4th of July

Happy 4th of July for the Americans among my readers.

Having wrongly counted on a repeat of last year’s party, I am left empty-handed. Last year and even for several years before that, the US Embassy had been involved in a large afternoon/evening party held for US and Canadian passport holders in the southern suburb of Ma’adi.

The party itself was entertaining enough. But they also gave away the most lucrative set of door prizes I have ever seen. Somewhere over half of the audience won free prizes. Admittedly, a number of the prizes were fairly lame (Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts, for instance). But at the top end were things like Cairo-New York round-trips for two on Delta Airlines, Nile cruises, and weekend luxury hotel stays.

My prize was somewhere in the middle, but ultimately quite satisfying… a $100 dinner for two at the Hotel Semiramis in downtown Cairo. They have several good restaurants there, but this certificate was for their new ground-floor place: one of those hip pan-Asian buffets where the chefs juggle knives. Good dinner.

Presumably all of those sponsor corporations are now near bankruptcy, and in no mood to be giving away free prizes. That’s the only reason I can think of that neither I nor anyone I know has seen the party advertised this year.

Maybe just getting a big watermelon and cutting it open is the thing to do today.