Cup of tea?

Ok, well I had a blog almost finished, I had it saved, I was up to the fun part of adding photos and the damned thing deleted the entire post and THEN SAVED THE CHANGES. So regarding the title of today's blog - you may wish to go get yourself a cup of tea because that's what I'm doing because DELETED BLOG and I need to chill before I write this post again. (And yes, I know I should write this in Word and then paste it here. Same thing would have happened, my curser is possessed.)

Ok, I am back, time for blog post 2.

As I was saying, and you're going to have to trust me on that because DELETED POST, yesterday while out walking my companion (because while I am a classic introverted writer, I have rather to my surprise made one or two friends) said to me that I am behaving like a real Egyptian. I was puzzled, because all I had done was to wait beside a parked car for two other cars to go past (and they were making a production of getting past each other too) so that I could continue walking. Ah yes, my companion said, but you are waiting in the street and there is a footpath behind you! And there was. I have become so accustomed to walking along the street like everyone else - except for Sheraton Street where the footpath is wide and the traffic is manic - that it did not occur to me to use the perfectly serviceable footpath behind me.

Earlier the same day while walking one of the back streets I came across a truck, a pile of metal rods, a huge pile of sand, two metal crates, and a huge pile of gravel spread over the entire width and some considerable length of the street. They were not there a few days ago. There were men working in one of the huge holes that will soon transform into a building, and men working with the truck etc. If I had been driving a car I may have been a touch annoyed since the street was effectively blocked to all other traffic, but I was walking so I just negotiated the obstacles, climbed the sand and the gravel and went on my way. It's daily life here, Hurghada is like one big building site.

So, later that night I began to wonder what else I have started to take for granted and my thoughts turned to tea. Not that I take tea for granted, tea is essential to my survival and to the survival of those around me. Without tea in the morning I do not perform well, or at all. I am irritable, sleepy and not fun to be around. Tea gives me a boost, gets my brain into gear, wakes me up, quenches my thirst, soothes frazzled nerves (DELETED POST) and basically keeps me sane. I do drink coffee, I get a buzz from it and sometimes it can even take away a headache. But tea is what lubricates my entire being. However I have started to not notice the way it is served.

So, in Egypt tea is drunk everywhere. It is served black, and most people seem to take it with sugar. At least I always have to refuse sugar more than once to be believed. Tea is served in a glass far more often than in a cup or mug, and almost always the tea used is Lipton Yellow Label. I don't know why except maybe it is a mild tea that is not bitter when drunk black. Tea will be served with a teabag, or with the tea leaves in the bottom of the glass. I was a little startled when I was first served tea with the leaves in the bottom of the glass, but it's very practical and tastes just fine. I like black tea, I like tea with lemon - which is actually lime because in Egypt limes are called lemons - and I like tea with mint (but not from a storekeeper who wishes me to spend my life savings). However I prefer to drink my tea with milk, especially in the mornings and definitely at times of stress, by which I mean you deleted post.

The problem with the milk here is that it tastes to me like powdered milk, even the brands that proudly announce NO ADDED MILK POWDER on the label. It tastes like milk powder. There is only one brand I have found that tastes like fresh milk and I can only get it from one store around this area. So I drink tea with milk that sometimes tastes fresh and sometimes tastes of powdered milk. And I drink it black with lemon or mint. But I have not got used to drinking it any way other than how I prefer it, with real, fresh milk.

Coffee is also a very popular beverage, usually drunk black also, and the most popular seems to be the Turkish coffee. I quite like Turkish coffee although it is very strong for me and tends to give me heart palpitations. But I love the smell of it. There is a tiny coffee shop I go to that smells divine, like a coffee drinkers spicy coffee heaven.

I have a passion for fine bone china teacups and teapots, generally Royal Albert and Royal Doulton. It is a source of anguish to me that the modern variations have changed from fine bone china to clunky thick china. Tea and coffee should only be drunk from fine bone china - but I have found that both taste just as good from a glass! When I am out I barely even notice any more that I am drinking from a glass and not a cup.

I do have a nice tea cup, I bought it here very cheaply (remember a previous blog, it pays to shop around). It is actually my third cup here, the cats broke the other two. I also have a china teapot which I bought here from the same shop. It's pretty although a little small, but it's extremely functional. I don't know whether it's by accident or design, but the spout is set at exactly the right angle and very few tea leaves come out when I pour.

So what is today's moral? Well actually it's a roundabout way of shameless self publicity. When you drink tea you should read a book, and hey, I know just the book for you and here's the link :)

http://www.amazon.com/Blank-Canvas-Sheryl-Lee-ebook/dp/B00KE7URKM

At least I hope the link will work. And for those of you that don't go to Amazon to check it out and read the first couple of chapters that are available free, in my next blog I will add them so you're not getting out of it that easy. Lately I've had a couple of people who have read it send me messages to say they really liked it. You have no idea how a writer's fragile ego is boosted by even the most casual of praise. So go, buy my book so I can afford to live, and tell all your friends. I'm a little tired of being the epitome of starving author :)

Tea Egyptian Style:

Most usually served:

Coffee and tea:

The quiet little coffee shop:

And no, you can't buy a Bob Marley from that shop:

My current tea cup and teapot:

Did someone say Home Delivery??

