Random Ramblings

This weekend at church I met a guy originally from Edmonton. Now, with me being from Calgary, the normal salutation from me in this event would be to kick him in the shins and then knee him in the head when he bends over (naturally, of course). But since this guy moved AWAY from Edmonton, I decided to give him an opportunity to earn my respect. He shook my hand, said how nice it was to meet me, a fellow Albertan (man, way to guilt me into being nice to him), and promptly mentioned that hockey had resumed in Canada. Now, by hockey I mean ICE hockey. When you mention 'hockey' here, people automatically think of that sport where people run around the grass in skirts with an upside-down cane and chase a ball. That's not the sport he was talking about. So yes, apparently ICE hockey has resumed on the continent of North America. You're probably thinking to yourself, "Yes, I know! I live in North America! Now why is this schmuck telling me all this junk?" I am bringing up hockey today because I was recently remembering how excited and united the city of Calgary became when the Flames not only made the playoffs (perhaps the first time this millennium? I don't know), but made it to the Stanley Cup game against... that other team, I forget. Really, nobody cares who won that Stanley Cup game. The Calgary Flames were the real winners because they sludged their way through cowpies and mud, past the skeptical critics and embarrassed fans, and they played their way into the Stanley Cup Finals. This action brought about the excitement of an entire city. Everyone drove around with flames flags on their cars, houses were decorated (and even painted, in some cases), and jerseys were everywhere you looked! Calgarians were suddenly crazy about the sport of hockey. If you went to the Red Mile after a game, people took over the streets and marched nowhere in particular, high fiving each other, shouting out cheers, and singing. It was an atmosphere like no other. Of course, I had never been to any country who was really into soccer. Until now. Football games here in Cairo are a big thing. I was driving through a more traditional part of Cairo last week (well, I wasn’t driving, I was a passenger… I haven’t be blessed with that opportunity yet), and while we were driving along, a major football game was on TV. Every shop in this part of town seemed to have a TV propped up somewhere in it. Surrounding the shops were crowds of people who stood or sat and smoked sheesha while enjoying the game. When the keeper made a good save, you could tell because the streets erupted with cheering. We didn’t have the game on in our car, but we could pretty much follow what was happening with it just by watching the crowds of people in the streets.

I mentioned sheesha a few sentences ago and I’m not sure if I’ve told you anything about it yet. Sheesha is the tobacco product of choice for Egyptians and is commonly smoked… everywhere. Sheesha is smoked using a bong-type apparatus which sends the smoke past boiled water (or something like that, I haven’t inspected any of these things yet) before it comes out of the tube that you suck on. Sheesha is usually ‘flavored’ with all sorts of scents… such as apple. Because of this, Sheesha smokers don’t give off the annoyingly nasty smell like that of a cigarette smoker (sorry to any smokers who read my blog, but hey, it’s gross and you can’t deny it). But yeah, that’s about all I know about sheesha. I think it’s illegal for me to take any out of the country, so don’t bother asking for any. One of the rules of my internship is that I can not smoke sheesha, so no, I have not tried it. Another interesting rule of internship is that I have to wear a helmet when I ride my bike, or else I face a $5 US fine. This would not be so bad if I were living in North America, for instance, but because I’m in Egypt it is a very weird thing. Nobody here wears helmets! People look at me weird enough because I’m white with big red hair, but when I have that ugly helmet on, people point and laugh and act as though I’m a clown! I don’t think this rule is for my safety. I think it is to enforce another rule: No dating during internship. As long as I wear this ridiculous helmet, I’m never going to get a girlfriend!