So. The equivalent of Christmas just happened in Egypt (and the Muslim world) mid November. I had 10 glorious days off as 5 million Muslims made hajj to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. Eid el Adhr is a time to celebrate with family and friends. Its tradition for a family to slaughter a lamb or a cow ( I saw the end of a cow slaughtering...it was very..interesting) You prepare and eat a third of the animal then share the rest with friends and the poor. My friend here was given a third of a cow to eat. If your curious, a third of a cow can feed about 9 hungry post college age kids. At any rate, it was a chance for us to get off campus and forget about Arabic homework for a little while.
Oh course, I decided it was a great time to get sick, so the beginning of this nice vacation I had a fever and strep throat. The bright side of living in Egypt is nobody really cares if you have a perspiration for anything. You can walk into any pharmacy, ask for a drug, and get it immediately. And very inexpensively too. Three USD for Penicillin and I was good to go. Five of us headed to Dahab, which is about 7 hours away by bus on the Red Sea. It is a very popular diving location and there are tons of different spots you can go to. It is also a very relaxed and layed back atmosphere, which not much to do besides go to the beach everyday and go to dinner at night. It was an hour from Sharm el Sheik, so if you wanted to go wild, you could go there, but this was more relaxing. We would pack our speakers, wine and beer in bags and lay around on the beach and contemplating swimming to Saudi Arabia. There were stray camels that would occasionally walk by, along with the many dogs and cats that inhabit all of Egypt. We spend one day going to various dive holes and snorkeling and seeing some amazing fish and coral and all that snorkeling entails. It went by way too fast, but at least the weather was nice (it was warmer than Cairo, and much prettier)
Two of our friends left early and the three of us decided to go on the "adventure" of a lifetime. The Israeli border is 2 hours by bus from where we were staying, and as Israel is not a particularly large country, we would be able to see some places. So we signed up for this tour that would take care of all the hard details, such as visas, getting into and out of the country, busing from all the places, and lunch etc. It was priced at 160, and the website said that " a Russian tour guide will be with you throughout, and an English tour guide will be available in Israel" When we met with the representatives from the company before we left, they informed us that they forgot to update their website, but for 20$ more, we could get on a full day tour with an English only guide. Probably more useful than the Russians. So we paid up and went on our very merry way.
In typical Egyptian fashion, nobody is on time. In this case, we were supposed to be picked up at 8pm and taken to the bus which would take us to the border. At 815, we called the people and they said (scam!) they forgot to tell us that they pushed the time back to 11pm. So after watching some House and South Park, we tried again. And we were thankfully picked up. We were taken to a rest stop in the middle of no where and we waited for our big bus. By 1130 we were zipping up the coast to Israel and trying to sleep a little. Everything on this trip took about 2 hours, so around 2 am we get to the border and got ourselves in line. A very very long line. There were maybe 5-8 coach buses dropping people off (most of then were Russian). The distance we had to go between to get from Egypt to Israel was about the length of a football field. It took 5 hours to walk 100 yards. At one point, I saw somebody start taking pictures so, since I delight in taking pictures of places I go to, I did to. Until some Egyptian officer walks up to me (speaking very little English) and motions with his wrists locked together. Oh. Boy. Am I getting arrested? I decided quickly that couldn't be the case since he walked past girl number one taking pictures and said nothing to her, or even looked her way. So I just laughed, but said I would delete the pictures (pictures of the people who were with me with Egypt in the background actually). But no. He says, come with me. Oh dear. What is there to do but laugh nervously? So I cut this pretty long line right to the front (as he is still motioning with his wrists together) and tells me to take out my passport. So I dig it out, all the while insisting that I will delete the pictures and I'm really really sorry. I give two Egyptian officers my passport and they look at it and ask "Oh your American?" Not the time to be a smartass and tell than no, I'm not American. So I said yes and they looked at each other and said, "Oh, okay. Go ahead to the next (long) line." I told them I was with some friends so they said "Okay, sit here" And proceeded to take my two friends out of line, and we went along to stand in another line for 4.5 hours.
By 730am and after watching the sun rise and get detained for a very short about of time (and questioned about father and grandfather's names, why we were in Egypt and why we were studying Arabic) we were finally on the bus and very tired and hungry. We tried to sleep a little as we zipped through the surprisingly beautiful Negev Desert and we stopped at a rest stop to get some breakfast. We walked in a la zombies and blindly started looking for something edible. And did I find gold. There, amongst all the fake candy, were Reese's Peanut Butter Cups! After jumping around and shoving a package in my friends face in excitement, I proceeded to buy every single Reese's in the store. Due to some excellent rationing, I ate the first one immediately, and can now enjoy two Reese's a week until I go home and I can get all the Reese's I would like. The trip got infinitely better from then on.
Back on the bus, however, we realized we were slightly scammed. Instead of getting out English only tour we got a German tour. Yes, we toured Israel with a bus full of middle aged Germans and a tour guide who spoke primarily in German for their benefit. Never a dull moment. Anyways, our first stop was the Dead Sea. It is 37% salt, and in about 10 years, it will be all gone, unless a pipeline from the Red Sea is made. So we went and they had us change into our bathing suits. Except it was this really small room and I'm the youngest person in there with all these middle age European women who have absolutely no qualms about getting butt naked in front of each other. We'll leave it at: I hid in a corner. So we went swimming. Or more like floating. You can say yeah you float in the Dead Sea as much as you want, but until you do it... It is by far the weirdest feeling I have ever experienced. I'm guessing its sort of what being weightless must be like. You bob around, and if you flip from your back to your stomach, the momentum keeps going and you can roll/flop around, weightlessly. Incidentally, there are lifeguards on duty because you can drown. Except I'm not really sure how. It has something to do with suction and not being able to get back on your back. But in this scenario, you would have to have your head underwater, and that water is like acid. It is not pleasant. We spent about an hour there and then back to the bus for, yes, another 2 hour drive.
This time, 2 hours took us into Jerusalem. It is an extraordinarily beautiful city, and we drove to the top of the Mount of Olives to see it. It is pretty big and you can see clearly major landmarks, such as the Dome of the Rock. We didn't spend much time there in the afternoon (it was about 1230 or 1 at this point) and we were off to Bethlehem, which is maybe 20 minutes from Jerusalem. The drive was gorgeous, and you could see olive trees everywhere, as well as the infamous settlements that the Israeli government are building in Palestinian land (Bethlehem is in the West Bank, which is Palestinian). One tidbit they fail to tell you in the papers is that the settlements are all on top of hills so the Israelis are in prime defensive position. Another non-related tidbit is that Bethlehem in Arabic means "House of Meat". So we got into Bethlehem with no problems and we went to the Church of the Nativity. It is the place where they believe Jesus was born; there were hundreds of people there of course, so we quickly walked around and also went into the neighboring Catholic Church (the only one I've seen in the Middle East thus far). It was gorgeous. We ate a quick lunch, then spent about 3 hours trying to get back into Jerusalem (Israeli land) from Bethlehem (Palestinian land). It was dark at this point, maybe 6ish. We went directly to the Wailing Wall, or Western Wall. This remaining part of the wall date back to 19 BC from Herod the Great. So its old. It was built encompassing the Temple Mount, which Jews believe is the site God chose the Divine Presence to reside. Its an extremely holy site in Judaism as well as Islam, as it is right next to the Dome of the Rock (third holiest site in Islam). Muslims, however, are forbidden to call it the Wailing Wall. We spent an hour or so there, manged to get lost in the souq, or bazaar and miss the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Figures. I did get to overhear this gem, though.
One of the German ladies in our group was talking to our tour guide. He was a young guy from Egypt but spoke fluent German, but they were speaking in English at this point. So she points to some Orthodox Jews, and asks who they are. Our guide says their Orthodox, you've never seen an Orthodox Jew before?. She goes, No! To which our guide responds, "Oh right, I forgot. That's because they don't like you" She, immediately asked us if we had ever seen Orthodox Jews and my friend replied, "Of course. I live in NYC, there more Jews there then this entire country". It was 10pm, we were ready to go.
Our bus ride back to the border took 4 hours this time, since we were further North and would not be making all the previous stops. We were hoping that walking across the border this time wouldn't take 5 hours. It didn't. It took maybe 3.5 to 4. Such an improvement. Back on another bus we went, for, yup, 2 hours back to Dahab. We finally got back to our hotel at sunrise, aka 530am. So after leaving at 11pm on Wednesday, we got back at 530am on Friday. Quite. An. Adventure.
The next day we had to go back to Cairo. We got on another bus. For 7 hours.
Back in Cairo, I slept a lot. Shocking. Anyways, break was great. It was a short week because we had Thanksgiving off. Thanksgiving in Egypt is a story in itself so that will have to wait for a rainy day. I hope you all had great holidays and until then, enjoy your last day of November :)
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Now Aint That Some Shit
So November thus far has been pretty boring. And its getting cold. Que laughter from everybody reading this at home, where, from what I'm hearing, there is a nice blanket of snow on the ground. Okay, so I have absolutely gotten used to Egypt and yes I get cold when it is anywhere below 85 degrees. So what if I am beyond screwed for when I go home in a month? No. Big. Deal. Anyways, I know nobody really wants to read about how midterms in Arabic went so I wont bore you with all those details; instead, lets chat about random Egypt things.
Halloween
Many of you asked if Halloween is celebrated in Egypt and my standard answer was something like "I don't know, but Americans do". Flippant and slightly arrogant? Yeah, just a little. So I asked someone (after I and all the other Americans celebrated Halloween like we do at home... :) And the answer is no. Halloween is not officially celebrated here. It is actually not allowed to be celebrated by Muslims and the Islamic culture. As a monotheistic religion, they respect other monotheistic religions but they can't practice or celebrate a holiday that glorifies polytheistic deities. And as Halloween is originally a pagan celebration, it is not acceptable for Muslims to follow this. However, the West is a huge influence on, well, everything, and you can find some Muslims who believe that it is okay to celebrate it or who will let their children dress up. But you wont find anybody trick or treating. That would be without a doubt one of the sketchiest things to do around here.
Stike!
