New Years Eve in Hurghada, Egypt

A Happy New Year to all of our family and friends from Egypt’s Cancun!

People in Egypt celebrate new year with fireworks, parties and family gatherings. Most Egyptian families bring in the New Year without champagne and make their resolutions on burnt pieces of paper, which is followed by dissolving the ashes in alcohol. In some places people enjoy a festive dinner at a hotel that may have performances, shows and dances.

I read that dancing around a fire is one of the oldest traditions of their culture. And, January 1st is celebrated with a sunrise hurrah not a midnight kiss (even though we snuck one in).

Cabbage is another "good luck" vegetable that is eaten on New Year's Day by many. Cabbage leaves are considered a sign of prosperity, representing paper currency. On our way to Hurghada we saw huge cabbages being sold on wagons pulled by donkeys on the streets. In some regions, rice is the lucky food that is eaten on New Year's Day.

We are staying in an apartment building for our time in Hurghada and right next door is a steakhouse called Charly’s Hot Stone Steak. It was very tempting to have a steak in Egypt, especially on New Year’s Eve. So that’s what we did. We hadn’t had lunch because of our drive from Luxor so we had an early dinner before the parties began.

The dinner was amazing. We ordered an appetizer of mussels that came with yummy bread and dips as well as a glass of white wine and a big bottle of Stella beer. Then a big plate of grilled vegetable, two salads and another big plate of French fries arrived. This was followed by two raw steaks - one 300g and the other 350g. - sitting on a heated brick-sized black rock. We hardly had any room left on our table! The idea was that the waiter would pour alcohol on the steaks and light them on fire to seat them and the hot stones would cook them to our preference. It was great!

English Christmas music was played and a balloon arch was placed at the entrance of the restaurant. It was such an enjoyable experience and what do you think we paid for all that, and the tip? $52.00 Cdn! We started out the New Year on the right foot!

As we are in an apartment and can cook, we did a small bit of grocery shopping for the first time. Coffee, eggs, bread, cheese, milk, tangerines and apples. Tricky, as most labelling is in Arabic and things don’t look the same.

We have a TV but again it was the first time that we turned one on. The only English channel had world news from Al Jezeera but that was interesting for us. We didn’t last long though. We fell asleep and then got up at 11:30 pm to see the Egyptian year in. We have a balcony overlooking a street and the Red Sea and had a good view of what was going on.

Right at midnight, fireworks were let off on the street below. They must have been aimed at our building because we had to jump around in order to avoid the bits of burnt paper from the fireworks, landing on our balcony. Egyptians seem to love noise so cars were honking horns and people were shouting. It didn’t last long but it was exciting to see.Read more