I moved to Egypt in 2009 for the first time, and since then, it has been one interesting year after the other. I left for a couple of years in the middle, but for some reason, the good, the bad, and the ugly collectively conspired to draw me back in!
Life in Egypt can be a challenge. It appears to be very developed from some vantage points and struggling from others, but there’s no doubt that it stirs up emotions the entire time you live in it. These emotions can be anywhere from warmth and the comfort of the hustle and bustle of a city that never sleeps, all the way to anger and agitation. Throughout my years here, I realized that you either end up loving it or hating it; but even those are very difficult feelings to understand. This is mainly because if you love it, it’s a love - hate relationship; and if you hate it, you still have trouble leaving it. Cursing it is a part of loving it!
One of the things I struggled with when I first moved to Egypt was finding the right things to make me feel at home. When I first moved here, there were many more imported products in supermarkets. You could easily find Kellogg’s cereal at any small grocery shop. That is, unfortunately, no longer the case. With many new restrictions on import laws and the flotation of the Egyptian currency in late 2016, most importers and vendors try to avoid certain lines of products, limiting the options consumers have when it comes to their shopping habits. When I moved back in 2013, two years after the 2011 uprising and after a lot of changes had taken place, it took me about a year and a half to find my way around everything once again. Even though imported products had disappeared from the shelves, there were more American restaurants, Ikea had opened, there were more brands readily available at City Stars, and, finally, there were a few more Gourmet supermarkets and grocery stores. Cooking like I did back home was still a challenge, especially with my recipes. That was quite depressing since cooking, shopping, home organization and decoration, and hitting the beach are among the top ten things I live for.
The good news was that now I could shop for clothes like I did back home and Starbucks was around every corner, but my dream of pursuing a career in lifestyle and cooking seemed so far fetched. In good time, I found out that looking at Egypt from a different viewpoint might make my love-hate relationship with it tilt in the favor of the more positive side. I finally found it easy to find all the supplies I need for creative cooking, exported ingredients, good quality local substitutes, and I learned to make a few changes to my recipes to make them both possible to make in Egypt and satisfying to the picky eater I happen to be. It’s all about being patient and getting off the couch sometimes, which can be a challenge.
While living in Egypt, we all discover that it is the land of home-delivered everything. The laundromat sends someone to pick up your laundry (and ironing) then delivers it back the next day; all grocery shops (big and small) deliver; pharmacies deliver medicine; alcohol shops will deliver your booze; and all of them will deliver within 1 - 2 hours. Many of them are even open 24/7 in Cairo. Cairo generally encourges couch potatoes to slowly develop from perfetly active human beings. Resisting this can sometimes be difficult, especially when dealing with your boss all day is nothing compared to the hell you will face in traffic on your way home. Long days and dreadful commutes make many people unwilling to leave their houses unless they absolutely must!
The availability of Uber has made life much more tolerable on the streets over the past couple of years, but the unfortunate recent developments in Uber Egypt have made it difficult to always expect a decent driver. It’s very difficult to expect what you will get anywhere in Egypt. That’s why I decided to share with you the information I wish I had when I first moved here.
Checkout this series of posts (Kissable Living and Cooking in Egypt) to find out more about grocery shops where you can buy imported ingredients, gourmet products, and many reviews of local substitutes; both personal and home shopping for local and imported products; hidden gems on the streets of Cairo; perfect little beach getaways and places to hit the pool for a day during the hot summer days; and of course, everything will include all the contact information you need, locations, and prices in Egyptian pounds.
Don’t forget to check out my recipes, that are constantly updated and added to, and coming soon will be my Youtube channel where you can watch product reviews, supermarket reviews, and my recipe walk-throughs for fun and Kissable Cooking all year round.
Xoxo
P.S. Forget about all those weird videos that are all over the TV and internet about Egypt. To really get a feel of Egypt, checkout this YouTube video below made by my friend’s brother. He really managed to capture the essence of this beautiful country.
A special thanks to Jakob Halvorsen who made this beautiful video and the wonderful Vera Halvorsen who shared it with us.