I spent most of the eid holiday at home, either in bed or in the kitchen. I felt as if the eid holiday was really long but I did manage to add bits of fun and mess to it.
On the first day of eid, I had an omelet for breakfast, which I also made myself. I took a huge plate on which I’ve put the omelet, cheese and bread, to my bedroom and watched a couple of movies on my laptop as I was eating.
I had my phone right by my side, my plate on my lap and my laptop was put right before me. I had my headphones on. I could barely hear any noise outside my bedroom. I turned all the lights off. It felt like I was in the cinema.
As soon as I finished my breakfast, I laid the plate right beside me. I couldn’t resist sleep so I succumbed in my sweet, cozy bed in my air-conditioned room, with all the lights in my bedroom turned off. I closed all the curtains that the room turned so dark. The only thing that was switched on was the light of my laptop screen as I continued watching movies.
I slept in till 1:30 pm, exactly half an hour before the Egypt/Uruguay match started. I rushed out my bedroom with no slippers on to the bathroom to wash my face really quick and then go back to my bedroom to dress up.
I wore whatever was in my face, I ended up wearing black as if I was going to a funeral. I couldn’t even find the pair of socks I wanted to wear, so I wore socks of two distinct pairs.
I had Pasta for lunch, which I almost chocked on because I was eating really fast. I had to do this to catch up on the match before it would even start. Anyhow, as soon as I was ready, I went with my younger sister to see the match in the Green Hall in my Church.
It was a really crowded long narrow-sized room with seats arranged in about ten sequential rows. There were many people standing outside as well. There were tens of children as well who made such loud noises that were really disturbing. I was suffocating in the hall but I did have a good time there watching Egypt play for the first time ever in my whole life.
After the match, I rushed back home to change my sweaty clothes and then I ran to catch up on a church meeting (service) that started at 4 pm. I finished the meeting at 7 pm so tired and sleepy. I got back home afterwards to eat a couple of snacks in front of the TV in the living room.
I was sitting with my mother on the sofa. She was sipping on her tea, while I was eating Doritos and chocolates concurrently (Don’t wonder how, it happens). I couldn’t fight the sleep taking over my tired body so I went to my bedroom, turned off the lights, embraced my small pillow and called it for the night.
I woke up the next morning. Same routine. The only difference was that I didn’t check my phone in the morning as I’m used to, since it wasn’t charged. But anyways, I got out of bed and before I would even wash my face, I went straight to the kitchen to prepare breakfast and again, it was an omelet. It looked even worse than the day before and it was really salty.
I got back to my room where I had my breakfast once again. I turned off the lights in my bedroom because it kind of improves my mood and separates me from the outside world. It felt so good whenever I turned off the lights, switched on my laptop and put on my headphones.
The room was cold in a good way that it hypnotized me. I couldn’t resist sleep so I slept in till noon. I woke up and for the first time I feel every bone in my body aching to an extent that it made me sleep again for another hour.
My sister woke me up the next time. I felt her tiny hands squeezing my cheeks, telling me to wake up. She told me that I had slept the whole day away doing nothing! This was the first time I ever felt like I didn’t want to wake up. It’s like your bed is holding you in and your whole body is drowning within.
I got out of bed to have lunch with my family. We were all gathered around the dining table. Colors of food were served, from appetizers like salad to big tasty dishes like grilled chicken and pasta.
My sisters were sitting right beside me at the table and my mother was sitting right before me. My father, however, wasn’t present at the time. I didn’t bother to ask where he was, I felt like I wasn’t in the mood of asking about anything.
We finished lunch and then we went to the living room. We chilled on the sofa. My mother and I were drinking soda whilst my sisters were looking through their phones and barely had any idea what me and my mother were watching on the TV.
Later that day around 7 pm, me and my younger sister, Carol, went for a run for about a whole hour. It was dark as we were running on Sour el Koleya el Harbeya (near Ammar Ibn Yasser street, Heliopolis). No one else was on the pavement except us.
The weather was also cool by then. There was this breeze of wind blowing in our faces as we ran. There was absolutely nothing but cars rushing in the opposite direction to where we ran.
My sister had her headphones on to listen to music while she was running, but I had nothing. The run was really long. I was bloody thirsty like a man lost in the desert and wherever he went, he’d see a mirage of water.
As soon as we got home, the first thing I ran to was the refrigerator to fetch some water to drink. As I was drinking, my sister stood right before me and said “Christine, I’m going to bake a cake now. I honestly don’t know why we exhausted ourselves in the first place and went for a run when eventually we were going to gain the same calories (if not more) that we burnt on the same day!
We decided we should waste all the calories we have burnt on track that day and so we made oreo cake. We went to the kitchen, we turned the sink into a huge mess. We ran out of corona chocolate and Nesquik so we decided we would use raw cocoa chocolate to which we added about three cups of sugar to make it sweet. We didn’t follow any recipes and still the cake turned out so good.
My mother came into the kitchen and said to my younger sister “you’ll be a good chef one day”, because my sister had a good taste in foods. She was (and still is) a brilliant little cook. My mother told me “oabalek” (one day you’ll become like your sister). I replied and said “thank you but I’m no good at cooking, I’m only there to eat”.
My younger sister was really good at cooking and even brilliant at turning the whole kitchen into a mess. My mother came to the kitchen, she looked around in the messy kitchen and to my surprise she didn’t give a single comment. She looked very surprised that I couldn’t really tell from her facial expressions whether she was mad or happy.
Nonetheless, the smell of the cake as it was being baked in the oven was really good. Awkwardly, I didn’t think of the calories I burnt on track as much as I have thought of how many slices of cake I should have that would satisfy me.
After the cake was done, I ate as much as I could and then I made my way to bed where I held my sweet small-sized pillow in my arms, laid my head on the opposite side of bed where people usually stretch their legs and rose my two feet to the opposite wall. Shortly, I fell to sleep that I couldn’t even think of how I was going to write about how I spent my ultimately enjoyable holiday in the most expressive way in a feature the following day.
The third day of eid was typically a version of the second day; same food, same faces, same everything. The only difference was in the fact that I went to Cilantro cafe in Heliopolis (near el Shams sports club) with my sister in the afternoon.
I went there to work on my assignments while she just sat there beside me watching guitar tutorials and a couple of workout videos. Thank God, the place wasn’t really crowded. It was really cool with the AC turned on.
But I also felt that sister was really bored as she had always asked me when I would finish, but when I asked her whether she felt bored, she would say “no”. The way she even sat on the sofa-like couch as she laid her head back and crossed her legs did indicate how much she was feeling bored.
Maybe because I didn’t talk to her much, I felt that that had made her feel bored. But anyways, we didn’t stay there for a long time. It was only a couple of hours till we made back home.
The Adventures of Tintin 