Pages

Friday, April 28, 2017

Ice Hockey at Sun City Mall



Staying up really late every night and eating extremely late compared to my western lifestyle has me sleeping in every morning which is good because it's hot , but not Egyptian hot .... just hot for a person coming from anywhere in the northern hemisphere lol . Apparently 30c is not hot here lol ! Ahmed had to go to work and it was just me and Aymin doing some sightseeing during the day which is great because Aymin speaks very little English and I speak very little Arabic . As a traveller these are the moments I relish because it keeps you on your toes trying to communicate and pretty much forces you to learn the language . As the day went on all the Maltese words I know were coming back to me . Yes I'm a dual citizen and my heritage is from Malta . Maltese has a lot of Arabic words that are just pronounced differently kinda like an Arabic dialect . 

 

We started our day off at the Cairo Museum which is full of history that I have dreamt of seeing and learning more about since I was a small child . Dreams do come true :) we took the metro there which I might add puts Toronto's TTC to shame , yes Toronto transit is embarrassingly bad compared to this :( it was very cheap and got us everywhere with no problems . Of course there are people selling everything under the sun on the metro and it's pretty much expected . When we arrived at the museum we went through three or four security desks ... I'm guessing they don't mess around after being robbed in 2011 and yes there was a famous heist that occurred at this museum . I have to research it more cause it just sounds so cool . I don't mean that it was cool that some bandits made off with priceless artifacts but the fact that they pulled it off sounds pretty mad . 


We got there around 1 pm and the website said it closes at 3 pm so we boogied through the whole museum with exception of one small area (I think ) we saw a whole bunch of mummies , mummified animals and tons of artifacts which blew my mind away .  It was almost 3 pm and we were both hungry so I offered to buy lunch and we left to go across the road for some KFC . On the way out we found out that the museum closes at 5 and it seems like websites here don't really get updated or else we might have stayed the extra 15 min instead of trying to leave but oh well . The KFC was not very good and was really jam packed . Wouldn't recommend it . We jumped on the metro and made our way back to Maadi to meet Ahmed as we have to drive over to Sun City for 7 pm and hopefully today we make it on Canadian time :) 

 

Traffic here is ridiculous though and we were about 30 minutes late for our ice time but it didn't matter as we were playing with the guys that run and work at the Sun City Mall rink which by the way had no glass on the boards or netting to stop pucks from smashing windows or hitting people . The guys from the rink didn't wear any gear at all !! Just sticks in bare hands with skates on .... I knew this was not good and I scratched my head over why they weren't wearing the gear I brought them ? The guy who played as a goalie had a helmet on with no face protection ... this is all a recipe for disaster . I watched him get a stick to the face then I watched another guy get slashed on his fingers and I finally put my foot down and said I won't play anymore unless they put at least gloves on . Most of them put gloves on and one guy wouldn't ???? Apparently he used to be rink manager and the guy could skate and had decent hands which I warned him wouldn't be the same if his fingers were all broken . He went off the ice and didn't come back on for a while .... when he came on I asked him to put the gloves on and he refused so I took my gear off and called it a day . There is no way I want to have any part in watching someone lose their fingers for their comfort . First he said the last pair didn't fit and yes they were small so I said put on the other guys when they come off .... then I heard the utmost ridiculous excuses . He didn't like the smell on his hands , that eventually grew to him saying he doesn't think it's hygienic . How absolutely ridiculous is that ? A grown ass man making excuses to play unsafely . I told the guys that I want pictures of and when he breaks his hands . I was upset because firstly I brought gear to use and more importantly that this guy was just not making any sense at all ! I guess he never heard of washing his hands ????

 

We skated for 2 hours before this happened and I was dead beat and pretty much dehydrated from the heat as it is not as cold as our usual rinks back home as I explained yesterday it's hard to keep the cold air in a mall ! This was my last ice time and the one thing I really do regret is that I didn't get a group photo because I was more concerned with someone's safety who was making excuses to try staying unsafe as possible . When we were leaving I shook hands with him and as I was doing it I turned his hand over and said I hope to see you with fingers the next time I come .... the guy laughed and honestly I don't believe this guy would wear gloves even if they were brand new . The other issue with one team wearing gloves and the other not is that the guys from the mall rink had free range with their hacking and slashing and the guys with gloves had to be more careful which is not fair to them . Anyways I had a great time playing hockey there and after the match we packed my (former) goalie bag into Ahmed's car and headed out to eat and have some sheesha which is pretty much an every day thing here . I like the sheesha but I don't really want to get addicted to nicotine , this has been on my mind the last couple days as I'm fully enjoying living the life of an every day Egyptian . If you didn't know this already .... I prefer to be with locals rather then tourists and on this trip I felt more and more like a local . 

No comments:

Post a Comment