No, not baseball strikes. (Ha ha ha) People strikes. You hear of them from time to time, participate in one, or see one somewhere. Not that they are overly common, they are also not that uncommon. In Egypt, they are very uncommon. In some (ie alot) of countries here, if you go on strike, you have a high chance of getting beaten and/or automatically losing your job. And you absolutely need that job. At school, we have maids who will clean our rooms, change our sheets, wash the floors etc and janitors who keep the school really clean. Without them, the school turns into a garbage pit because for some reason, "students" feel that they cannot through away their own trash. They will let it blow away or leave it at their tables and chairs for somebody else to clean up. The tables in the food court after lunch are always piled high with trash while the "students" go hang around outside, smoke, and not go to class. So the janitors and maids went on strike not because of this but because the administration is retarded. They workers were being paid about 600 LE a month and were expected to feed and provided for their families with this. That is about 100 USD; and 600 LE a month for a family of four is nothing as you can well imagine. The administration decided to cut their wages down to 400 LE a month and give them health care. Well, the workers who already can't feed their families don't want health care, they want to be able to feed their hungry kids. They asked for a salary increase of 1200 LE instead. And went on strike for five days. They had meetings and held a sit in for five days in front of the Admin Building and the school got really really dirty. And after five days, they realized that it was an unfortunately pointless cause because the administration wasn't budging and they weren't getting paid. So they went back to work unhappy and hoping that the administration will follow through on the decision to discuss this after Christmas.
inshaAllah
This has to be one of my favorite Arabic sayings. It is used everywhere in every context. It is translated as "hopefully" or "God willing" So you can say " Will I see you tomorrow?" and you can respond "inshaAllah". That's fine. And so on and so on. But what kills me is when the teachers say "Tomorrow, you will have a quiz/test/midterm inshaAllah" Hopefully I will have a quiz tomorrow? How am I supposed to be hopeful about that, or God willing I take it tomorrow. God willing what? I pass it? Should I pray to God right before I take it or should I study my butt off because its going to be that hard? Also, I'm pretty sure that it is you Osteza who decides the quizzes and you should probably already know that most of the students aren't that hopeful that you give us one. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're hoping that you DONT give us a quiz/test./midterm. Okay, I know I'm reading into this a little too much, and that context isn't exactly what you mean, but still, it makes me laugh every time you say it. So does saying "Homework IN a piece of paper" :)
Reese's and Bacon
This is quite a large bone of contention with me as most of you who've had any sort of conversation with me in the past 3 months already know. One is understandable, the other NOT AT ALL! This is Egypt okay? This is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world and has one of the only surviving ancient wonders of the world in the middle of their freakin mega city and nowhere and I mean absolutely no where can you find Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And if you know me really well, you know that I have looked. EVERYWHERE. They. Do. Not. Exist. You import everything else, including some pretty ridiculous and unnecessary things, so get on the ball and get me some Reese's . I have even gone as far as googling "Reese's in Egypt" and "Where can I find Reese's in Egypt" (I got instead "Jake Gyllenhaal Rumored Buying Engagment Ring, Whisks Reese" .....WTF?!?!) As for bacon (real bacon) you can't find that either. But its not kosher and pigs are dirty dirty animals that are not allowed for religious reasons, so okay. I can live with and accept that. Beef bacon is just not the same though. In fact, I usually won't even eat. But let it be known that with the 20 USD that I didn't exchange, I am buying more than one bacon egg and cheese from a DD's (which also don't exist here) as soon as I get off that plane at JFK at 5 am. Don't judge. In fact, if you see me over break, show up with a BEC and I'll probably kiss you.
Beds
Suck! Egyptians sleep on cement, I swear to God. I had a legit cloud that I slept in at school. I absolutely loved my bed. If you sat on it, you would sink, and if I was in it, you probably couldn't find my legs. Too many down comforters and blankets, but it was beyond fabulous. I have upgraded to a piece of plywood I think. I have to sleep on the thing they call a comforter because I would be in serious need of a chiropractor if I didn't. Actually, I might need one anyways....
Okay, this is turning into a bitter rant. Or maybe just a rant. But this is what happens when nothing happens in November. Maybe its the perpetual sun that is getting to me. At any rate, I have 2 days of school left before I am off to lay on a beach and drink martinis for 10 days (inshaAllah) I hope you all aren't too cold and snowed in at home yet and I'm sure after vacation I wont be as bitter and will have some sort of adventure to talk about, not just Egyptian nuances.
Ta Ta!
Halloween
Many of you asked if Halloween is celebrated in Egypt and my standard answer was something like "I don't know, but Americans do". Flippant and slightly arrogant? Yeah, just a little. So I asked someone (after I and all the other Americans celebrated Halloween like we do at home... :) And the answer is no. Halloween is not officially celebrated here. It is actually not allowed to be celebrated by Muslims and the Islamic culture. As a monotheistic religion, they respect other monotheistic religions but they can't practice or celebrate a holiday that glorifies polytheistic deities. And as Halloween is originally a pagan celebration, it is not acceptable for Muslims to follow this. However, the West is a huge influence on, well, everything, and you can find some Muslims who believe that it is okay to celebrate it or who will let their children dress up. But you wont find anybody trick or treating. That would be without a doubt one of the sketchiest things to do around here.
Stike!
No, not baseball strikes. (Ha ha ha) People strikes. You hear of them from time to time, participate in one, or see one somewhere. Not that they are overly common, they are also not that uncommon. In Egypt, they are very uncommon. In some (ie alot) of countries here, if you go on strike, you have a high chance of getting beaten and/or automatically losing your job. And you absolutely need that job. At school, we have maids who will clean our rooms, change our sheets, wash the floors etc and janitors who keep the school really clean. Without them, the school turns into a garbage pit because for some reason, "students" feel that they cannot through away their own trash. They will let it blow away or leave it at their tables and chairs for somebody else to clean up. The tables in the food court after lunch are always piled high with trash while the "students" go hang around outside, smoke, and not go to class. So the janitors and maids went on strike not because of this but because the administration is retarded. They workers were being paid about 600 LE a month and were expected to feed and provided for their families with this. That is about 100 USD; and 600 LE a month for a family of four is nothing as you can well imagine. The administration decided to cut their wages down to 400 LE a month and give them health care. Well, the workers who already can't feed their families don't want health care, they want to be able to feed their hungry kids. They asked for a salary increase of 1200 LE instead. And went on strike for five days. They had meetings and held a sit in for five days in front of the Admin Building and the school got really really dirty. And after five days, they realized that it was an unfortunately pointless cause because the administration wasn't budging and they weren't getting paid. So they went back to work unhappy and hoping that the administration will follow through on the decision to discuss this after Christmas.
inshaAllah
This has to be one of my favorite Arabic sayings. It is used everywhere in every context. It is translated as "hopefully" or "God willing" So you can say " Will I see you tomorrow?" and you can respond "inshaAllah". That's fine. And so on and so on. But what kills me is when the teachers say "Tomorrow, you will have a quiz/test/midterm inshaAllah" Hopefully I will have a quiz tomorrow? How am I supposed to be hopeful about that, or God willing I take it tomorrow. God willing what? I pass it? Should I pray to God right before I take it or should I study my butt off because its going to be that hard? Also, I'm pretty sure that it is you Osteza who decides the quizzes and you should probably already know that most of the students aren't that hopeful that you give us one. In fact, I'm pretty sure they're hoping that you DONT give us a quiz/test./midterm. Okay, I know I'm reading into this a little too much, and that context isn't exactly what you mean, but still, it makes me laugh every time you say it. So does saying "Homework IN a piece of paper" :)
Reese's and Bacon
This is quite a large bone of contention with me as most of you who've had any sort of conversation with me in the past 3 months already know. One is understandable, the other NOT AT ALL! This is Egypt okay? This is home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world and has one of the only surviving ancient wonders of the world in the middle of their freakin mega city and nowhere and I mean absolutely no where can you find Reese's Peanut Butter cups. And if you know me really well, you know that I have looked. EVERYWHERE. They. Do. Not. Exist. You import everything else, including some pretty ridiculous and unnecessary things, so get on the ball and get me some Reese's . I have even gone as far as googling "Reese's in Egypt" and "Where can I find Reese's in Egypt" (I got instead "Jake Gyllenhaal Rumored Buying Engagment Ring, Whisks Reese" .....WTF?!?!) As for bacon (real bacon) you can't find that either. But its not kosher and pigs are dirty dirty animals that are not allowed for religious reasons, so okay. I can live with and accept that. Beef bacon is just not the same though. In fact, I usually won't even eat. But let it be known that with the 20 USD that I didn't exchange, I am buying more than one bacon egg and cheese from a DD's (which also don't exist here) as soon as I get off that plane at JFK at 5 am. Don't judge. In fact, if you see me over break, show up with a BEC and I'll probably kiss you.
Beds
Suck! Egyptians sleep on cement, I swear to God. I had a legit cloud that I slept in at school. I absolutely loved my bed. If you sat on it, you would sink, and if I was in it, you probably couldn't find my legs. Too many down comforters and blankets, but it was beyond fabulous. I have upgraded to a piece of plywood I think. I have to sleep on the thing they call a comforter because I would be in serious need of a chiropractor if I didn't. Actually, I might need one anyways....
Okay, this is turning into a bitter rant. Or maybe just a rant. But this is what happens when nothing happens in November. Maybe its the perpetual sun that is getting to me. At any rate, I have 2 days of school left before I am off to lay on a beach and drink martinis for 10 days (inshaAllah) I hope you all aren't too cold and snowed in at home yet and I'm sure after vacation I wont be as bitter and will have some sort of adventure to talk about, not just Egyptian nuances.
Ta Ta!
Monday, October 18, 2010
The Adventures of L,P
It might have been almost two weeks ago, but I went to Asia. And that in and of itself makes up for delays. So my last adventure began on a Tuesday afternoon. We had Wednesday off because it was some Egyptian holiday or something and we were excused from Thursdays classes so we had a nice few days to go run wild. We were going to Sharm el Sheikh and St. Catherine. It is a a solid seven hours to Sharm and the delightful Indian family from last trip were back. Before we got into the fun part, I just have to say that the mother with the 5 month old baby is a nut. To entertain her child, she meowed at him. Loudly. We would be sitting there and all of a sudden hear "Mewwwwwwwwow, meooooooooow". All the time. By the end of the trip, people in the back were started barking when she meowed. It was really weird. Anyways, we had to go under the Suez Canal, which has a pretty cool history. In brief, it was completed in 1869 but its history dates back to the 2nd Millenium (BC). Aristotle wrote in reference to a canal here way back then, too. Construction for the 'modern' canal began in 1856 and it officially opened ten years later. Due to debts Egypt owed to Britain, the British took control of the completed Canal in 1882, and Egypt only regained control and rights to it in 1956. Okay, done with the history lesson. (I can actually say that sentence in Arabic :)
We got to Sharm around 930 and of course we went right out. Sharm is a big destination for European travelers and it is very influenced by Western ideals and it is pretty obvious in the dress of its tourists. It is very liberal and there's nightclubs everywhere. We went to a rooftop bar until they kicked us out around quarter of three. We tried to get into another club down the street, The Buddha Bar, and we managed to get in without paying cover due to our friends fantastic negotiation skills. We didn't stay long because they were closing too, so we headed back to the hotel and decided to go swimming. Who doesn't want to swim in the Red Sea at 4am? That unfortunately didn't last long because some guards kicked us out. So we went to the pool. That didn't last long either because the guards came back and told us we were going to get "chlorine poisoning". Ooookay. Thus ended the first night. The second day we just hung out at the beach and went swimming. You could lay on a beach chair and look at Saudi Arabia across the sea. We thought about swimming over but we'd probably get sniper-ed out of the water so we stuck to snorkeling. There were reefs and really cool tropical fish everywhere so it was fun. And the water was like bathwater and for all you in New England, it was around 100 degrees (still is actually :) We had a lower key night and went downtown again, but just walked around and hung out.
