Yay, on holiday again! Well, alhamdulillah I passed both my OSCE and Progress Test, so I do believe I well deserve this break. Mak Abah, jangan marah saya ponteng kelas ya? Orang lain pun pergi bercuti ke tempat2 lagi best (dan tak panas macam nak mati) seperti Paris, Lake District, London dan Edinburgh.
Apart from melarikan diri daripada Project Option for a few days (what an understatement!), there's not much to be done now in Egypt. The weather's scorching hot with temperatures up to 44 degrees celcius! OMG, I just cannot imagine how it's gonna be like in late July nanti - I may just die! The only places I have been are friends' houses to ensure that the new queen hasn't taken over (Yes, the bitch is back! Refer to GG 2x23), and also City Star, one of the biggest shopping complexes in Cairo, just for the sake of getting out of the sun and basking in cool conditioned air. Now this place has like thousands of security guards who oddly enough do not allow photography inside the pretty building, and there weren't any signs anywhere to say so. But the funny thing was that there were loads of 'No Smoking' signs, yet there were loads of people smoking carelessly as if it was their own house and everybody loved the smell of the nauseating gases they exhaled. The even more disappointing thing was that everything there is damn expensive! It's not just the converted price of the RRP of the foreign products, which is already too much considering the average income of people here, but up to double that! For example, the Amlika leave in hair conditioner from Body Shop which costs less than 5 pounds in the UK is a whopping LE110! Even things that were on sale at 50% off were still double the price of the same thing in the UK. What a rip-off! No wonder the people who actually seemed affluent enough to buy anything from the shops were those with American accents saying things like, "You know, I wish I was like, less exposed" or Saudis and their clan from the oil-rich countries of the world. H&M was probably the only shop where prices were just slightly higher than the converted prices. Itupun tak lalu saya nak beli since it's hundreds of Egyptian pounds, which is too big a number for budget fashion like H&M. So I ended up just buying a regular chocolate milkshake from Carvel.
Cepat amek gambar sebelum pakcik guard marah!
Anyway, semasa perjalanan ke sini, I had the unfortunate experience of meeting two groups of very opposite men - one the Caucasian gentlemen, and the latter the slightly uncultured Southeast Asian men. After checking in, I had to drop my backpack for check in at another counter as the bag was too small to be lumped in and squashed by the larger suitcases. Abang hensem yang jaga kaunter kemudiannya berkata, "You have a Manchester United keyring in your bag", which took me a few seconds to register as I was enjoying the view. "Oh yes, shame they lost though." Dan kami (me, abang hensem dan pakcik kurang hensem) pun terus la bersembang tentang kekalahan yang mengecewakan the week before. Now that is the beauty of Western manners - people treat you like equals (most of the time) regardless of race, religion or gender.
When I reached Amsterdam for transit, I passed by two men whom from quite a distance I could recognise their Southeast Asian features, yet weren't sure whether they were Malay or Indonesian. They had long hair, were quite suntanned and looked almost like Indon kerja construction site kat taman perumahan saya dulu. So I tried to look away without being too overt, and the two men started saying "Assalamualaikum" out loud, and yes, in the same intonation as "Assalamualaikum, tak jawab dosa" which is so popular back home. I obviously walked even faster despite their repeated salams and glances at me. Pervs!
Then while queuing to board my flight to Cairo, an undoubtedly Malaysian looking guy stood a few spaces ahead of me in line, and when the line turned and twisted, he somehow ended up standing next to me in line (separated by the line posts). The guy had long hair with sunglasses on his head and had on 3/4 cargos, and I didn't mean to be prejudiced, but after the encounter with those two men, what do you expect a girl to do? The guy just kept looking (more like staring) at me, as if he was either trying to guess where I was from or was waiting for me to say 'hi'. I obviously would not - can't a girl have some pride? Anyhoo, when I finally landed, Kadir told me he was waiting with a guy who was waiting for his brother to arrive from Paris (via Amsterdam). When Parisian guy arrived, salam2 and everything, he told his brother (and Kadir) about budak Melayu sombong yang tak tegur dia and buat tak nampak kat dia. Kadir gelak and asked, "Lelaki ke perempuan?" and he said, "Perempuan." His brother then laughed and said, "Isteri dia la" and dengan muka cuak dia pun cakap it wasn't Kadir's wife he was talking about. Just before they headed off and I was still waiting for my luggage to arrive (why does mine always arrive late?!), Parisian kid again apologises to Kadir reiterating that, "Betul, bukan isteri you tadi tu" as if there were any other Malaysians on board the whole flight. Seb baik diorang dah blah by the time I arrived. Kalau tak, I would probably say something along the lines of, "Ek eleh cakap orang sombong. Dia tu tak tegur orang, pastu expect orang tegur dia dulu. Kalau muka hensem sikit, boleh consider la jugak."
Anyway, kesimpulan daripada cerita bosan panjang lebar ni adalah ramai lelaki Melayu yang tetap berperangai seperti lelaki Melayu tidak kira di ceruk mana dunia ini sekalipun mereka berada.
Righty-o now, must get ready for dinner at another friend's house. Oh, I do love being Blair. Till then, tata!
