Day Three: Sober Sunday

I'm on the bus heading home from work. Yes, it is Sunday. To make things easier to understand I should clarify where I am and a little bit about me.

I grew up outside of Chicago and currently live in Cairo, Egypt. Since the Islamic holy day is Friday, the week-end is Friday and Saturday. Sunday is the new Monday. I've been here for 6 months and I still call Thursday Friday, I don't think I'll ever get it right.

My husband, dog and I moved here to taking teaching positions at an American school, I'm riding the school bus home-at many international schools staff and students both can take school transport home. A good time to listen to music and blog.  Bus bloggin'!

I thought that living in a Muslim country would make it easier to cut back on drinking, but no...I've brought myself with me.  Alcohol isn't illegal here but there are restrictions which I had hoped to slow me down, but no, that is not the case. These are some of the restrictions: you can only buy foreign-made bottles of alcohol at duty-free shops within 4 days of arrival by an international flight, and you can only buy 4 bottles AND you can only do this 4x a year because they mark your passport. Also, most restaurants don't serve alcohol but the ones I go to do.

But here is plenty of alcohol to be had:

#1 Egypt makes their own crappy wines and beer. They make other liquors too but I don't really like anything but wine, beer and scotch.  And to make it that much easier I can order home delivery from a webpage.  This is a Husband duty, and we never run out of crappy wine and beer in the house.

#2. We live in a neighborhood with a large expat community. There is a couple of bars with legit foreign whiskies and wines. We even belong the club associated with the U.S. Embassy where they have an IPA. I drank at least 4 of them during trivia night on Thursday night-which we won btw, and received a drink ticket as a prize.  We celebrated with a scotch each.  Those were my last drinks.

#3. I hang out all expats (Brits, Scots, Candians, Americans) and mostly teachers. Many max out their alcohol imports and drink large numbers of crappy beer and wine at the bar where all the expats hang out in the neighborhood.  A prefect storm. And I fit right in. Until I'm trying not too.

#4. Husband and I traveled over winter break and between all the restrictions we managed to bring in 12 bottles of scotch and 2 bottles of gin. Where there is a will there is a way. 


#5 I even set up hosting Air B&B travelers and giving them a free night for picking up scotch at the the airport for us.  

There is more, but you get it. I brought myself with me and have set myself up to be stocked and to continue having fun the ways I know best.

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Husband and I both know we drink too much, but he doesn't get the hangovers I do. We dedicated that Sunday we would designated day of sobriety. It has a nice ring "Sober Sunday" and it is the easiest day to do it, our Monday night. But some Sunday's are too rough and we need a drink, or we watch "Madmen" or "Boardwalk Empire" and have to have a scotch, or sometimes it was a great day and a drink is needed.  A drink is aways a great accompaniment for however I might be feeling.