Out last beach day was a blast. There were 14 of us and we rented a private boat and spent the day on the water. We went to two snorkeling sites and saw some awesome fish and more reefs; our diver guide told us after we got back on the boat that there was a seven foot shark near us. Didn't see that, but we did see two sting ray. There was a camera guy who spent the day taking pictures of us doing random stuff and swimming so were were able to get those pictures at the end of the trip. It was a great time and we were out on the boat until almost 4pm so it was a good long day. Of course, pre-departure we walked into a Drinkies (what they call packies around here) and asked for two cases of beer; I'm pretty sure they had never gotten that request before. Typical Americans. Of course the only way to end a great day is to go out and have a great night. So we did. We went to a popular club called Pasha Sharm. It was four floors with no ceiling on the upper floors (perks of never getting rain or cold) and there were all the typical club things with the added bonus of having a pool and foam pit on the first floor. It was wild. There is one in NYC and/or Las Vegas too. So we paid cover but didn't really want to spend the rest of our money on the absurd drink prices so since we had time to kill, we went to another Drinkies, bought beer there and sat outside on the sidewalk for a couple of hours. I found 10 English pounds, which is about 100 Egyptian pounds so that was a fantastic perk (especially outside of a Drinkies....) It was of course another late but very memorable night. And the last night we slept until Saturday.
We had all morning to kill before we hopped on the bus again so we got a few beach hours in and lunch. I somehow managed to miss that Daylight Savings had happened here the previous week and I had somehow been living an hour behind and still making it to class on time. True genius right here. We had a three hour bus ride up to the Dahab area to the place we were staying at over night. We were in the middle of the mountains and stayed at St. Catherine's Monastery. We would be climbing Mt Sinai in the morning, since the monastery is at the base of the mountain. Mt Sinai is of course the mountain where Moses got the 10 Commandments. I just have to say that even though I know 40 is just a symbolic number, if it really took them 40 years to cross that desert, I totally believe it now. Now, climbing mountains in Egypt is an adventure. (Especially if you stay up all night and ...watch... 5 people consume 8 bottles of wine beforehand...) But Egypt is a hot country. You can't climb mountains during normal mountain hiking times aka daylight hours because it is too hot and its the desert, meaning there are no trees and no shade. So you climb Moses Mountain in the middle of the night. So 130am finds us bright eyed and ready to hike for 3 hours. The initial part isn't that bad. Of course, my flashlight dies after 5 minutes, so there is no light but other people's lights and the stars. Which I do have to say I have never ever seen stars like this in my life. It was absolutely surreal and beautiful. The camels everywhere really added to the 'scenery' of course, as we almost walked into them every other step and they obviously smell great!. The last 45 minutes or so are what really get you, because it is 750 vertical 'steps' to the top. Steps is quite a relative term, because one you cant see shit, two they are all different sizes and three there are no straight lines so they're all windy and twisty and its almost 4am. We finally made it to the top and basically collapsed for a half hour and froze our asses off. You get all hot climbing for 3 hours but then freeze at the top because its 4am in the desert and its cold and your sweaty clothes are drying. So the alternative is to wrap up in smelly camel hair blankets. Truly attractive group. But the sun started rising at 515ish and when it came up, it was gorgeous. You got your first look at the landscape (and realize why they make you climb in the dark: so you can't see down). But it was nothing but mountain ranges for as far as you could see from all angles. We sat up there until 6ish then began the trek down. We went a different way down which consisted of 3000 'steps' down, which you could see this time. You can see the Monastery from almost the beginning of the hike down and you think that it won't take long, but then realize how wrong you are. There were a few choice words running through my mind. But we made it down around 8 or 830, had time for a quick shower in the worlds dumbest shower. How the expect you to shower AND hold the shower head above you is beyond me. We took a quick tour of the monastery, which was built by Emperor Justinian I (527-567). So its old. It has some of the oldest surviving relics and icons and manuscripts dating back to the 6th century and there were no pictures allowed. (The Vatican is the only site that has more ancient manuscripts) It is also the home of the burning bush as in THE burning bush that is mentioned in the Bible. The one Moses saw. As a plant, it is the only one of its kind in Egypt. It wasn't burning when I saw it thought. Just hanging. But it was still cool. There are all sorts of scientific dispute about it, but it hey, that's nothing new. We left for Cairo soon after and after almost 10 glorious hours on a bus, we finally arrived back in time to finish some Arabic homework we all neglected and pass out so we could go to classes on Sunday.
Fast foward the week (Happy Birthday Melanie!) and we rented a falluca (a Nile boat thing) for Thursday night. It was our friend's 21st birthday so we had a little party on the Nile and saw a crocodile (floating trash is not a cool explanation for it, so were going with croc :) We had dinner and drinks on the falluca then got lost, ended up at the wrong hotel, and finally went to a stationary boat on the Nile that had a cool nightclub on it. So its been a pretty legit month thus far. I've gotten some people ask if they celebrate Halloween in Egypt. Answer is no, but Americans do. So we will be doing something for Halloween. Any costume suggestions are welcome (please keep in mind location). So I hope you are all not freezing in America and enjoy the rest of your week!
Bye habibis!
We got to Sharm around 930 and of course we went right out. Sharm is a big destination for European travelers and it is very influenced by Western ideals and it is pretty obvious in the dress of its tourists. It is very liberal and there's nightclubs everywhere. We went to a rooftop bar until they kicked us out around quarter of three. We tried to get into another club down the street, The Buddha Bar, and we managed to get in without paying cover due to our friends fantastic negotiation skills. We didn't stay long because they were closing too, so we headed back to the hotel and decided to go swimming. Who doesn't want to swim in the Red Sea at 4am? That unfortunately didn't last long because some guards kicked us out. So we went to the pool. That didn't last long either because the guards came back and told us we were going to get "chlorine poisoning". Ooookay. Thus ended the first night. The second day we just hung out at the beach and went swimming. You could lay on a beach chair and look at Saudi Arabia across the sea. We thought about swimming over but we'd probably get sniper-ed out of the water so we stuck to snorkeling. There were reefs and really cool tropical fish everywhere so it was fun. And the water was like bathwater and for all you in New England, it was around 100 degrees (still is actually :) We had a lower key night and went downtown again, but just walked around and hung out.
Out last beach day was a blast. There were 14 of us and we rented a private boat and spent the day on the water. We went to two snorkeling sites and saw some awesome fish and more reefs; our diver guide told us after we got back on the boat that there was a seven foot shark near us. Didn't see that, but we did see two sting ray. There was a camera guy who spent the day taking pictures of us doing random stuff and swimming so were were able to get those pictures at the end of the trip. It was a great time and we were out on the boat until almost 4pm so it was a good long day. Of course, pre-departure we walked into a Drinkies (what they call packies around here) and asked for two cases of beer; I'm pretty sure they had never gotten that request before. Typical Americans. Of course the only way to end a great day is to go out and have a great night. So we did. We went to a popular club called Pasha Sharm. It was four floors with no ceiling on the upper floors (perks of never getting rain or cold) and there were all the typical club things with the added bonus of having a pool and foam pit on the first floor. It was wild. There is one in NYC and/or Las Vegas too. So we paid cover but didn't really want to spend the rest of our money on the absurd drink prices so since we had time to kill, we went to another Drinkies, bought beer there and sat outside on the sidewalk for a couple of hours. I found 10 English pounds, which is about 100 Egyptian pounds so that was a fantastic perk (especially outside of a Drinkies....) It was of course another late but very memorable night. And the last night we slept until Saturday.
We had all morning to kill before we hopped on the bus again so we got a few beach hours in and lunch. I somehow managed to miss that Daylight Savings had happened here the previous week and I had somehow been living an hour behind and still making it to class on time. True genius right here. We had a three hour bus ride up to the Dahab area to the place we were staying at over night. We were in the middle of the mountains and stayed at St. Catherine's Monastery. We would be climbing Mt Sinai in the morning, since the monastery is at the base of the mountain. Mt Sinai is of course the mountain where Moses got the 10 Commandments. I just have to say that even though I know 40 is just a symbolic number, if it really took them 40 years to cross that desert, I totally believe it now. Now, climbing mountains in Egypt is an adventure. (Especially if you stay up all night and ...watch... 5 people consume 8 bottles of wine beforehand...) But Egypt is a hot country. You can't climb mountains during normal mountain hiking times aka daylight hours because it is too hot and its the desert, meaning there are no trees and no shade. So you climb Moses Mountain in the middle of the night. So 130am finds us bright eyed and ready to hike for 3 hours. The initial part isn't that bad. Of course, my flashlight dies after 5 minutes, so there is no light but other people's lights and the stars. Which I do have to say I have never ever seen stars like this in my life. It was absolutely surreal and beautiful. The camels everywhere really added to the 'scenery' of course, as we almost walked into them every other step and they obviously smell great!. The last 45 minutes or so are what really get you, because it is 750 vertical 'steps' to the top. Steps is quite a relative term, because one you cant see shit, two they are all different sizes and three there are no straight lines so they're all windy and twisty and its almost 4am. We finally made it to the top and basically collapsed for a half hour and froze our asses off. You get all hot climbing for 3 hours but then freeze at the top because its 4am in the desert and its cold and your sweaty clothes are drying. So the alternative is to wrap up in smelly camel hair blankets. Truly attractive group. But the sun started rising at 515ish and when it came up, it was gorgeous. You got your first look at the landscape (and realize why they make you climb in the dark: so you can't see down). But it was nothing but mountain ranges for as far as you could see from all angles. We sat up there until 6ish then began the trek down. We went a different way down which consisted of 3000 'steps' down, which you could see this time. You can see the Monastery from almost the beginning of the hike down and you think that it won't take long, but then realize how wrong you are. There were a few choice words running through my mind. But we made it down around 8 or 830, had time for a quick shower in the worlds dumbest shower. How the expect you to shower AND hold the shower head above you is beyond me. We took a quick tour of the monastery, which was built by Emperor Justinian I (527-567). So its old. It has some of the oldest surviving relics and icons and manuscripts dating back to the 6th century and there were no pictures allowed. (The Vatican is the only site that has more ancient manuscripts) It is also the home of the burning bush as in THE burning bush that is mentioned in the Bible. The one Moses saw. As a plant, it is the only one of its kind in Egypt. It wasn't burning when I saw it thought. Just hanging. But it was still cool. There are all sorts of scientific dispute about it, but it hey, that's nothing new. We left for Cairo soon after and after almost 10 glorious hours on a bus, we finally arrived back in time to finish some Arabic homework we all neglected and pass out so we could go to classes on Sunday.
