the Cafe Aurora

Today I had an annoying experience which I will not discuss and an exciting experience which I will! I Googled coffee shops in Alexandria, and the closest one I found was called the Cafe Aurora. (Obviously, I was interested not in coffee, but in Internet.) But what Google _didn't_ tell me was that the Cafe Aurora is an Eritrean café!

Yes, this is my first contact with the noble nation of Eritrea, and it made a good impression. Free wireless, first of all. I can only hope the whole country is like that.

Secondly, I ordered the (only) dish with the Arabic name and the tea with the Arabic name. (They speak Arabic in Eritrea, in case you were wondering.) This was a gamble which turned out quite well. The 'fuul' was a dish of fava beans, crushed with olive oil, topped with feta cheese, green peppers, red onions, tomatoes and hot peppers, and served with pita bread. I always appreciate colorful food, and this was delicious too. I will definitely come back for the fuul.

The innocent-looking tea was filled with hidden danger. My first social "faux pas" in Eritrea: I was served delicious spice tea with an extra tea bag on the side, and drank it. BUT what I later found out was that what I thought was the tea was actually some sort of herbal, cardamomy flavored water base, and that the tea bag was supposed to contribute the actual tea! What a tea amateur I must have seemed. In fact, perhaps because of my cartoonishly low tolerance for caffeine, I actually preferred the non-tea.

That is all.

Update: the Cafe Aurora has two mottoes.

Cafe Aurora: We Rise With the Sun.

Makes sense.

Cafe Aurora: The Land of Common Sense.

???