Home delivery, what a convenient thing it is. In Australia, on nights I just didn't want to cook and also didn't want to go out again to buy food I would order pizza to be delivered. What could be easier than ordering, paying and even tracking the delivery progress through the internet? No need even to talk to a real person and in a reasonable amount of time comes a knock on the door and there is dinner!

I don't know what else can be home delivered in Australia, apart from groceries from the big stores such as Coles and Woolworths. I think even in Mackay it is possible to have groceries home delivered and if you can't get to the shops for whatever reason that's another very convenient thing. I never tried it but if I had broken my leg or some such I'm sure I would have given it serious thought.

However in Australia, no, wait - I'm generalising which I shouldn't do. So, in Mackay, there is very little apart from pizza that can be home delivered. Not even milk.

But in Egypt? EVERYTHING is home delivered! All the fast food places - the pizza shops, McDonalds, KFC - they home deliver. Restaurants home deliver. Pet shops home deliver (not sure about actual pets, but food and litter definitely). The Metro grocery chain home delivers, and no I haven't used the facility but it's available on the web. If you need it, they will deliver it.

But in Hurghada this comes with a few problems. The first, and obvious one, is the language. Obviously, not speaking arabic when talking to someone whose English is a bit limited can cause misunderstandings. The other problem is that there are no actual addresses. It's like rural - really really rural - Australia. I remember my mother and step-father living waaaaaaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere and driving (a very long way) to visit them. My directions included things like turn at the third large tree on the left past the big termite mound. (Before you point out that directions were not quite that vague mum, I know but I can't remember the exact ones you gave. But they were very similar!)

So, back to Hurghada. Without an actual address directions given must include things like turn right at the sign and the first left and it's past the laundry or something like that. This can cause confusion for the delivery man and usually there is a phone call from him as almost every delivery person gets lost.

There is a restaurant here called Summerland. I quite like this place, the food is good and the prices are very cheap. I get vegetable soup, stuffed cabbage leaves, grilled chicken, various rice dishes including one called fattah, and molokheyyah which is the leaves of the jute plant made into a soup. It is packed full of nutrition and I have developed a fondness for it, despite it sometimes having a rather explosive effect on the digestive system. They also make spaghetti bolognaise which gamer son - suspicious of unfamiliar food since birth - eats with enjoyment. There are many other items available on the menu and I eat from there regularly. 

The delivery man always, always gets lost. Then the last time they delivered I found out another problem with home delivery here. Someone waylaid my delivery man downstairs and took my food (paid for it but still stole my food!). Delivery man apparently didn't feel the need to check this was the correct customer - I am on the fifth floor not the ground floor! - but happily took the money and went back to the restaurant. A phone call asking where is my food later, a half hearted apology (Oh someone else got your food! He was hungry.) and I had to wait for the order to be cooked again and finally delivered. 

But the time I was most grateful for home delivery was when I became very sick with Pharaohs Revenge. Well I think it was that, but I was much sicker than I have been before. There is a medication here called Antinal, which is a local medication for the stomach upsets experienced mostly by foreigners. The box says it is an antiseptic, the web says it is an antibiotic. I don't know what it is but I know that it works like magic. Local medication for local bugs. Anyway I had very little Antinal left when I got sick. I didn't just have the diarrhoea people experience, I also had nausea and vomiting. This was my problem, I couldn't keep the medication down long enough to have any effect on the bug.

I was so weak that I couldn't even walk the distance from the bedroom to the lounge room without:

a) feeling sick
b) needing to throw up
c) needing to use the toilet
d) feeling light headed and faint
e) needing to sit down with heart pounding
f) all of the above

Mostly it was option f). So I was in no condition to go to the pharmacy for medication. But never fear, the pharmacy DELIVERS! The delivery man came with Antinal and some sort of pills to stop the nausea and instructions for taking them. I was never more pleased to see a delivery man at the door. The medication worked and I was vastly improved by the next day. It took a week to recover from that one though.

It's surprising, to me at any rate, how quickly you get used to home delivery of whatever you need. I don't even think about it any more. It made me think about celebrities (and I'm talking about people who have become wealthy and well known but are not necessarily anything to actually celebrate) and their lifestyles. You're not following me? Well, when a normal person becomes a celebrity there must at first be amazement and excitement experienced at having all these people who are there simply to fulfil whatever the celebrity requires. 

I would assume that the average person who finds him or herself a celebrity for whatever reason would at first be surprised by how easy it is to get things done. To have a person available to do it for him or her, whatever it is. To ask for something and have it brought. But then he or she would get used to it, take it for granted and perhaps without even noticing become a Beyonce or J-Lo and start making outrageous demands. Perhaps start walking around with a lackey holding an umbrella over their precious head. Maybe that is how it goes for a lot of people. Sadly, there are people with a massive sense of entitlement who will always take advantage of others and expect preferential or even fawning treatment. But maybe a lot of people just have it grow on them and don't even really notice how much they are taking for granted.

Just a thought, but I wonder, how difficult is it to retain joy at being alive, or to be thrilled to finally get something you've worked for, for so long, if everything is just given to you when you ask. How long does it take to become jaded? And if you are in that position of having everything you want, whenever you want it, how do you stop yourself from becoming empty and jaded?

Dominos Pizza Mackay:

 Hurghada Delivery vehicle:

Molokheyyah:

And don't forget: