Squirrelicious!
Dec. 10th, 2009 07:02 pmI said I wasn't going to update anyone about Egypt much until I got home so that I would seem more interesting... And I'm not going to. Ha! :P
I will share one thing though, my accumulated knowledge of Arabic words!
<lj-cut text="I know five!">
La! - no
Shokran - thankyou
These two words combine to form one of the more important phrases to have in your Egypt vocabulary. For some reason, "No, thankyou," doesn't stop people from hassling you. Sometimes, "La Shokran!!" does. The exclamation marks are entirely necessary. If you just say "La" you will offend people, and this will make them hassle you more.
Salam - Hello
Masalama - Goodbye
Sadik - My friend. Maybe. A taxi driver told it to me, and they are of questionable reliability at best, especially this one.
The spelling is probably all wrong, but you pronounce it that way. Kind of. Roll all the 'r's.
So, this is my meagre knowledge of Arabic. Also, 90% of camels are named Rambo, if it's a tourist who's asking.
</lj-cut>
Today though, Gavin and I fed squirrels in the park. Green Park, apparently. See, our incredibly loud Canadian dorm-friends left late last night and left behind a tin of roasted peanuts and some bananas, and I hadn't fed a squirrel successfully yet so this presented a big opportunity!
Squirrels are awesome. They're pretty bold and nowhere near as skittish as birds. Once they spot the fact that you actually have food rather than empty peanut shells (which is what we've tried to feed them with in the past - they don't appreciate it), they come running up to you from quite a long way away. Before long, they were climbing up our legs! They liked Gavin's jumper and he had more than one climbing up to look in his jumper belly pocket thingy for food, or up onto his shoulders. At one point squirrels were jumping on and off, and I had two squirrels on my legs, and I felt kind of like some kind of squirrel conveyor belt.
So that was pretty fun.
Home time in 6 days! It'll be good to have some nice sumery weather, and the beach, and of course catching up with everyone.. which naturally contains some amount of boring you all with photos. XD
I will share one thing though, my accumulated knowledge of Arabic words!
<lj-cut text="I know five!">
La! - no
Shokran - thankyou
These two words combine to form one of the more important phrases to have in your Egypt vocabulary. For some reason, "No, thankyou," doesn't stop people from hassling you. Sometimes, "La Shokran!!" does. The exclamation marks are entirely necessary. If you just say "La" you will offend people, and this will make them hassle you more.
Salam - Hello
Masalama - Goodbye
Sadik - My friend. Maybe. A taxi driver told it to me, and they are of questionable reliability at best, especially this one.
The spelling is probably all wrong, but you pronounce it that way. Kind of. Roll all the 'r's.
So, this is my meagre knowledge of Arabic. Also, 90% of camels are named Rambo, if it's a tourist who's asking.
</lj-cut>
Today though, Gavin and I fed squirrels in the park. Green Park, apparently. See, our incredibly loud Canadian dorm-friends left late last night and left behind a tin of roasted peanuts and some bananas, and I hadn't fed a squirrel successfully yet so this presented a big opportunity!
Squirrels are awesome. They're pretty bold and nowhere near as skittish as birds. Once they spot the fact that you actually have food rather than empty peanut shells (which is what we've tried to feed them with in the past - they don't appreciate it), they come running up to you from quite a long way away. Before long, they were climbing up our legs! They liked Gavin's jumper and he had more than one climbing up to look in his jumper belly pocket thingy for food, or up onto his shoulders. At one point squirrels were jumping on and off, and I had two squirrels on my legs, and I felt kind of like some kind of squirrel conveyor belt.
So that was pretty fun.
Home time in 6 days! It'll be good to have some nice sumery weather, and the beach, and of course catching up with everyone.. which naturally contains some amount of boring you all with photos. XD