thursday night out
thursday, TheMech, TheSiteLead, and i decided to go to wagih's steakhouse again for dinner. it's about a 30 minute ride by taxi to the town it is located in called agami. wagih's is known for having excellent cuts of steak. TheMech, ThePipingGuy, and i went last week and, we were so impressed we figured a repeat performance was in order. the dinner comes with a simple though scrumptious tomato, onion, and cucumber salad, egyptian bread, dutch mayonnaise, and home-style french fries... for like $11. it rocked, again, but i'm just setting the stage.
after dinner, we were going to bounce around agami to try to find something to do. we didn't have to work friday, so we were going to go out and do our best to find some sort of nightlife. we had our taxi driver take us to the summer moon which TheSiteLead had heard was a good nightspot. he heard wrong! it was about 5-6 minutes drive from the restaurant, but the closer we got to it, the more it looked like beirut. abandoned cars, shoddy buildings, ragamuffin kids playing street-soccer barefoot under the few non-defunct streetlights. i think we were all a bit hesitant, though we didn't voice it. we got to the summer moon, and it looked like a dive bar, at best. i was the first through the door, being greeted by the proprietor, i assume. he asked where i was from, i said, "america", and he turned around to the girls *prostitutes* just behind him and loudly whispered to them, "we have americans!!". they direct us to the table just inside the door to site with the girls, but TheMech made the smart decision to walk towards the bar, so we followed him. the guy who greeted us came up to us at the bar and said we should sit at the table because the egyptian girls aren't allowed to sit at the bar. we said that was no problem and ordered three beers. the bar was shoddy. a few tables here and there with a box of tissues and a bottle of water on each. behind the bar, they had stacks upon stacks of cans of beer like they'd just bought them from the liquor store by the case. we talked a bit and finished our beers quickly, so we could move on to something with a bit more life. when we asked for the bill, the guy behind the bar called for the bouncer to come and stand behind us, true egyptian-mafia style. i spoke a bit of arabic to disarm him as we received the bill... 100 EGYPTIAN POUNDS!!! that's like $20 for 3 beers. screw that! this isn't NYC, this is a shite-hole bar on a dead end street in the middle of nowhere. i figure that's why they called the bouncer, to intimdate us into paying. we paid and got up to leave with the bartender saying "please, don't forget me sir". in egypt, that translates to "give me a tip". i was a bit pissed at the price and basically told him to fukk off, his tip is in the cost of the beer, and we hastily made our way to the door.
outside we found our taxi guy waiting and decided to try to find asia, the place we went to the week before where the bar staff robbed us blind with bar tricks, but they had a cute bartender. we couldn't quite recall what the outside looked like and there was no name on the outside of the bar. TheMech got out of the car to check a place we thought as it, and indeed, it was. after a few minutes, he came back and told us it was 100 pound cover charge and there was NO ONE in the bar. as he is getting back into the taxi, the proprietor walks across the street to us and tells us the 100 pounds includes 2 free drinks. TheMech tries to negotiate 3 beers, MrMan wouldn't have it, so we bolted.
we were down to our last resort. we'd heard from someone of a place called paradise. our driver didn't know it, but after stopping to ask random people on the street, we ended up in a marginally nicer part of town in front of paradise - pizza and steak. downstairs looked like a restaurant that no one was in (it was about 1AM by this time), but upstairs seemed to be a pseudo-disco judging by some neon lights you could barely see through the blacked-out windows. we went upstairs to the club, paid the 50 pound cover (no drinks included), and we actually found people, of all things. there were 1-2 tables with ex-pats, 4-5 with egyptians. this place might not be too bad. there was live egyptian music being played and a belly dancer shaking her money-maker. yeah, this place might not be too bad. the dancer wasn't very cute and not very talented, in my opinion, but it was different, there was beer, and i was with friends/colleagues. she danced for 10-15 minutes after we'd gotten there. during her dancing, some of the guys would come to the dance floor and "make it rain (definition 5)" with 1 pound notes (1 pound = $0.18). it was... funny to say the least. the band took a small break, and then... i met my future egyptian wife. the next dancer to come on was a very nice-looking, tall egyptian girl named TheSabrine. early on in her dance, she tried to get me to dance with her on the floor, but i wasn't intoxicated enough. TheMech was, so he joined her and another lady (i'm guessing an off-duty dancer). after a few more beers, i decided i wanted to tip her, as she was doing an amazing job dancing. i got out 100... and then 200 pounds and gave them to her (this is the egyptian equivalent of my U.S. stripper college fund). she was very gracious to the point of not taking "no" for an answer when she wanted to me to dance this time, so i danced... horribly. TheMech and TheSiteLead had a good time whopping it up, laughing, and taking camera-phone pictures of me. they aren't the greatest quality, so i'm not entirely going to admit that they are evidence of me dancing. i was going to post them, but i can't figure out how to get them off the phone. anyways, it was good craic, we had a few more drinks and then took our taxi guy home. TheSiteLead (who's egyptian, btw) sat up front, arabacizing with the driver, TheMech was passing out in the back seat. i used him as a "block", so the driver didn't see my "borrow" his emergency triangle from his rear window dash. i'm a bad man, i know, but he wouldn't've used it anyways. we got back to the hotel around 4AM, and i crashed hard, clothes and all, on top of the sheets.