Fast foward the week (Happy Birthday Melanie!) and we rented a falluca (a Nile boat thing) for Thursday night. It was our friend's 21st birthday so we had a little party on the Nile and saw a crocodile (floating trash is not a cool explanation for it, so were going with croc :) We had dinner and drinks on the falluca then got lost, ended up at the wrong hotel, and finally went to a stationary boat on the Nile that had a cool nightclub on it. So its been a pretty legit month thus far. I've gotten some people ask if they celebrate Halloween in Egypt. Answer is no, but Americans do. So we will be doing something for Halloween. Any costume suggestions are welcome (please keep in mind location). So I hope you are all not freezing in America and enjoy the rest of your week!
Bye habibis!
Friday, October 1, 2010
"Its Not A Gay Bar, There Are Just A Lot Of Gay Guys..."
First, Happy 2nd Birthday to Princess Amelia :)
Second, I'm going to preface the gay bar story with typical behaviors and attires of young Egyptian men. Cause its just weird. First, their clothes. Some of the attire I've seen thus far on guys would fit in very well if they lived in Ptown or certain parts of San Fransisco. Im a personal fan of the jeans. They are usually blinged out and bedazzled skinny jeans, and I mean very skinny jeans. Sometimes they are faded, which usually just makes it all the better. Ed Hardy shirts are also pretty popular, as are pinks and purples; I've even see some pretty sparkly shirts that I wouldn't be caught dead in. All this would be manageable if not for the fact that Egyptians are very touchy feely. The guys here will go around in big groups and they will all be holding hands, or will walk down the street with their arms around each others shoulders. Yet you will see very few men and women doing this in public. Okay, yes, I know its all a cultural thing, and they probably think we're weird too, but when you put the bedazzeled skinny jeans on with purple sparkly shirts and start holding hands, most people assume you are gay. But the thing is, being gay in Egypt is not exactly accepted. Its essentially forbidden in the Quran; actually, I had a sub in my Quran class this week and he compared being gay to watching the windows screen saver all day: its pointless and unproductive. So that's why we had a hard time believing we somehow ended up in a gay bar in Alexandria. Because who knew they even existed?
Last Thursday, ALI had a trip to Alexandria, which is a little over two hours from Cairo. It turns out that you don't have to be a student to go on these trips; as long as one person is somehow affiliated with AUC and/or ALI, you can sign up your whole family if you so choose. Which people so chose. The first family was awesome. It was a young couple with a 10 month old baby boy, who sat behind us. The mother was an American from Minnesota who was in the Army and had been studying Arabic for the past ten years. Her husband was Yemeni and an Arabic professor who helped us with homework on the bus when we weren't playing with his son. They were very nice. The second family was more like a circus. As far as we could figure out, one of the guys was an Indian diplomat and his mother, his wife and family, and his two sisters, and their two husbands and all the kids. Yep. It would have been alright except they let one of the sons, who was about seven, run around during all the tours and push people out of the way and generally be disrespectful and disruptive every time we went somewhere. There was a collective sigh of relief when they finally left.
Anyways, the first night we got there we had a free night so a bunch of us decieded to go out. Some other people from AUC were planning on coming up for the weekend so we were going to try to meet up with them. In the meantime, we decided to try to find a bar, because we had heard Alex had a few good ones. So we hopped in a cab and asked the driver to take us to a bar called Cope D'Or. He of course had no idea where it was, but he told us he knew exactly where it was. After stopping a few times for directions, we get out on this pretty sketchy street and he says follow me. We go into this whole in the wall place and there is maybe 4 people in there, all guys. There is no sign saying where we were and we were convinced that the driver took us to the first place he could find and say that it was Cope D'or, because how would we know? So the cabbie leaves us there and we decided we would at least get a drink and then profitably try to leave. Well, one turned into two and two turned into four and all of a sudden there are a ton of young dudes in this bar. In their blinged out skinny jeans and popped collar Lactose shirts and fro-hawks. We weren't paying that much attention to them because the bartender looked like an Egyptian version of Steve Carrell until a few guys sat next to our guy friend and after about five minutes they are stroking his back. We of course thought it was hysterical and we just sat there and watched all this. I was one of two girls in this bar so me and my friend went to find the bathroom. We came out and there was a guy standing there. We didn't know what he wanted so we told him that this was the girls bathroom (it was the only room at the top of a staircase and he was blocking the way down) He said (with a hand wave) I know, its just like, cleaner then the guys bathroom. Oooookay. Back downstairs our friend now had more than one guy touching him, but one of them leaned over and said "When I was 16, I had eyebrow like him. Now I'm 27 and I wax . You like?" And on and on it went, with the comments getting more and more inappropriate, but said with pretty poor English so it was hysterical. This is so far out of the norm for Egypt; we had no idea what we had gotten into, but we had a great time. We got home around 430am.
As we didn't go to Alex for a gay bar, we did do all the typical historical tours the next day, which was very cool. We went to the catacombs, which only a third are excavated. The rest are still underwater and under the city. You could actually see the water that was flooding them. There were a few sarcophagus' that we were able to see. We saw Pompeii's Pillar, which has nothing to do with Pompeii, but was built for Ptolemy. Its still mind boggling to try to fathom how these things were built using very primitive tools and whatnot. The last stop for the day was the Roman Theater, which apparently still has productions held there. The rest of the day was spent at the Automobile Club, which had a pool overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Afternoon at the beach; it was fantastic. That night was much more uneventful, unless you want to count when we asked a waiter for the bathroom. We actually asked the guy where the pigeon was; thankfully he knew what we meant. The word for bathroom and pigeon is very similar, the difference is how long you pronouce an 'a'. Arabic at its best :)
Saturday was our final day there, and we went to see the Library. The original one of course burned, but the built a new one, which was very cool. An ariel view would show water surrounding it and an obelisk meant to represent the sun rising out of the water. They were able to save some of the texts from the ancient library and we saw those and took a few illegal pictures. All in all it was a really fun trip. Its so easy to get to Alex from Cairo so it is definitely a place to go back to and spend more time at.
The weeks are as always just go by in a blur. Last night there was a sandstorm. That shit's pretty legit. They actually canceled a trip that was planned for this weekend for it. There were chairs and tables and umbrellas overturned and now there's piles of sand where there usually aren't piles of sand. This coming week is a short one; we have Wednesday off, and ALI has a trip to Sinai and Sharm el Shek from Tuesday to Saturday. Maybe ill get to swim in the Red Sea. Who knows.
Happy Friday! Masalama :)
Second, I'm going to preface the gay bar story with typical behaviors and attires of young Egyptian men. Cause its just weird. First, their clothes. Some of the attire I've seen thus far on guys would fit in very well if they lived in Ptown or certain parts of San Fransisco. Im a personal fan of the jeans. They are usually blinged out and bedazzled skinny jeans, and I mean very skinny jeans. Sometimes they are faded, which usually just makes it all the better. Ed Hardy shirts are also pretty popular, as are pinks and purples; I've even see some pretty sparkly shirts that I wouldn't be caught dead in. All this would be manageable if not for the fact that Egyptians are very touchy feely. The guys here will go around in big groups and they will all be holding hands, or will walk down the street with their arms around each others shoulders. Yet you will see very few men and women doing this in public. Okay, yes, I know its all a cultural thing, and they probably think we're weird too, but when you put the bedazzeled skinny jeans on with purple sparkly shirts and start holding hands, most people assume you are gay. But the thing is, being gay in Egypt is not exactly accepted. Its essentially forbidden in the Quran; actually, I had a sub in my Quran class this week and he compared being gay to watching the windows screen saver all day: its pointless and unproductive. So that's why we had a hard time believing we somehow ended up in a gay bar in Alexandria. Because who knew they even existed?
Last Thursday, ALI had a trip to Alexandria, which is a little over two hours from Cairo. It turns out that you don't have to be a student to go on these trips; as long as one person is somehow affiliated with AUC and/or ALI, you can sign up your whole family if you so choose. Which people so chose. The first family was awesome. It was a young couple with a 10 month old baby boy, who sat behind us. The mother was an American from Minnesota who was in the Army and had been studying Arabic for the past ten years. Her husband was Yemeni and an Arabic professor who helped us with homework on the bus when we weren't playing with his son. They were very nice. The second family was more like a circus. As far as we could figure out, one of the guys was an Indian diplomat and his mother, his wife and family, and his two sisters, and their two husbands and all the kids. Yep. It would have been alright except they let one of the sons, who was about seven, run around during all the tours and push people out of the way and generally be disrespectful and disruptive every time we went somewhere. There was a collective sigh of relief when they finally left.
Anyways, the first night we got there we had a free night so a bunch of us decieded to go out. Some other people from AUC were planning on coming up for the weekend so we were going to try to meet up with them. In the meantime, we decided to try to find a bar, because we had heard Alex had a few good ones. So we hopped in a cab and asked the driver to take us to a bar called Cope D'Or. He of course had no idea where it was, but he told us he knew exactly where it was. After stopping a few times for directions, we get out on this pretty sketchy street and he says follow me. We go into this whole in the wall place and there is maybe 4 people in there, all guys. There is no sign saying where we were and we were convinced that the driver took us to the first place he could find and say that it was Cope D'or, because how would we know? So the cabbie leaves us there and we decided we would at least get a drink and then profitably try to leave. Well, one turned into two and two turned into four and all of a sudden there are a ton of young dudes in this bar. In their blinged out skinny jeans and popped collar Lactose shirts and fro-hawks. We weren't paying that much attention to them because the bartender looked like an Egyptian version of Steve Carrell until a few guys sat next to our guy friend and after about five minutes they are stroking his back. We of course thought it was hysterical and we just sat there and watched all this. I was one of two girls in this bar so me and my friend went to find the bathroom. We came out and there was a guy standing there. We didn't know what he wanted so we told him that this was the girls bathroom (it was the only room at the top of a staircase and he was blocking the way down) He said (with a hand wave) I know, its just like, cleaner then the guys bathroom. Oooookay. Back downstairs our friend now had more than one guy touching him, but one of them leaned over and said "When I was 16, I had eyebrow like him. Now I'm 27 and I wax . You like?" And on and on it went, with the comments getting more and more inappropriate, but said with pretty poor English so it was hysterical. This is so far out of the norm for Egypt; we had no idea what we had gotten into, but we had a great time. We got home around 430am.
