churn that butter, wolf bitch

Yesterday we went bowling. Bowling in Egypt is like bowling anywhere, complete with cigarette haze and loud noises. The only difference is that bowling shoes are an alien concept, and therefore most of us attempted to roll the balls down the lanes in sandals, and sometimes barefoot. I have not bowled in years -- I do not believe I shall do so again. I am a bad bowler. Of course, I am an ever worse pool player, and somehow Sameh (an Egyptian guy from the men's dorms) managed to rope me into a game. He won both times, the second only because Wes shot the eightball into the wrong pocket.

Afterwards, we went out to a Lebanese restaurant, where I ate a delicious cheese sandwich (kind of like a grilled cheese wrap, only better) and introduced my classmates to the concept of olive oil and vinegar together in one bowl. That was sacrilege to Eric, but he ate it too and so he's just a hypocrite. Karim, an Egyptian fellow who graduated from the engineering college at the University last year, drove us back to the dorms, and told us how honking and flashing lights actually has meanings in Alexandria (more on driving here, later). I am sixty percent sure he made it up, but hey, I have no idea.

Then, it was Andrea's birthday. Everyone met at a bar on the Corniche called "Mermaid," where the DJ changed the music to fit the majority nationality (hint: it wasn't Egyptian) and where one shot of anything is more expensive than one cold beer. You only have two choices in Egypt: Stella, which is bigger and tastes better, or Meister, which is a dark-but-not-really beer with a higher alcohol content and a worse taste. Most kids drank Stella -- I stuck with water. The night started off with a friend teaching us all the words she knew in American Sign Language, which are "wolf," "pretty," "higher education," "girl," "boy," "lesbian," "lunch," "where's my money, bitch," and "what now, bitch." Someone else threw in "Jew," "cookie," "dance," and "whore." When we began dancing, it was a relatively normal affair -- it wasn't until Abe decided to play the game "I sign something and you dance it" that things got weird. "Jew boy cookie dance" was the strangest dance by far, but Matta signed "lesbian wolf bitch" at me, too.

A word on the dancers. All but one of us was from the US. Most of us danced like your average white American early adults, with hip movement and swaying and bopping galore. Karim, the tall, skinny Egyptian hipster, danced like a maniac but in a totally odd way that somehow managed to look good although goofy (something about his limbs being so goddamn long). Matta, on the other hand, tore up the dance floor and probably also some discs in his back. That man dances like a fool. Karim worked as a bouncer for a couple of years and even he confessed that he has never seen anyone dance quite as badly as Matta, and you can imagine that he's seen some pretty awful folks. Matta, oh Matta. His famous line (most of his lines were good, but this was the best) was "Churn that butter, wolf bitch!" And yes, he did make a churning dance to go along with it.

Funny thing was, we were all completely sober. Well, not all of us. Some of the boys left, found a liquor store, got wasted off of cheap, Egyptian vodka, and came back to be completely obnoxious tools. But those of us dancing and having a great time? We were sober, sadly enough. I'm sure our shenanigans made us look drunk, but we were far from it. There was a table full of Egyptian men sitting, watching us, and also, in an alcove right next to the dance floor, was a man and his wife, who was wearing a hijab and an abaya. We must have been quite a sight for them. They were definitely watching us with a mix of wonder, confusion, and a bit of fright.

Anyway. It was a good night. "Clubbing," as you might call it, in Egypt is fun. Apparently they don't make a big deal out of drunk driving, though, because Karim complained the whole way as he was driving us back to the dorms that he didn't get drunk that night, and "tomorrow is so far away." Also, if we ever get locked out of the dorms (we technically have a curfew, and they do lock the doors at night), he offered us a place to crash at his apartment, which is just down the street. We may end up having to take him up on it, one day. I fear the Egyptian dorm keepers are a little... inflexible in their curfew rules.

Three posts in one day, imagine that! Won't happen again, most likely. Revel in my fleeting talkativeness.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW