Sursar Almost Khallas!!!!

Translated into English it means
Cockroaches almost (don't know the meaning of almost in Arabic) finished!!!  So
the plan of extinguishing all the cockroaches in our flat is working!!!! We buy
about Two to Three cans of Baygon every day and spray EVERYWHERE!!!!  I
sleep with one right by my bed! just in case there is another attack in the
middle of the night.

 On Monday my flat mates decided to give
me a heart attack, and decided they did not want to live in that flat
anymore!!!!  Uff, why move again after all that hassle?? Why miss out on
the beautiful sea breeze and waves waking you up in the morning????  Besides,
how am I going to take all my stuff down 6 flights of stairs without a lift!!!!
No Way!!!

So after some propaganda from me and
Nelly (50 yr old Brazilian lady married to an Egyptian who she met over the
internet) as well as a house meeting at 3am after murdering some more
cockroaches we came up with our plan of attack!!!!

On Friday we will be painting the whole
house - God help us!!! And then mega cleaning and finally poison for those
'injustice' creatures (as Tom would call them!).  Still don't know how I'm
going to do this considering I have a wedding on Thursday night!!!! Thank God
its a Muslim wedding so I am guaranteed a non-hangover!!!! Though I will not
guarantee I won't end up painting the doors or the people helping out!!

Finding paint for the house is not as
easy as I thought!! Here nobody paints their house, they get it painted, so the
paint shops are in the most random places where only workers go!!!! We should be
attempting that street tonight!!! Two foreign girls, who only speak basic Arabic
and who don't have a clue about painting will be going on their adventure to the
Painters street tonight!!!! If you don't hear from me again it means I did not
come out of there alive!!!!!!

My room is finally starting to look like
home!!! I put up my usual collage of pictures and the things I have
carried around with me for the past 2 years so everywhere I go it would look
like home!!!   This time I do not have the Top of the Grand Place view
from my window, but I have an even nicer one of the sea, the horizon, sunset
and waves!

The 1st step of settling in Egypt is
almost over! After the cockroach extermination and house painting I guess I can
move on to the next step and start getting myself a social life.  I have
not really made the effort in these past few months, cause the Americans were
always around, but now its time I get into the old Thea, the one who would
organize things to go out, have fun, have people over, cook.

There are so many things I need to do
and discover about this culture!  I need to improve on my Arabic, go walking on
the corniche, go to the library, sort out my life!

Today my nightmare class is finally
over!!! They have their exam yeah, which means Egyptian goodies for me, when the
course is over we usually have a little party!!!! My last students were the
best! they decided they wanted to make an Egyptian party and they prepared
Mahxi (vegetable stuffed in rice and some spices) and Molokeja (Green
yakki thing made of I don't know what - imagine the texture of sperm but green -
YAK the Egyptians say all the foreigners like it! I don't know where they got
that idea from!) and many more Egyptian delights!!!! Then they gave me a really
nice jewelry box!!! Ohh how I miss them!!!

I guess I wrote enough for the day!!!!