I've been back in Egypt now for a little over three weeks and in that time I've been to a hen(na) night and a wedding, visited a cancer hospital, had a few exams and bought a bedroom. To stop myself from waffling I'll write about each event in its own blog post, starting briefly with the hen(na) night and the wedding!
The henna night is exactly like a hen night in the U.K, except held at the bride-to-be's house and a lot of henna tattooing goes on. There were two women there who organise henna parties; they were a lot of fun and had some great ideas. When you book them, you choose a selection of 6 themes from around the world, for example Spanish flamenco, Hawaiian hula or (obviously) belly-dancing. One of them then organises all the music and the other organises the costumes and the bride-to-be spends the whole night getting changed and spending 15 or 20 minutes dancing to the music that goes with each theme. It was SO much fun and one of the women was doing henna tattoos for everyone while this was going on. I'm not really 100% clued-up on the controversy surrounding black henna; I only read up about it after I'd had the tattoos, but I did suffer from a horrible, itchy rash for about 2 weeks afterwards - word of warning. Thankfully it's gone now and I didn't have any kind of reaction to the tattoo on my hand:
The wedding itself the next day was a quiet, toned down affair, so I've yet to experience that big, stereotypical Egyptian wedding I've heard so much about! It was held on a boat which then cruised for two hours up and down the Nile in Cairo, with a buffet and entertainment including a singer and a belly-dancer. I checked out some wedding dress shops with the bride-to-be, where there were many available to rent as well as buy. From the photo, you'll see the trend here for big, fluffed up dresses; the Arabic word to describe them is 'manfoosh'.
p.s. Mum - thanks for the nail polishes, they matched my dress perfectly! x
The henna night is exactly like a hen night in the U.K, except held at the bride-to-be's house and a lot of henna tattooing goes on. There were two women there who organise henna parties; they were a lot of fun and had some great ideas. When you book them, you choose a selection of 6 themes from around the world, for example Spanish flamenco, Hawaiian hula or (obviously) belly-dancing. One of them then organises all the music and the other organises the costumes and the bride-to-be spends the whole night getting changed and spending 15 or 20 minutes dancing to the music that goes with each theme. It was SO much fun and one of the women was doing henna tattoos for everyone while this was going on. I'm not really 100% clued-up on the controversy surrounding black henna; I only read up about it after I'd had the tattoos, but I did suffer from a horrible, itchy rash for about 2 weeks afterwards - word of warning. Thankfully it's gone now and I didn't have any kind of reaction to the tattoo on my hand:
The wedding itself the next day was a quiet, toned down affair, so I've yet to experience that big, stereotypical Egyptian wedding I've heard so much about! It was held on a boat which then cruised for two hours up and down the Nile in Cairo, with a buffet and entertainment including a singer and a belly-dancer. I checked out some wedding dress shops with the bride-to-be, where there were many available to rent as well as buy. From the photo, you'll see the trend here for big, fluffed up dresses; the Arabic word to describe them is 'manfoosh'.
p.s. Mum - thanks for the nail polishes, they matched my dress perfectly! x
