Donut Have a Pun For the Title But Olive You Guys

Eating is one of the best parts of the day. One of the absolute best parts of being an exchange student is food and eating. I came to Egypt knowing exactly one kind of Egyptian food, and never I had never tried it. Not have I tried middle eastern food or anything like that. But in the couple months I've been here I have eaten lots of food.

I don't know when Egyptians eat. But I, in my Egyptian life style, basically eat when I'm hungry. I eat what I bring to school, which depends on how lazy or not lazy I am the day before. Normally like a sandwich or two and like an orange, or cake if we have it. Maybe. Then the big meal is lunch. We normally eat around four but it could be earlier or later depending on who's home, who's coming home, etc. Then around 8 or 9 I make my food for school the next day and eat something. 

So Egyptian lunch in my host family is normally some sort of carb (rice, pasta, bread, mixture of those), a meat (beef, chicken, fish), veggies (salad, stew, or mixed into the meal).  

With the help of my friends, I have come up with a list of Egyptian foods:

Goulash: It's kind of a meat pie.
Kofta: Meat with spices, onions, garlic, parsley, etc.
Foul: Fava Bean dip. Eaten with bread.
Tameya: Falafel
Molokhia: Green soup. Molokhia is a plant and that's what the soup is.
Mahshy: Basically any vegetable stuffed with rice and stuff. This recipe is for stuffed cabbage but it can be eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, etc.
Tahini: A sauce served with kofta and tameya and stuff
Hawawshi: Meat with spices in bread
Shwarma: Beef: explanation in "Suez" post. Chicken: spiced chicken with vegetables. This recipe is chicken.
Mombar: Stuffed cow intestines/stomach
Kebda: Liver
Mokh: Brain
Deil: Tail
Lessan: Tongue
Koshary: Rice, lentils, onion, macaroni. National dish of Egypt
Homos el Sham: Basically chickpea soup
Roz bel Laban: Rice pudding.
They also eat a lot of pickled vegetables, I tried them three times, and I am not a pickled anything person... sorry. But I like fish now. As long as it's cooked. I also eat peppers and tomatoes regularly.

There are probably many, many more Egyptian foods, this is just what we brainstormed. The names are links for recipes I've found. I have not used these recipes, I just googled "Egyptian [insert food name here] recipe". If it seemed right I used it. For the ones without links, I couldn't find anything. For my cooking followers, if you want to try these out I definitely encourage you to. Good Luck. If you want to cheat, I'm sure there are restaurants you could go to. If you live in/around Pleasanton. There is a falafel place on Bernal across from the "new" Safeway... I think. There's also an Egyptian restaurant in San Francisco. The rest of the country probably has other places.

I have not eaten all of these, I hope to by the time my year is up. I've helped make kofta and goulash. But today was a perfect display of my cooking skills. I decided that I wanted to make breakfast for my host family because I was the only one out of bed and I was hungry and wanted to do something nice. I broke a plate. And set a washcloth on fire trying to use it as an oven mitt. (It was fine. I put it out, only the corner burned). Also, my chocolate pie ended up being chocolate soup that we put in the freezer to make overly cinnamon-ed weird chocolate ice cream that melts really fast in crust. It tasted good, just not at all like chocolate pie. The crust was good though. I emailed my Grandma and she told me what I did wrong. Grandma's are good for that kind of thing.

In other news, my Arabic is better than when I got here, but still not good. However, my English is starting to demolish. An Egyptian corrected my English today...

I, being a human with an iPhone in the year 2014, have taken pictures of things I've eaten so here you go:

Starbucks feat. Myrna

Chicken, pasta, cucumber, water

Bread, chocolate halawa, green tea

This thing I found at a convenience store/stand

A thing I got at a cafe

Hot dog pizza

Meat flavored chips (they also have tomato, which is basically ketchup. I haven't tried then together but I want to.)

First day of Cinnabon tradition with Merna

My birthday cake

Inside of birthday cake

Shawarma in the making

Shawarma in the eating

Chicken shawarma

Spinach something, rice, chicken, empty glass that will soon be filled with water. 

Olive you guys. Stay hungry. Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeeeee

Corie. 

Shoukran Habibty

Today is thanksgiving. A day in which Americans and others perhaps will eat a crap ton of food and a weird hour with a bunch of people asking the same questions about school and their lives in general. It's also a day to give thanks and be grateful. While that should be everyday, today is the day we are reminded that we should do it everyday. I have so many things to be grateful for ... I mean I'm in Egypt... Right now. So this might be a long one...

Thank you to my host family. Thank you for opening up your home to me even though we were complete strangers a couple months ago. Thank you for providing me with food, shelter, and wifi, the bear necessities. Thank you for teaching me things like cooking and Arabic. Thank you for taking me places like the pyramids, castle and suez. Thank you for helping me with my laundry. Thank you for not getting mad when I forget to turn the water off after I shower. Thank you for everything. There is no way for me to express my gratitude. I cannot thank you enough. 

Thank you to my friends here in Egypt for being patient and kind with my Arabic (or lack there of). Thank you for teaching me Arabic. Thank you for speaking English more than you've ever wanted or needed to. Thank you for giving me food. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being such wonderful people. Thank you for pretending to understand even when you don't. Thank you for all the times you've helped me because I can be helpless sometimes. Thank you for not giving up on me and my pretty bad Arabic. And thank you for making my birthday super super sweet. 

Thank you to my Momy and Daddie. Thank you for paying the price of a new car to send me here. Thank you for letting me go abroad. Thank you for letting me go to a country that plenty of people are too scared to go. Thank you for asking me Momy questions. Thank you for sending me Daddie questions. Thank you for the presents I won't use for a while. And thank you for money. And for raising me. And like everything else. 

Thank you to Maya. Thank you for being a good sister. Thank you for playing video games with my name as a character. Thank you for being my best friend. Thank you for keeping me company. Thank you for sending me ugly selfies. 

Thank you to AFS-Egypt. Thank you for checking up on me and being on too of things. Thank you for taking me to get my visa. And getting me to and from the AFS office and for making sure I'm a healthy and happy exchange student. 

Thank you to Lynnewood UMC for my signed shirt. It's like a hug when I wear it. I call it my love shirt. 

Thank you to teachers. You really move kids. Whether you encouraged, inspired, or made me really want to get away from you, you are all the reason I am where I am and who I am today. 

Thank you to Virgin and Turkish airlines for literally getting me here. 

And finally. Thank you. Thank you for reading my blog. I would probably still write if no one read but it's more fun with an audience. Thank you to all of you who tell me they like my blog, or they find it interesting, or that I'm a good writer. Thank you for the encouragement and the advice. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and mine. Thank you for all the joy you bring. 

This post in 145 characters or less:

Thank you. I love you. Happy thanksgiving. You are amazing. ❤️

Also thanksgiving is not thanksgiving with out chocolate pie. The recipe's been in my family for generations. (At least three). It takes a lot of work (labor of love) and right now it's in the fridge I hope it turns out okay. 

Crust

Filling in the making. 

Before the fridge. 

I will post a picture when it's completely done. 

Happy thanksgiving! Appreciate your family, eat and drink to your hearts' content, and be grateful, even if it's just for being alive. Also watch this.

Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeee

Corie. 

P.S. The title means thank you my love... Basically. 

7533'2

Franko. Not David or James, but Arabic. 

I was going to talk about food because, ya know, thanksgiving. But I think that in order to talk about that, I have to talk about franko and Arabic. 

I shall begin with an anecdote. Yesterday, our English teacher said that today's exam would be postponed. So naturally I went home and didn't study. When I got to school today, everyone was studying. The test was un-postponed. So someone told me to ask my friend to add me to the group chat. I was like "alright" so I did. She tells me that it'll all be in Arabic and I won't understand anything. And I said that it's fine and to add me anyway. 

No. No. No. Big mistake. Bad Corie. Now I get text after text that I don't understand. I mean I already knew group chats were bad. They can freeze your phone if you don't check for a while and next thing you know you have 23455 unread texts. But then you get into one that you don't even understand the language. 

You may know Arabic as انا اسمي كوري but sometimes Arabic looks like this: 

Wnty malk anty bosy ya corie anty to go steeerat kda zy manty w t5osshy men rerrturn w htl2y pyramidsss asdk. 

Which one looks more foreign, I don't know. The second one is called franko. They used English letters but Arabic words. There are also letters that don't have English equivilents so they use numbers 

3 = ع = aa (kind of a throaty sound)

3' = غ = gh (really hard sound to make. Basically clearing your throat)

7 = ح = h (but from deep in the throat like a dragon)

5 = خ = kh (more clearing your throat)

2 = ء = I don't even know how to describe it in writing. 