As we didn't go to Alex for a gay bar, we did do all the typical historical tours the next day, which was very cool. We went to the catacombs, which only a third are excavated. The rest are still underwater and under the city. You could actually see the water that was flooding them. There were a few sarcophagus' that we were able to see. We saw Pompeii's Pillar, which has nothing to do with Pompeii, but was built for Ptolemy. Its still mind boggling to try to fathom how these things were built using very primitive tools and whatnot. The last stop for the day was the Roman Theater, which apparently still has productions held there. The rest of the day was spent at the Automobile Club, which had a pool overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Afternoon at the beach; it was fantastic. That night was much more uneventful, unless you want to count when we asked a waiter for the bathroom. We actually asked the guy where the pigeon was; thankfully he knew what we meant. The word for bathroom and pigeon is very similar, the difference is how long you pronouce an 'a'. Arabic at its best :)
Saturday was our final day there, and we went to see the Library. The original one of course burned, but the built a new one, which was very cool. An ariel view would show water surrounding it and an obelisk meant to represent the sun rising out of the water. They were able to save some of the texts from the ancient library and we saw those and took a few illegal pictures. All in all it was a really fun trip. Its so easy to get to Alex from Cairo so it is definitely a place to go back to and spend more time at.
The weeks are as always just go by in a blur. Last night there was a sandstorm. That shit's pretty legit. They actually canceled a trip that was planned for this weekend for it. There were chairs and tables and umbrellas overturned and now there's piles of sand where there usually aren't piles of sand. This coming week is a short one; we have Wednesday off, and ALI has a trip to Sinai and Sharm el Shek from Tuesday to Saturday. Maybe ill get to swim in the Red Sea. Who knows.
Happy Friday! Masalama :)
Sunday, September 19, 2010
My Life According To Jeff Anderson
And this is why I love you. Thanks!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrNV_5LhNE&feature=related
Watch it. Now!
With love :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVrNV_5LhNE&feature=related
Watch it. Now!
With love :)
The 600 LE "Bebsi" And Other Ridiculous Stories
Okay, so I know I'm supposed to keep this thing updated and tell you stupid things I accidentally do in Egypt, but instead I just go to class, go to the library, rinse and repeat. Literally. Arabic is kicking my ass on a daily basis and I have no life. Take me back to senior year in college, please and a very big thank you. If that doesn't happen though, here are a few ridiculous stories to hopefully make you appreciate America a little more.
Last weekend happened to be my birthday. Thank you everybody, I wish you could've been here to celebrate Egyptian style with me. It included a nighttime trip to the Pyramids. We went to a show called sound and light, and they have lights and lasers on the pyramids and the Sphinx 'talks'. It was a very touristy thing, but I can say I spent my 23rd birthday at the pyramids. As a side note, as anybody who knows me knows that I tend to say really dumb things from time to time. Unfortunately, just because I'm in Egypt, it doesn't change. I was with some friends at a place called Pub 55 or something like that. Jess and I were talking and she said something about finding the ex-pat lounge. And being the absolute genius I am, I intelligently responding, "The ex-pat lounge? Like a place for the New England Patriots?" Yes Belle, because ex-Patriots love coming to hang out in Egypt so much, there is a bar just for them. Duh. I'm sure all you smart people know exactly who the ex-Pats are, so we're going to leave it at that. We will move on to the rest of my very interesting birthday. A large group of us went out to this Lebanese restaurant in Garden City, which is basically downtown Cairo where all the embassies are. If you want a cab from where I am to go somewhere, you need to call at least an hour in advance. So we called for two cabs to pick us up at 7 so we could get there around 8ish. Well 7 comes and goes and were still sitting on the side of the street. 715, 720 no cabs. So we happen to see one drop other people off and we book it to that one, thinking at least some of us can still try to make it and hopefully the other cabs will show up at some point soon. So 4 of us hop in and off we go. Now in Cairo. people drive fast. This dude was driving really really slow. Not what you want when you're going to be almost late for a reservation. Now instead of speeding up, the dude is slowing down. Like literally 5 miles an hour down the street. We're all looking at each other going what the hell is happening? Nobody drives this slow...anywhere. And then the car stops. It just dies. Turns out the cabbie forgot to put in gas in the tank and we were stuck in the middle of the highway/desert. Its about 735 at this point and there's nobody around. They only thing we can do is laugh at this absurdity and call our friends back at school and hope the 2 cabs are there. Which thank God, they were and we we able to take our original cabs to the restaurant. We made it there by 815; not bad considering. I had just started eating real food again two days before so I wasn't sure what I was going to get. So I ordered this chicken dish with potatoes and some other things on it; it was a new item on the menu. But apparently it was there for future reference, because they don't actually make it yet. Oookay. So I pick the first thing I see that doesn't involve fish or tomatoes and it turns out to be beef and potatoes. I can manage that. Except when I get it, its in a bowl. And the beef looks like the beef you use when you make beef stew and its soupy. And there wasn't potatoes, or at least I didn't think so. So I try it, but when I pull the fork out I had (not a bug) but a french fry. Weird, but maybe it just got misplaced. So I take another bite and another french fry comes out. So I dig around and it clicks. Beef and potatoes. The potatoes were the french fries that they lined the bottom of the bowl with. I'm not sure if its a Lebanese thing or an Egyptian thing, but it was a little weird. It was good, just weird. Whatever. A baked potato would've been fine, though.
My friend Jess had invited me to Marabella, which is on the Mediterranean for this past weekend. Her family has a place there, and we were going to rent a villa in the complex and go to the beach and hang out. I would be taking a bus with another friend from Cairo to the coast, about two and a half hours away. I had to buy the ticket at least a day in advance so I asked my friend Hibar to come with me downtown because he knows the city pretty well and the place we were going to apparently wasn't the easiest to find. Not surprising. So away we go. He is able to speak a little Arabic and understand it so it was helpful. So we get downtown after a normal charlie foxtrot of traffic (accidents). Every few feet we would stop to ask people if they knew where Cairo Gateway Plaza was. The thing about Egyptians is that they will tell you they know where something is even if they've never heard of it before. And they will give you directions to "the place" too. So we're ambling along and we stop to ask this guy if he knows. And he starts speaking fluent English. Score. Except he turns to me in my sunglasses and skirt and goes, you look Arabic. You Arabic? Okay, have you seen me? I'm about as white as they come. And I have magic eyes. So I say no, American. Big mistake. He starts going on and on about his time he spent there in Chicago and California, especially Long Beach and how he boogied (his word, not mine) and drank and girls and food and blah blah blah. I sort of giggled cause he sounded so ridiculous and kept calling my his sister and Hibar his brother. So Hibar is like okay, but do you know where CGP is? We need to get there. And the guy goes its closed. Oh shit, now what? So dude sees our slight panic and goes, oh well they'll open again, around 5 (it was about ten of 4). They just close for an hour or so. Okay, fine. So he goes why don't you come see my pictures from America, I have water. Erm, okay? So he's showing us his pictures and then starts talking about perfume. And my boyfriend. Wait, what? And my sister. My sister? Since when? He is now shoving perfume under our noses and telling us that we need to take some home and drive the boyfriend crazy and get him horny so we can play (his words, not mine). And take some to my mother so she can drive my father crazy, and don't forget your sister and brother cause they need to drive they're boyfriends and girlfriends crazy too. What. The. Hell. Once again, you are all smarter than I am, because it doesn't end. Yet. We'll skip everything else he was saying about making the world horny (still his words) because it just got more ridiculous. And guess who ended up getting a bottle of this 'magic' perfume. Yes, I got hustled. Hardcore. And since I'm sometimes blond, I didn't even realize it until it was happening and then we had no idea what was going on. So this guy told me to tell everybody that I paid 600 LE for this stuff. Which I didn't, by the way. I didn't end up losing that much actually, and its even less in American dollars. Moral of this? Don't talk to Egyptians who speak really good English. Actually, I'm not even that mad I got hustled, it could've been way worse, and now it won't happen again. And I got a free "Bebsi" out of it. Which is Pepsi, but since Egyptians can't say P's, it was bebsi. By the way, we finally got to CGP for the bus ticket, which of course wasn't closed. But you already knew that...
What next? Because there is always a next. How about the bus ride to Marabella. The bus was semi normal and didn't look like it would fall apart and there were seats so people weren't jammed on like sardines or hanging off the bumper, cause that's what public buses are like. So we settle in for our little journy north. Through the desert. That has no street lights. Which is fine until you realize that the bus driver is trying to entertain a cute little girl of about five. And by entertain I mean he is leaning over and tickling her and turning the headlights off. So basically we're sort of swerving down this pitch dark sandy highway with no lights and no civilization around for miles. I am all for keeping the kids entertained, but buddy, when you're driving a bus through the desert, lets try to keep our lights on and eyes on the road. Maybe next time. Oh,and lets not forget the stop to pray. Because there are mosques in the middle of the dark sandy desert along the deserted highway. But there are no bus stops for where we were going so we were dropped off on the side of the highway. Literally. Nothing makes any sense in Egypt. Ever.
Our short stay on the Mediterranean was fantastic, however. Jess's family are so kind and welcoming and we had a great time. They made us dinner, and breakfast the next morning and got lunch for us before we had to go back. The food was fantastic and their beach house was gorgeous. You could sit on the deck and see the Sea. And walk to the beach which was about twenty five feet away. Jess has two cousins; one goes to school in Germany and she had German friends visiting so we spent the night trying to teach them American drinking games. It was a lot of fun and we were up until 5 am. (Tim, if you read this, I'm sorry and you might want to skip the next part :) Jess and I were in the same room and we got up around 1030. Our friend Tim was in the next bedroom. We were going to go to her aunts for breakfast, so we got up and started getting ready. I was walking into the kitchen when I heard a knock. At first I wasn't going to open it because we don't know anybody there, but then I figured it could be one of her cousins to see where we were. So I open the door and sitting on the ground is Tim. In only his boxers. Oookay..what the hell are you doing there like that?! Apparently, around 7 (two hours after we went to bed) Tim decided he wanted fresh air and went outside. And the door locked from the inside so he was stuck outside for about 3 hours. Jess and I didn't hear him knocking on the door; we needed beauty sleep. Poor Tim. Our day at the beach was phenominal; it was like the Carrabean: clear blue warm water, white sand and everything. It was great.
