The Art of Shopping

I've never been a serious shopper. I find it takes too much effort. I have about a good hour at the mall before I become tired, hungry, and inevitably cranky with the whole ordeal. 

So here in Egypt, I am even lazier when it comes to buying things, because there are more things that make it difficult. 

Like haggling. You can buy almost anything you want off of the street, which is convenient. What is not convenient is it most likely will not have a price tag on it, and I usually don't know the going price of the random things I need, like light bulbs. So I have to ask, and try to feel out if the vendor is giving me the real price or a haggling price that I'm supposed to negotiate. It's stressful. I know my Egyptian friends would help me if I asked for a range, but they aren't always around. So sometimes I just procrastinate excessively or go without all together.

For example, I almost didn't buy gloves this winter (yes, it got cold enough for gloves) because I knew how it would go down:

Me: How much is this pair of gloves?

Icecream. Because shopping is hard work.

Vendor: Thirty pounds.

Me: How about fifteen?

Vendor: No, no. I have to take at least twenty-five pounds.

Me: I'll give you twenty.

Vendor: No, that five pounds is my profit. If I sell it to you for twenty, I make nothing.

Me: I'm only giving you twenty.

Vendor: Okay, okay. But only because you are a guest here. Welcome in Egypt.

I would walk away feeling very happy with myself and my cutting edge haggling skills because I got him down from thirty to twenty, only to find out later that the gloves only cost seven pounds. Ugh. Welcome in Egypt indeed.

The other inconvenience is I didn't know my size. I tried to buy pants, and the salesman asked me if I was a 32 or a 34, and I was like.... an 8? That doesn't make sense. So I had to discover that out by trial and error. Apparently if I was an 8 in European sizes, I'd be dead. So 32 it is.

Same thing for shoes. My friend Morgane and I went shoe shopping, and I realized it was my first time since leaving America because I still only knew my American size! I was literally measuring my foot against Morgane's to try to get an idea before I asked to try on any pairs. 

The very convenient thing about this experience is that all the shoe stores were right next to each other. I have found that to be a common theme here in Cairo. Shops congregate towards similar shops. I suppose it gets them more traffic if people can come to one location to find a certain item. One time I stumbled upon a street that exclusively sold lamps for two blocks. So Morgane and I went into around twenty shoe stores on the same street. Go into one, look around, walk out the door, go into the next door, repeat. It was very efficient, my kind of shopping. It was also very productive, we both got new shoes, and in case you were wondering, my shoe size is apparently 37.

Favorite Shopping Moment:

Morgane eventually switched to looking at handbags, since every shoe store also sold handbags. Commenting on the "Made in China" tag hanging off of one, she said: "When I was in China, I didn't feel bad about buying things made in China, because they were local."