So naturally I'm very confused when my phone looks like this : 

But here's what I did. I googled "essential words and phrases in any language" and it came up with this website "fluent forever" and a 625 word list. So I wrote all of them down and I'm still in the process of translating them into franko with the help of my friends. 

Then I will memorize them, make sentences and hopefully soon I will be able to understand a little more. Learning a language without a class is really hard guys. But the number one reason I came to Egypt was to learn Arabic and I will. 

People asked me when I was translating the words, "why do you want to learn these?" I never had a good enough answer. But here it is: I don't care if I never use this word. But at least I'll know it. Even if memorizing these words doesn't help me understand y'all it gets me that much closer fluency. I don't care if it takes me the rest of my life to become fluent in Arabic. I will become fluent in Arabic or I will die trying. 

Tweet version of this post 

@corieinegypt (still not a real twitter):

Sometimes people use English letters and numbers to communicate in Arabic and it's weird. Also I WILL become fluent in Arabic. #franko

Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeee

Corie.

Cinemazing

It's weird to think that something as simple as going to the movies is so different. I personally love the whole idea of movie theaters. I really love them. I'd rather see and action movie on a big screen than at home. And we get to live through the wonderful time that is now. A time when a lot of movies are coming from books. 

I have gone to the movies three times here. It's actually quite different but it's great. 

First, it is so cheap. Like so so cheap. In the day the price of a ticket is roughly $3.50. Popcorn (I get caramel corn) is about $2.50. Also the popcorn is the perfect size. Not absurdly huge like in the States. 

Second, they have the box office the same. That's where you but the ticket. But there's a separate line for every movie playing. Also the times are the same for every movie. 25 LE for 10:00 and 1:00. And then 45 LE for like 3:00, 6:00, etc. (I think, check the listings for actual times). So when you buy the tickets they have this tablet that has the seating chart. 

Like this but smaller because it's a movie theater. Then you point to where you and your friends want to sit and they tap the places if they're free. Then, stickers print out and they tape them to the tickets. You give the tickets to the usher and you don't have to worry about finding a seat. It's great :)

So now you're sitting in your seats currently fangirling through the trailers and the movie starts. During the movie (and some trailers) there are subtitles in Arabic and French. Then, halfway through the movie, it stops. Don't worry!! It's okay. It's just a break. That's when you get popcorn or go to the bathroom because apparently Egyptians can't hold it through the whole movie. You go get your reasonably priced, reasonably sized popcorn and go back and watch the rest of the movie. The end. 

Anyway, I just think that it's neat how it's so different. I mean it's kind of nice and organized and cheap a'f. It's great. 

I also told you all this because I say Mockingjay Part One today. And no spoilers but so good. Jennifer Lawrence is really talented and if you don't agree with me, you, no offense, are dumb. Also, the movie was really good. They separated the book into two parts so they get to put a bunch of stuff from the book in and yay. If you haven't read the book you might be a little confused at the beginning. WARNING: SPOILERS if you have read the book, seeing it with a non-reader could be fun because when again SPOILER peeta gets to 13 and freaks on Katniss the non-reader's reaction is really funny. END OF SPOILERS. 

So my dad doesn't read my blog because they're too long so here's a 145 characters or less version of this post. I'll see if I remember to do it on most posts. 

@corieinegypt (not a real twitter) 

The cinema in Egypt is cheap, easy, organized and just great. #mockingjay #joshhutchersonisbae #hungergames #cinemazing

So if you don't like to read or you know someone who would enjoy my blog but doesn't like to read more than the capacity of a tweet, just scroll down and I'll include like a mini tweet sized blog post at the end. 

Okay. Love you guys. Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeeee

Corie. 

Suez

On... Friday we went to Suez. I obviously fell asleep in the car. 

Anyway we got there and visited Nadia's sister. Then, me, my host parents, and Nadia's sister went to this garden/park with a pond/lake. We sat by the pond/lake it was really nice. Originally it was actually kinda hot. Then it gradually got cooler and it was great. 

I just realized the reason it got cooler was  because the clouds came in. 

It looked so heavenly. Like heaven-ly. Look:

I don't know about you but the sky was so so so so nice. I love the sky. 

Anyway, after Nadia and Nadia's sister prayed, which is always fun to see, we went on a boat. We did those little pedal boat things. 