But all good things come to an end and we had to go home. The bus gives you a ticket and a seat number, but its not like there are assigned seats. So on the bus we go and we're off to one more stop before we are able to leave. We're siting on the side of the road waiting for people and outside is this large group of people, aka a family with the grandmother and daughters, right down to the crying grandchildren. And they're making a minor scene, but whatever. I'm half asleep with my headphones on and suddenly I look up and Grandmother is standing next to us speaking rapid fire Arabic and yelling to the bus driver. Great. She is looking at her ticket and insisting that we are in her seat. Okay, lady, there are two seats right next to us and two seats right behind us that are open, why don't you just take those. Well, normal people would. She wasn't normal. She's going "YELLA YELLA", which when said like that is basically move your ass. But she is blocking us into our seats so we had nowhere to go. So after 5 minutes, the bus driver had enough and asked us to move. To the seats next to us. But Grandmother doesn't even sit in the seats we just vacated. She sits right in front of me! And turns around. leans over the seat and starts dictating to her grandchildren (who were sitting in our old seats) which is three rows back and across. And of course it wasn't quiet. Crazy Grandmother. After that it was a relatively normal ride (with headlights) and a terrible Arabic movie that included blood, heroin, guns and the final shootout scene with bad guy being beaten with a mop.
The next morning (yesterday) we went to the Pyramids and Spinx. I wish I could go on and on about them, but really, words and pictures don't even do them justice. It was astounding to actually see them and climb on them. Some of the blocks were bigger than me (and yes, I know I'm not that big, but still). The base of the biggest pyramid is 13 acres, average weight of each stone is about 2 tons and there are about 2.5 million blocks. And 446 feet tall. And they used mules and men and pulleys. It was incredible. We were able to go into one of the queen's pyramids; it was hot as hell in there and very tiny. We saw the Sphinx, and yes I kissed him. And then hoped on a camel. It was wild. And fun. Pictures are of course on facebook, so go check them out. We spent about 4 hours there with a great tour guide and our security guard; they really knew what they were doing and had so much knowledge about the whole area and what the hieroglyphics meant and stuff.
I'm going to Alexandria this weekend, so that will be another adventure. Unfortunately until then I have classes and Arabic is still kicking my ass. I will be studying until I pass out, rinse and repeat. Charmed life I live.Well, on to homework until next time!
Ciao :)
Last weekend happened to be my birthday. Thank you everybody, I wish you could've been here to celebrate Egyptian style with me. It included a nighttime trip to the Pyramids. We went to a show called sound and light, and they have lights and lasers on the pyramids and the Sphinx 'talks'. It was a very touristy thing, but I can say I spent my 23rd birthday at the pyramids. As a side note, as anybody who knows me knows that I tend to say really dumb things from time to time. Unfortunately, just because I'm in Egypt, it doesn't change. I was with some friends at a place called Pub 55 or something like that. Jess and I were talking and she said something about finding the ex-pat lounge. And being the absolute genius I am, I intelligently responding, "The ex-pat lounge? Like a place for the New England Patriots?" Yes Belle, because ex-Patriots love coming to hang out in Egypt so much, there is a bar just for them. Duh. I'm sure all you smart people know exactly who the ex-Pats are, so we're going to leave it at that. We will move on to the rest of my very interesting birthday. A large group of us went out to this Lebanese restaurant in Garden City, which is basically downtown Cairo where all the embassies are. If you want a cab from where I am to go somewhere, you need to call at least an hour in advance. So we called for two cabs to pick us up at 7 so we could get there around 8ish. Well 7 comes and goes and were still sitting on the side of the street. 715, 720 no cabs. So we happen to see one drop other people off and we book it to that one, thinking at least some of us can still try to make it and hopefully the other cabs will show up at some point soon. So 4 of us hop in and off we go. Now in Cairo. people drive fast. This dude was driving really really slow. Not what you want when you're going to be almost late for a reservation. Now instead of speeding up, the dude is slowing down. Like literally 5 miles an hour down the street. We're all looking at each other going what the hell is happening? Nobody drives this slow...anywhere. And then the car stops. It just dies. Turns out the cabbie forgot to put in gas in the tank and we were stuck in the middle of the highway/desert. Its about 735 at this point and there's nobody around. They only thing we can do is laugh at this absurdity and call our friends back at school and hope the 2 cabs are there. Which thank God, they were and we we able to take our original cabs to the restaurant. We made it there by 815; not bad considering. I had just started eating real food again two days before so I wasn't sure what I was going to get. So I ordered this chicken dish with potatoes and some other things on it; it was a new item on the menu. But apparently it was there for future reference, because they don't actually make it yet. Oookay. So I pick the first thing I see that doesn't involve fish or tomatoes and it turns out to be beef and potatoes. I can manage that. Except when I get it, its in a bowl. And the beef looks like the beef you use when you make beef stew and its soupy. And there wasn't potatoes, or at least I didn't think so. So I try it, but when I pull the fork out I had (not a bug) but a french fry. Weird, but maybe it just got misplaced. So I take another bite and another french fry comes out. So I dig around and it clicks. Beef and potatoes. The potatoes were the french fries that they lined the bottom of the bowl with. I'm not sure if its a Lebanese thing or an Egyptian thing, but it was a little weird. It was good, just weird. Whatever. A baked potato would've been fine, though.
My friend Jess had invited me to Marabella, which is on the Mediterranean for this past weekend. Her family has a place there, and we were going to rent a villa in the complex and go to the beach and hang out. I would be taking a bus with another friend from Cairo to the coast, about two and a half hours away. I had to buy the ticket at least a day in advance so I asked my friend Hibar to come with me downtown because he knows the city pretty well and the place we were going to apparently wasn't the easiest to find. Not surprising. So away we go. He is able to speak a little Arabic and understand it so it was helpful. So we get downtown after a normal charlie foxtrot of traffic (accidents). Every few feet we would stop to ask people if they knew where Cairo Gateway Plaza was. The thing about Egyptians is that they will tell you they know where something is even if they've never heard of it before. And they will give you directions to "the place" too. So we're ambling along and we stop to ask this guy if he knows. And he starts speaking fluent English. Score. Except he turns to me in my sunglasses and skirt and goes, you look Arabic. You Arabic? Okay, have you seen me? I'm about as white as they come. And I have magic eyes. So I say no, American. Big mistake. He starts going on and on about his time he spent there in Chicago and California, especially Long Beach and how he boogied (his word, not mine) and drank and girls and food and blah blah blah. I sort of giggled cause he sounded so ridiculous and kept calling my his sister and Hibar his brother. So Hibar is like okay, but do you know where CGP is? We need to get there. And the guy goes its closed. Oh shit, now what? So dude sees our slight panic and goes, oh well they'll open again, around 5 (it was about ten of 4). They just close for an hour or so. Okay, fine. So he goes why don't you come see my pictures from America, I have water. Erm, okay? So he's showing us his pictures and then starts talking about perfume. And my boyfriend. Wait, what? And my sister. My sister? Since when? He is now shoving perfume under our noses and telling us that we need to take some home and drive the boyfriend crazy and get him horny so we can play (his words, not mine). And take some to my mother so she can drive my father crazy, and don't forget your sister and brother cause they need to drive they're boyfriends and girlfriends crazy too. What. The. Hell. Once again, you are all smarter than I am, because it doesn't end. Yet. We'll skip everything else he was saying about making the world horny (still his words) because it just got more ridiculous. And guess who ended up getting a bottle of this 'magic' perfume. Yes, I got hustled. Hardcore. And since I'm sometimes blond, I didn't even realize it until it was happening and then we had no idea what was going on. So this guy told me to tell everybody that I paid 600 LE for this stuff. Which I didn't, by the way. I didn't end up losing that much actually, and its even less in American dollars. Moral of this? Don't talk to Egyptians who speak really good English. Actually, I'm not even that mad I got hustled, it could've been way worse, and now it won't happen again. And I got a free "Bebsi" out of it. Which is Pepsi, but since Egyptians can't say P's, it was bebsi. By the way, we finally got to CGP for the bus ticket, which of course wasn't closed. But you already knew that...
What next? Because there is always a next. How about the bus ride to Marabella. The bus was semi normal and didn't look like it would fall apart and there were seats so people weren't jammed on like sardines or hanging off the bumper, cause that's what public buses are like. So we settle in for our little journy north. Through the desert. That has no street lights. Which is fine until you realize that the bus driver is trying to entertain a cute little girl of about five. And by entertain I mean he is leaning over and tickling her and turning the headlights off. So basically we're sort of swerving down this pitch dark sandy highway with no lights and no civilization around for miles. I am all for keeping the kids entertained, but buddy, when you're driving a bus through the desert, lets try to keep our lights on and eyes on the road. Maybe next time. Oh,and lets not forget the stop to pray. Because there are mosques in the middle of the dark sandy desert along the deserted highway. But there are no bus stops for where we were going so we were dropped off on the side of the highway. Literally. Nothing makes any sense in Egypt. Ever.
Our short stay on the Mediterranean was fantastic, however. Jess's family are so kind and welcoming and we had a great time. They made us dinner, and breakfast the next morning and got lunch for us before we had to go back. The food was fantastic and their beach house was gorgeous. You could sit on the deck and see the Sea. And walk to the beach which was about twenty five feet away. Jess has two cousins; one goes to school in Germany and she had German friends visiting so we spent the night trying to teach them American drinking games. It was a lot of fun and we were up until 5 am. (Tim, if you read this, I'm sorry and you might want to skip the next part :) Jess and I were in the same room and we got up around 1030. Our friend Tim was in the next bedroom. We were going to go to her aunts for breakfast, so we got up and started getting ready. I was walking into the kitchen when I heard a knock. At first I wasn't going to open it because we don't know anybody there, but then I figured it could be one of her cousins to see where we were. So I open the door and sitting on the ground is Tim. In only his boxers. Oookay..what the hell are you doing there like that?! Apparently, around 7 (two hours after we went to bed) Tim decided he wanted fresh air and went outside. And the door locked from the inside so he was stuck outside for about 3 hours. Jess and I didn't hear him knocking on the door; we needed beauty sleep. Poor Tim. Our day at the beach was phenominal; it was like the Carrabean: clear blue warm water, white sand and everything. It was great.
