King of Mango

Our living situation here in Alex can really get me down. We are paying an exorbitant fee to live in less than ideal conditions, in a building that functions like a prison, run by women who consider us second class and judge our every move, and, to top it off, our peers in Cairo are living in beautiful, enormous apartments (and are paying the same price). Day to day life here is so much more stressful than at home and most days all you want is to be able to go somewhere you feel comfortable and at home. The dorm is not that place. More often, I find myself needing to get away from the dorms in order to feel any flicker of hope about the year I will be spending here. 

Luckily, there are a few places around the city that offer an excellent escape at times like these. Obviously the library is one. Another place, a cafe called Silsilla, was an excellent option because of its close proximity to the dorm, beautiful location right on the beach, good beverage options, and, when we arrived, its variety of shisha. However, a couple of weeks ago, the governor of Alexandria decided to take a drastic step to "clean up the city." If you have spent any time in this city, some possibilities for this project might come to mind: placing garbage cans around the city for example or hiring clean up crews to clean the streets and sidewalks or paint and maintain the many crumbling, decrepit buildings. Or perhaps an effort to do something about the hundreds of thousands of starving, stray cats roaming the streets or the pollution that hangs in the air some mornings like a thick cloud. But no, the governor decided, to everyone's shock and confusion, to ban the smoking of shisha throughout the city. 

If anyone has spent even an hour in any Arab city, they are bound to know the integral role this tradition plays in daily life. Walking down the street, the sidewalks are always filled with elderly men chatting, sipping coffee, and puffing away on black (and sometimes flavored) tobacco in tall water pipes. For most Egyptians, this small pleasure is the only indulgence they can afford and is as much a part of the culture as beer and pizza in America. Walking down the corniche now, small "ahwas" (the local name for cafes) that used to be bustling with activity at all times of the day, are deserted. There are still places in the city that serve shisha, especially after 10 pm when the officers have stopped checking, but the ban is mostly being observed, largely eliminating that earthly pleasure and source of stress relief. 

Fortunately, there is still one excellent pastime in Alexandria that is both legal and much more healthy. Drinking juice! I'm not talking about the thin, flavorless, overly sweetened American kind of juice. I am talking about juice that taste like an entire pint of strawberries has been liquified into a glass. Juice so thick that straws are rendered useless, the pulp and seeds of kiwi sticking to the inside of the white plastic tube. Mango juice served with a fork. 

Mmmmmmm

Cheers for the King of Mango!

The pictures above were taken at a little juice stand called El Qobesi. The front of the store certainly seems appropriate for the self-appointed "King of Mango." Literally hundreds of mangos are piled in every nook and cranny of the small store. Huge bags of them hang in rows from the ceiling. Crates upon crates rest of the floor. There is no doubt the name fits in terms of quantity. But what about quality?

I am here to tell you that I am now a loyal subject in the Kingdom of El Qobesi Mango juice. Served in a mug (oddly labeled "the official beer mug of the third millenium" on the bottom), the juice is too thick for a straw. It comes instead with a fork, to allow you to scoop out the large slices of fresh mango that fill the glass. The juice is sweeter than candy, but it also has that sharp tang that comes with the ripest of mangos. When the cold, pulpy juice first enters your mouth, you can feel your tongue tingle and your taste buds stand at attention. Each sip is a little taste of heaven. I like to save at least one big piece of mango for the end. The bottom of glass is a sorry sight indeed. 

Other juices are offered and they are good, but the "Mango Pieces" is the real star. 

the menu

Fruit Salad (mango/strawberry in the background)

Since I mentioned it in my last post, I will briefly mention the opera I saw last week. Although the music and the performance itself was nothing to write home about (har har), visually it was absolutely stunning. Definitely worth the $6 ticket and even the excessive drawn-out-ness of the performance (4 intermissions? Really?). Below are two of my favorite pictures from the evening. Hard to believe, but yes, that is the real pyramid and the real sphinx in the background. Pretty surreal.

This weekend my friend Lauren and I are going to take a bus out to the Siwa Oasis in the Western Dessert. I'm pretty excited about the chance to get away for a few days and we have both heard amazing things about this place. I will dedicate a post to it when I return, but I'm not sure I'll have time to post again before that. In the meantime, I'd love to hear feedback from everyone reading. This is my first time with this whole blogging thing and if there is something you particularly like or dislike it'd be cool to know. Also, if there is anything you want to hear more (or less) about let me know that too. Thanks for reading!