My first days in Ma'adi....

So that’s my flat! Isn’t it fabulous? We haven’t decorated yet, but we are working on it. Most of it requires my roomies boxes to get here, because she has a lot of prints and such that we can hang and such. Funny story about my roomie! Her suitcases were lost by Air France, which stinks, but now she has NO CLEAN CLOTHES! We ordered a washer and drier but it might be a bit before we actually have them. As a result she washed her clothes in the sink last night. And before you get all ‘why didn’t you give her some of your clothes you meanie?’ on me, she is a tall lady who would have looked like the jolly green giant in my clothes, so she decided against it. Anyway… after she washed her clothes she hung them outside to dry. Well at night it isn’t so hot here, so the clothes didn’t dry. We had heard about a teacher using the oven to heat her flat, because it is cheaper that using the heater. So she turned on the oven and draped things over the door, hoping the heat would help them dry. It worked for the tee shirt and undergarments, but the pants were still pretty wet. So she put them on the rack on oven and I told her I would watch them while she showered. She set the timer for 10 minutes. I didn’t think that it would take that long, so I pulled them out at five minutes. However, there was a peculiar smell and it wasn’t just the burnt flesh on my hand from pulling the pants out by the front (read burning hot metal zipper and button). I looked at the pants and saw this:





She came out and I told her “Good news: pants are dry. Bad news: pants are burnt!” She had to wear them all day like this as well, because she still had no suitcase! Everyone asked what happened and soon our story was all over the staff and people were laughing and staring at us… it was pretty hilarious! Welcome to Cairo! Rule Number 1: Don’t bake your clothes!!