate- yummy! The juices are so much more than that: actually, to best describe the consistency and flavour, imagine pulverizing a mango/strawberry/honeydew/guava/orange/(whatever) and put it in a glass. Oh My God. Delicious. Speaking of delicious, Chris and I had a chance to sample some local desserts too. A couple of my favorites were Kunaafa, a shredded-wheat type pastry soaked in a honey syrup and a semolina cake (also soaked in honey syrup), topped with crushed pistachios (I removed those before eating). Another popular one is called Umm 'Ali, (lit. 'Mother of Ali) a rich bread pudding with coconut, cream and nuts (eaten anytime of the day).
There are still so many dishes I have yet to try. My next epicurian adventure will be Kushari, a mix of lentils, beans, noodles and onions, topped with a spicy tomato sauce. Rob, one of our producers, says it's delicious, filling and very cheap! Now that will have our own kitchen too, I'm looking forward to making some dishes too. It will be interesting to see how they turn out...!

Time to Get to Work

We got to have a tour of the studios yesterday. What a great set-up! FX has its own make-up room and the studio lot is beautiful all around. It's been around for 80 + years. They even have guard dogs. There's a pool, though both the producer Rob and the DP Pete have advised us NOT to swim in it unless we want to catch something more than a cold. The building is massive yet very unassuming from the outside. There's these sort of 'gophers/waiters' that bring you snacks and drinks- crafty comes to you! Don't get me wrong, I don't think this will be a total walk in the park; I've taken a look at the next 5 scripts and we have a huge workload, and if we run out of something, it's not like we can send a P.A. to just run out to Cinema Secrets to pick something up.
We were assigned a driver (" sawwaa' "), Sa'eed. He's very quiet; we figure he's either very shy or not comfortable with English. It'll be weird having a personal driver to take us anywhere we want to go, whenever we want to go. Notwithstanding, it'll be great because there's NO WAY I could ever drive in this city. I can barely function as a pedestrian. Still, I feel a little awkward just requesting to go places and having him either wait or come back for me. Chris makes a good point; wages are pretty low here and Sa'eed is getting paid very well by the studios. Sa'eed told us he's available to take us anywhere, any time of our choosing; we feel very lucky and priviledged.
Production also showed us our apartment yesterday (it's all happening so fast!). We're in Zamalek, a district on an island smack in the middle of the Nile, connected to the rest of central Cairo by two bridges. It seems to be one of the nicer areas to be in (according to most tour books - and production, of course); a lot of ex-pats are living out there. We're #37 on the 8th Floor on Sharia (street/road) 26 July. The elevator is a nightmare: nothing more than a steel phonebooth with no door (you can watch the concrete of each floor pass by). The apartment itself is very nice- 2 bedrooms, a big living room, new-ish bathroom, all fully furnished. Sa'eed too Chris and I to the local shopping center to get sheets and towels. Things are pretty cheap here, save certain toiletteries found in the pharmacies- they're comprable with Western prices.
Part of me is fully ready for this adventure and I can easily see myself shopping in the neighbourhood, becoming 'local'. Then the other part of me that is somewhat freaked-out is wondering if I'm just a bit self-delusional. I think I'm going to side with that first part.