I decided to make a small visit to el-Mansoura this past week (29.12) since I had some free time now that lectures are over for the semester. Eric and Alex have spent the last three months bragging about how amazing their city is (wait, I mean the complete opposite of that statement), and so I figured I would just have to check it out for myself.
To be fair, the city is not the greatest place I have ever visited and I would not give up living in Alexandria to move there, but Mansoura isn’t that bad. Sure, it is unpleasantly congested with loud traffic and the streets are decorated with a lot of trash, but there is a La Poire so there is hope (Important note: La Poire is my favorite dessert shop in this entire country; the Twix cake is better than words can describe).
Actually, the best part of Mansoura for the guys (in my opinion) is the demonstrators they get to work with at the university. Thursday night, the three girls (Salma, Samaa, and Sally) picked us up and took us to a café. They were really sweet and so excited to joke around with the guys, plus for some reason they were really keen on meeting me; at one point earlier in the evening, Eric told them he was too tired to meet up with them and they responded by said that was fine cause they really just wanted to pick me up to take me to a café. Eric and Alex decided they couldn't sent me alone (I think they were worried the girls would grill me for gossip about them!), so we all went out together. I enjoyed listening to them talk about Mansoura’s boringness and their opinions about sheesha and the hijab in the context of their religious beliefs. As they were taking us back to the apartment, they said that they travel to Alex often and insisted we hang out soon. They also invited me back to Mansoura to meet up again. And, although I don’t think the city is that bad, hopefully they come to Alex because it is definitely…. superior:)
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