But all good things come to an end and we had to go home. The bus gives you a ticket and a seat number, but its not like there are assigned seats. So on the bus we go and we're off to one more stop before we are able to leave. We're siting on the side of the road waiting for people and outside is this large group of people, aka a family with the grandmother and daughters, right down to the crying grandchildren. And they're making a minor scene, but whatever. I'm half asleep with my headphones on and suddenly I look up and Grandmother is standing next to us speaking rapid fire Arabic and yelling to the bus driver. Great. She is looking at her ticket and insisting that we are in her seat. Okay, lady, there are two seats right next to us and two seats right behind us that are open, why don't you just take those. Well, normal people would. She wasn't normal. She's going "YELLA YELLA", which when said like that is basically move your ass. But she is blocking us into our seats so we had nowhere to go. So after 5 minutes, the bus driver had enough and asked us to move. To the seats next to us. But Grandmother doesn't even sit in the seats we just vacated. She sits right in front of me! And turns around. leans over the seat and starts dictating to her grandchildren (who were sitting in our old seats) which is three rows back and across. And of course it wasn't quiet. Crazy Grandmother. After that it was a relatively normal ride (with headlights) and a terrible Arabic movie that included blood, heroin, guns and the final shootout scene with bad guy being beaten with a mop.
The next morning (yesterday) we went to the Pyramids and Spinx. I wish I could go on and on about them, but really, words and pictures don't even do them justice. It was astounding to actually see them and climb on them. Some of the blocks were bigger than me (and yes, I know I'm not that big, but still). The base of the biggest pyramid is 13 acres, average weight of each stone is about 2 tons and there are about 2.5 million blocks. And 446 feet tall. And they used mules and men and pulleys. It was incredible. We were able to go into one of the queen's pyramids; it was hot as hell in there and very tiny. We saw the Sphinx, and yes I kissed him. And then hoped on a camel. It was wild. And fun. Pictures are of course on facebook, so go check them out. We spent about 4 hours there with a great tour guide and our security guard; they really knew what they were doing and had so much knowledge about the whole area and what the hieroglyphics meant and stuff.
I'm going to Alexandria this weekend, so that will be another adventure. Unfortunately until then I have classes and Arabic is still kicking my ass. I will be studying until I pass out, rinse and repeat. Charmed life I live.Well, on to homework until next time!
Ciao :)
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Learn to Cope
This is the post where I talk about my first week of school. In Egypt. I suppose normally I would say how awesome it was and blah blah blah. Unfortunatly it amounted to the worst. week. ever. But we'll start off nice and cheery so as to disillusion myself that it will magically change if I write something good.
The last few days before school were actually great. There was an ALI orientation that everybody in the program had to go to. ALI is the Arabic Language Institute, and its all Arabic classes and its designed to teach you Arabic as quickly as possible. Its pretty intense. So we had that, and we got our schedules; I have three Modern Standard Arabic classes, and two electives, which are listening and trying to pick out the letter the professor says, which is still slightly non-easy, and Readings in the Quran, where we discuss the readings and talk about it. They also discussed trips that the program sponsors throughout Egypt, so hopefully I'll get to do some cool traveling. That ended early, so a group of us went downtown to a party that some off campus AUC people had. There are a surprising number of military academy students here for a semester; these guys were from West Point and the school had paid for their apartment. It was pretty awesome. It was in Zamalak and had a balcony with a view of something other than sand. Impressive for the desert. We got home around 430 and watched the sunrise basically. It was a fun night.
Then hell started. I woke up feeling pretty miserable. And no, it was not a hangover. At first, it was pretty managable, the stomach cramps and nausea. I even made myself venture out with friends for the night. We went to Khan al Khalili again which was a good time until sketchy mcsketch 40 year old Egyptian male decided to follow me around and continuously grab my ass. It was dirty and I wanted to smack the bastard, but still undecided if that's the best idea. I think next time it may happen. We went to this awesome Hibachi restaurant after. It was literally on the Nile, like a boat. It was really good. It was Saturday night and it was the last time I ate until Thursday. Meanwhile, I was still feeling not so stellar, and my stomach hurt everytime I moved, walked, went over a bump in the cab, etc. Great.
And then school started. I barley slept the night before because the room was really warm and every time I tried to move, I would wake up in pain and not be able to sleep for the next three hours. Of course my first day I had three classes starting at 9, and I'm not so sure how I even made it through the day. It hurt to walk, to sit, anytime I had a cramp, I couldn't even keep walking. So by the end of classes, I was back in bed for the day. I managed to do my homework. I guess the silver lining is that getting incredibly sick this week was good, because we learned the alphabet and didn't have a pile of homework yet.
Monday was much the same. Miserable, painful, more forcing myself to go to class. I couldn't eat anything, nor did I feel like eating anything, so water and Gatorade became my best friend. I went to the doctor cause I didn't want to die of some funky Egyptian disease. So my thing is when I'm sick, especially when I'm sick over five thousand miles away, I cry. So I started crying to this little lady doctor, and she tells me to stop crying. Now I'm scared and scared to cry and I'm trying to tell her what's wrong. She says, oh this is common, don't worry, but come back tomorrow if you're still feeling not good or you think your getting worse. So guess who had to go back the next day. Now, she decides that she wants to run tests to see what's really going on. Except the tests are an hour bus ride away downtown in Zamalak. So I drag myself to the bus and try to curl up on a seat so my stomach doesn't die on this very very bumpy ride downtown. So I get there and venture to the lab, which is thankfully pretty close to the Zamalak dorms. Except at this lab, the techs are two older Egyptian men and here I am giving them very personal information and samples of things you would rather not give to older Egyptian men you don't even know, or even communicate with. No shame anymore I guess. Now, the thing about the bus to and from campus is that it doesn't run every hour. So now that its about 130 and I've done my thing and the only thing I want to do now is to go lay down in bed because that's the only thing that makes me feel remotely pain-free is impossible. Because the next bus back to school isn't until 630. So I have quite a few hours to kill. I read a book I bought and tried to sleep in the middle of the dorm lobby (no shame, remember? :I went out with Jess and Tim until my bus, because Jess had to go to campus too. So I finally got back around quarter of 8, did my thankfully minimal homework, and tried to sleep. Tried because I couldn't stay asleep for more than a few hours at a wack, thanks to my awesome feel-like-I'm-hemorrhaging stomach.
Now these test results. I had to pick them up. And of course they weren't ready by the time I left, so I had to do the same thing on Wednesday. Back to Zamalak for hours I went and did much the same. Sit, sleep, feel miserable. But I did eat half a bagel. Improvement! This time, the 630 bus was delayed. For at least a half hour. Just what I needed. Typical Egypt. So we left at 7 and got back a little after 8. And I did homework and went to bed for a few scattered hours of sleep.
Thursday. I woke up and for the first time I actually felt marginally better. Still not great, but the cramps/hemorrhaging as I'd taken to referring to it in my head was actually almost manageable. I was still a slave to Gatorade, but I actually ate a whole bagel...with cream cheese. Made my day, since it was the first thing I was able to eat since Saturday. I was able to get things done, including dropping my test results off to lady doc. She looked at them, and said that I was right to cry that first day. Didn't help much, since I was dry eyed and almost happy at that point. We're not sure what I ate but I had a wicked bad case of food poisoning and she is giving me these strong meds next week to make sure its gone. And then I get to go back to the lab to have more tests done to make sure its really gone. So adventure part who knows next week. Maybe I wont have to spend 7 hours in Zamalak in-between, but at least I feel better so it won't be as bad.
So this was my week. Except that wasn't exactly all that was going on. On Sunday, I found out I had a hold on my account, and my internet didn't work, my ID didn't get me into campus or the library, and my email didn't work, all because of this hold. And this hold was due to the school giving me the wrong registration number and they registered me wrong. I had been giving a different number this summer, and when I used it, they said it was wrong and I explained that this was my new number, but they didn't believe me and went ahead and used the wrong number anyways. So I had to add a new class and drop some that I wasn't signed up for, but I couldn't do that until my hold was lifted. And since I was wasting away having tests done and feeling like death everyday, I couldn't really do anything about fixing it. But I did manage to get some of it settled yesterday. I got my new ID, after being sent to four different buildings on opposite sides of campus in the 96 degree heat, in jeans, each saying go somewhere else, of course. The IDs had to be activated separately, so I asked where I could go to get mine done. The guy said it was already taken care of so I was pretty excited. Until I got to my dorm and it didn't work. So I guess its not activated after all. And I can't get it activated until at least Monday because its the end of Ramadan today and everything is closed Thursday-Sunday.
So that in a semi nutshell was my first week of school. In Egypt. I guess my disillusioned hope that it would change if I was all happy at the beginning didn't work. As some wise not so old soul told me, learning to cope makes you stronger. So I hope I'm stronger. But all I have to say is that if the four bug bites on my leg turn out to be West Nile, shit is going to hit the fan.
Stay healthy! (and send me a miracle, I could use one..or a wish if I want to be cliche and quote songs :)
The last few days before school were actually great. There was an ALI orientation that everybody in the program had to go to. ALI is the Arabic Language Institute, and its all Arabic classes and its designed to teach you Arabic as quickly as possible. Its pretty intense. So we had that, and we got our schedules; I have three Modern Standard Arabic classes, and two electives, which are listening and trying to pick out the letter the professor says, which is still slightly non-easy, and Readings in the Quran, where we discuss the readings and talk about it. They also discussed trips that the program sponsors throughout Egypt, so hopefully I'll get to do some cool traveling. That ended early, so a group of us went downtown to a party that some off campus AUC people had. There are a surprising number of military academy students here for a semester; these guys were from West Point and the school had paid for their apartment. It was pretty awesome. It was in Zamalak and had a balcony with a view of something other than sand. Impressive for the desert. We got home around 430 and watched the sunrise basically. It was a fun night.
Then hell started. I woke up feeling pretty miserable. And no, it was not a hangover. At first, it was pretty managable, the stomach cramps and nausea. I even made myself venture out with friends for the night. We went to Khan al Khalili again which was a good time until sketchy mcsketch 40 year old Egyptian male decided to follow me around and continuously grab my ass. It was dirty and I wanted to smack the bastard, but still undecided if that's the best idea. I think next time it may happen. We went to this awesome Hibachi restaurant after. It was literally on the Nile, like a boat. It was really good. It was Saturday night and it was the last time I ate until Thursday. Meanwhile, I was still feeling not so stellar, and my stomach hurt everytime I moved, walked, went over a bump in the cab, etc. Great.
And then school started. I barley slept the night before because the room was really warm and every time I tried to move, I would wake up in pain and not be able to sleep for the next three hours. Of course my first day I had three classes starting at 9, and I'm not so sure how I even made it through the day. It hurt to walk, to sit, anytime I had a cramp, I couldn't even keep walking. So by the end of classes, I was back in bed for the day. I managed to do my homework. I guess the silver lining is that getting incredibly sick this week was good, because we learned the alphabet and didn't have a pile of homework yet.