It was actually a lot more work than I thought. I was feeling the burn. It was like the most exercise I've gotten in like a month. 

Afterwards, I got shawarma. And basically it's a giant meat stick. 

They cut it off with a giant knife onto a grill right underneath it. They mix in like peppers, onions, tomatoes, and something else. And they mix it all together and put it in bread. 

It was really good. Like... Really really good. I'm pretty sure they have shawarma in America, I mean it was in the Avengers movie so everyone go eat it. It's lovely.

Then we did some more visits and went home. It was a really good day. :)

Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeee

Corie. 

19 November

I wrote a whole post about cool things that happened on November 19 making it the best day of the year... But the whole thing got deleted and now... I'm just... :(

Anyway, November 19 is actually a really important day. Larry King was born, Sweden, Iceland and Afghanistan joined the United Nations, it's international men's day and world toilet day, Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address, and Bill Clinton's impeachment case began. 

Not to mention it's your favorite blogger's birthday. 

Yesterday was my sweet sixteen. Without a car, a license, or my family I didn't really know how the day would go. But yesterday 19 November 2014 was easily the best day of my entire life. 

So all my friends had been saying things like "3 days left", "2 days left", "tomorrow". Then on the actual day... no one said anything.  I'm not dumb, I knew something was going to happen. During breakfast some friends and I went out into the corridor. When we went back to the classroom one of them covered my eyes and started forcing me into the classroom. (I was so scared she was going to push me into something). When she let me see, the lights were out and the whole class and my friends from other classes were standing and singing. There was a circle of cupcakes and juice boxes with a candle. I made a wish and blew out the candle. I got some amazing gifts from my amazing friends and all was well. 

Then I got home. I was just chilling in my lazy clothes. Nothing was going on. Then my friends came over and they picked out clothes for me and we took pictures and hung out and ate cake. But not just any cake... Rainbow cake. (FYI it tastes better than regular cake). I got more presents including a necklace with my name in Arabic (something I've wanted forever). 

It was a day where I felt loved. And it feels really good to feel loved. It's one of those beautiful moments when all the exhaustion and confusion that comes with being an exchange student proves to be worth it. Because no matter what happens the rest of the year, no matter how tired and confused I am 99% of the time, these moments and these people are amazing and wonderful and just aaaah I can't even explain. 

Thank you to everyone for everything. I'm so happy. :D

I love you all. Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeeeee

Corie. 

My Neighborhood and Stuff

This is a photoset of my neighborhood. Part of it anyway. This is the City Stars side. 

This is a mosque that is next to the buildings. 

That is City Stars (only a very small part of it)

These are stairs that lead to the buildings. 

This is from the top of the stairs. 

Then we walk a little bit more. 

This is a stand that sells stuff like fruits and veggies. It's just down the street. It reminds me of the stands at the beginning of the Burn Notice opening sequence. 

This is my "street". I don't know if it's a real street but that's what I call it. 

This is my building

This the thing that you push if the door is locked so that they can buzz you in. 

This is the ground floor. 

These are the elevators. 

The inside of the elevator. Hi. 👋 <-that's the hand waving emoji if it turns into a rectangle. 

Those are the buttons. The ground floor is 0 the top floor is 9

This is my floor. It's kind of hard to see. There are four apartments. 

The brown one with the doormat is mine. 

I will try to take more pictures when I can. 

Today I had orientation at the AFS office. A lady and I sat and talked. It was nice. I took a long taxi ride there and an even longer bus ride back. (Traffic sucks). 

Mockingjay comes out in the US this week which means it'll come out in Egypt in like a week and a half or two weeks or so. But I'm still really excited for that. When I went to see the Maze Runner. The trailer for Mockingjay came out and I flipped. I was fangirling so hard almost in tears (not really) and it was great because my fiend didn't judge me, in fact, she joined me. That's a real friendship right there. 

I hope you all had/have a fabulous weekend. I'm still not used to this whole split weekend thing. It's killing me. I hate it. I think it causes a lot of unwanted exhaustion. But at least tomorrow's a short day. 

I love Sundays because I talk to my family. And my mom sends me pictures of my dogs. 

OH! And it rained today. Well not rained... Drizzled. Okay not drizzled... More like misted ... Slightly... For like five minutes. BUT STILL. 

I'm gonna go drink my tea now. Stay beautiful. 

Byeeeeee

Corie.