i love thursdays.
after dinner, we were going to bounce around agami to try to find something to do. we didn't have to work friday, so we were going to go out and do our best to find some sort of nightlife. we had our taxi driver take us to the summer moon which TheSiteLead had heard was a good nightspot. he heard wrong! it was about 5-6 minutes drive from the restaurant, but the closer we got to it, the more it looked like beirut. abandoned cars, shoddy buildings, ragamuffin kids playing street-soccer barefoot under the few non-defunct streetlights. i think we were all a bit hesitant, though we didn't voice it. we got to the summer moon, and it looked like a dive bar, at best. i was the first through the door, being greeted by the proprietor, i assume. he asked where i was from, i said, "america", and he turned around to the girls *prostitutes* just behind him and loudly whispered to them, "we have americans!!". they direct us to the table just inside the door to site with the girls, but TheMech made the smart decision to walk towards the bar, so we followed him. the guy who greeted us came up to us at the bar and said we should sit at the table because the egyptian girls aren't allowed to sit at the bar. we said that was no problem and ordered three beers. the bar was shoddy. a few tables here and there with a box of tissues and a bottle of water on each. behind the bar, they had stacks upon stacks of cans of beer like they'd just bought them from the liquor store by the case. we talked a bit and finished our beers quickly, so we could move on to something with a bit more life. when we asked for the bill, the guy behind the bar called for the bouncer to come and stand behind us, true egyptian-mafia style. i spoke a bit of arabic to disarm him as we received the bill... 100 EGYPTIAN POUNDS!!! that's like $20 for 3 beers. screw that! this isn't NYC, this is a shite-hole bar on a dead end street in the middle of nowhere. i figure that's why they called the bouncer, to intimdate us into paying. we paid and got up to leave with the bartender saying "please, don't forget me sir". in egypt, that translates to "give me a tip". i was a bit pissed at the price and basically told him to fukk off, his tip is in the cost of the beer, and we hastily made our way to the door.
outside we found our taxi guy waiting and decided to try to find asia, the place we went to the week before where the bar staff robbed us blind with bar tricks, but they had a cute bartender. we couldn't quite recall what the outside looked like and there was no name on the outside of the bar. TheMech got out of the car to check a place we thought as it, and indeed, it was. after a few minutes, he came back and told us it was 100 pound cover charge and there was NO ONE in the bar. as he is getting back into the taxi, the proprietor walks across the street to us and tells us the 100 pounds includes 2 free drinks. TheMech tries to negotiate 3 beers, MrMan wouldn't have it, so we bolted.
we were down to our last resort. we'd heard from someone of a place called paradise. our driver didn't know it, but after stopping to ask random people on the street, we ended up in a marginally nicer part of town in front of paradise - pizza and steak. downstairs looked like a restaurant that no one was in (it was about 1AM by this time), but upstairs seemed to be a pseudo-disco judging by some neon lights you could barely see through the blacked-out windows. we went upstairs to the club, paid the 50 pound cover (no drinks included), and we actually found people, of all things. there were 1-2 tables with ex-pats, 4-5 with egyptians. this place might not be too bad. there was live egyptian music being played and a belly dancer shaking her money-maker. yeah, this place might not be too bad. the dancer wasn't very cute and not very talented, in my opinion, but it was different, there was beer, and i was with friends/colleagues. she danced for 10-15 minutes after we'd gotten there. during her dancing, some of the guys would come to the dance floor and "make it rain (definition 5)" with 1 pound notes (1 pound = $0.18). it was... funny to say the least. the band took a small break, and then... i met my future egyptian wife. the next dancer to come on was a very nice-looking, tall egyptian girl named TheSabrine. early on in her dance, she tried to get me to dance with her on the floor, but i wasn't intoxicated enough. TheMech was, so he joined her and another lady (i'm guessing an off-duty dancer). after a few more beers, i decided i wanted to tip her, as she was doing an amazing job dancing. i got out 100... and then 200 pounds and gave them to her (this is the egyptian equivalent of my U.S. stripper college fund). she was very gracious to the point of not taking "no" for an answer when she wanted to me to dance this time, so i danced... horribly. TheMech and TheSiteLead had a good time whopping it up, laughing, and taking camera-phone pictures of me. they aren't the greatest quality, so i'm not entirely going to admit that they are evidence of me dancing. i was going to post them, but i can't figure out how to get them off the phone. anyways, it was good craic, we had a few more drinks and then took our taxi guy home. TheSiteLead (who's egyptian, btw) sat up front, arabacizing with the driver, TheMech was passing out in the back seat. i used him as a "block", so the driver didn't see my "borrow" his emergency triangle from his rear window dash. i'm a bad man, i know, but he wouldn't've used it anyways. we got back to the hotel around 4AM, and i crashed hard, clothes and all, on top of the sheets.
i love thursdays.
Labels: drugs/alcohol, food, friends, international
posted by slyght at 2/14/2009 09:01:00 AM
1 Comments:
arghhhhhh....
XXXOOO
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