Monday was much the same. Miserable, painful, more forcing myself to go to class. I couldn't eat anything, nor did I feel like eating anything, so water and Gatorade became my best friend. I went to the doctor cause I didn't want to die of some funky Egyptian disease. So my thing is when I'm sick, especially when I'm sick over five thousand miles away, I cry. So I started crying to this little lady doctor, and she tells me to stop crying. Now I'm scared and scared to cry and I'm trying to tell her what's wrong. She says, oh this is common, don't worry, but come back tomorrow if you're still feeling not good or you think your getting worse. So guess who had to go back the next day. Now, she decides that she wants to run tests to see what's really going on. Except the tests are an hour bus ride away downtown in Zamalak. So I drag myself to the bus and try to curl up on a seat so my stomach doesn't die on this very very bumpy ride downtown. So I get there and venture to the lab, which is thankfully pretty close to the Zamalak dorms. Except at this lab, the techs are two older Egyptian men and here I am giving them very personal information and samples of things you would rather not give to older Egyptian men you don't even know, or even communicate with. No shame anymore I guess. Now, the thing about the bus to and from campus is that it doesn't run every hour. So now that its about 130 and I've done my thing and the only thing I want to do now is to go lay down in bed because that's the only thing that makes me feel remotely pain-free is impossible. Because the next bus back to school isn't until 630. So I have quite a few hours to kill. I read a book I bought and tried to sleep in the middle of the dorm lobby (no shame, remember? :I went out with Jess and Tim until my bus, because Jess had to go to campus too. So I finally got back around quarter of 8, did my thankfully minimal homework, and tried to sleep. Tried because I couldn't stay asleep for more than a few hours at a wack, thanks to my awesome feel-like-I'm-hemorrhaging stomach.
Now these test results. I had to pick them up. And of course they weren't ready by the time I left, so I had to do the same thing on Wednesday. Back to Zamalak for hours I went and did much the same. Sit, sleep, feel miserable. But I did eat half a bagel. Improvement! This time, the 630 bus was delayed. For at least a half hour. Just what I needed. Typical Egypt. So we left at 7 and got back a little after 8. And I did homework and went to bed for a few scattered hours of sleep.
Thursday. I woke up and for the first time I actually felt marginally better. Still not great, but the cramps/hemorrhaging as I'd taken to referring to it in my head was actually almost manageable. I was still a slave to Gatorade, but I actually ate a whole bagel...with cream cheese. Made my day, since it was the first thing I was able to eat since Saturday. I was able to get things done, including dropping my test results off to lady doc. She looked at them, and said that I was right to cry that first day. Didn't help much, since I was dry eyed and almost happy at that point. We're not sure what I ate but I had a wicked bad case of food poisoning and she is giving me these strong meds next week to make sure its gone. And then I get to go back to the lab to have more tests done to make sure its really gone. So adventure part who knows next week. Maybe I wont have to spend 7 hours in Zamalak in-between, but at least I feel better so it won't be as bad.
So this was my week. Except that wasn't exactly all that was going on. On Sunday, I found out I had a hold on my account, and my internet didn't work, my ID didn't get me into campus or the library, and my email didn't work, all because of this hold. And this hold was due to the school giving me the wrong registration number and they registered me wrong. I had been giving a different number this summer, and when I used it, they said it was wrong and I explained that this was my new number, but they didn't believe me and went ahead and used the wrong number anyways. So I had to add a new class and drop some that I wasn't signed up for, but I couldn't do that until my hold was lifted. And since I was wasting away having tests done and feeling like death everyday, I couldn't really do anything about fixing it. But I did manage to get some of it settled yesterday. I got my new ID, after being sent to four different buildings on opposite sides of campus in the 96 degree heat, in jeans, each saying go somewhere else, of course. The IDs had to be activated separately, so I asked where I could go to get mine done. The guy said it was already taken care of so I was pretty excited. Until I got to my dorm and it didn't work. So I guess its not activated after all. And I can't get it activated until at least Monday because its the end of Ramadan today and everything is closed Thursday-Sunday.
So that in a semi nutshell was my first week of school. In Egypt. I guess my disillusioned hope that it would change if I was all happy at the beginning didn't work. As some wise not so old soul told me, learning to cope makes you stronger. So I hope I'm stronger. But all I have to say is that if the four bug bites on my leg turn out to be West Nile, shit is going to hit the fan.
Stay healthy! (and send me a miracle, I could use one..or a wish if I want to be cliche and quote songs :)
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Hey Magic Eyes, How Many Hearts Do You Break?
I have a feeling that after Sunday, venturing around Egypt and subsequently getting into ridiculous situations are going to decrease exponentially...nobody is going to care how much time I spend in the library trying to make heads or tails of Arabic. But until then!
Monday was quite the day. Two friends and I went to al Maadi, which is a pretty Americanized/Westernized area. Its quieter and greener, and therefore not as hot as downtown Cairo is. My friend Hibar had been to Cairo before, and he knew a taxi driver from his previous trips so we took a ride. If you can get to know a cab driver in Cairo, you keep him. Mohammand Osama is a pretty cool dude; he takes us wherever we want, teaches us Arabic and puts up with a cabful of crazy Americans at all hours of the day. So we drove around Maddi for a bit, then drove past the Citadel. Its an old fortress thing that overlooks part of the city. It was built to protect the people from Crusaders. We didn't go in, but got a few blurry pictures from the highway. Enclosed is also a Mosque. In the year that I'm here, I'm sure Ill make my way to actually see it, especially since its its on the Top 10 Things To Do In Cairo list. We then went to Khan al Khalili (pronounced han al halili) which is a big outdoor bazaar. It was incredible. It was more like a giant maze with stuff everywhere. There were hookahs, dresses and clothes, typical touristy things like scarabs and mini pyramids and papyrus and spices. We didn't stay too long, so we're obviously going to come back. Osama came with us and haggled with the owners so we didn't pay the tourist prices and taught us Arabic so we could try to talk to them. I had my sunglasses on for most of the time we were there, but as we went into one area, the sun was low and I took them off. Out of nowhere, 3 guys swarmed and started calling me Magic Eyes, and one guy said I broke his heart, and another asked how many hearts I break. I was confused, but Osama said it was because of the color of my eyes. So, uh, hey Magic Eyes!
We went back to school for a bit, then headed out to Zamalak for the night. Zamalak is an basically an island in the Nile where the other dorm of AUC are. We met up with my friend Jess from home, and a bunch of us went to this rooftop bar. It was on top of a semi-sketch Korean hotel, but the rooftop was nice and breezy and overlooked the Nile. I had what I think was Egyptian wine, but if it wasn't it was still good. We hung out, got some shisha and of course closed the place down. We got home at 330 and got gross late night food. Typical.
Tuesday another group of us headed back to the Zamalak area, and this time went to the Cairo Tower. Its the tallest building in Cairo, and we were able to go to the top of it around sunset. You could see the whole Cairo area, and through the heavy heavy smog that is forever present, were able to see the tops of the pyramids. (I got a blurry and bad picture that will of course make its way to facebook) We watched the sunset then ventured out to find Abu el Sid, our restaurant of the night. After almost being hit by a few cars and witnessing a collision, we finally found it. It was this big dark building and it was mostly typical Egyptian food. Our group ordered a ton of food, of course, from lamb meatballs to stuffed grape leaves and falafel. We had some interesting main courses, including duck, rabbit, and pigeon. And yes, I did try pigeon. It was small and stringy. I don't anticipate ordering it as a meal anytime soon. On our way home, we hoped in a cab and only one from our group could speak passing Arabic so you can imagine how that was. Our driver didn't know where our campus was in New Cairo , just the general direction, so he agreed to take us if we sort of helped him out with directions. As I'm slightly directionally challenged, I didn't pay much attention to driving (its defiantly better that way anyways) until all of a sudden we go from driving 85 miles an hour between two big rigs to honking and flashing lights at the cab ahead of us and trying to catch up to him. Now we are cruising down the highway chasing another cabbie for reasons unknown to us. We reach him, role the windows down, both cabs slow down to about 25 miles an hour, still between two big rigs. Our driver proceeds to lean across the console and shout for directions from the guy in the other cab. We somehow made it back to campus alive.
Today we went to the Egyptian Museum, but first proceeded to miss the free bus that would take us there. So roomie and I hoped in the first safe cab we happened to see and tried to tell the driver who spoke no English were to go. Through bad cell phone connections and very butchered Arabic on our part, we made it to Tahrir Square in record time. Cameras were not allowed and they wanted us to leave them in a 'safe' area, which seemed a little shady, so we smuggled our cameras in..in our pants. And maybe took a few pictures (without the flash of course!) This museum is very big and very not air conditioned. They have thousands of things from thousands of pyramids throughout Egypt. It was amazing how many artifacts there was. It seemed slightly disorganized and was more of a free for all in the sense that there was no order to follow and not many labels for things so we drifted and did our (semi illegal) thing. They have eleven or twelve royal mummies that they charge you to go see, so we paid and saw the faces of Rames and Seti and a few other famous mummies unwrapped. They also had mummied cows and horses and alligators. I'm not sure how mummied alligator helps you pass into the afterlife, but hey, if it works. Oh, and I saw the for real mask of King Tut. It weights almost twenty five pounds and it rivals the Crown Jewels in worth. It was a good time.
We took the train back to Maadi for dinner. The train has separate cars for men and women, which was interesting. The male car looked like a typical subway would at home-jam packed. At least the female car wasn't like that; there was room to breath at least. It is also only a pound to ride, which is about 18 cents. Iowa (the phonetic spelling of Yeah) Anyways, we went to this seemingly cute Asian restaurant. We ordered our food, got it and started to eat. You already know that this isn't going to end well, right? So I was mowing down some chicken Marsala/curry dish, which was quite delightful, until my fork pulled out something black. Something that had six legs and antennae. And took up at least the length of my fork. Yep, nice little big bug in there. I legitimately almost puked. The waiter took it away as I was trying to figure out if I should laugh, cry or puke. I settled on a weird combination of the first two. The manager came over, apologized to my friend, whom he knew, then asked if I put the bug in there myself. Obviously this guy doesn't know me at all, because the size of this bug is something that if I saw on the street, I would scream and or freak out. We left very quickly after that.
So I guess I've been in Egypt for a week now. I've seen and done quite a bit, and have somehow managed to not have my schedule for classes. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow. If not, well, we're going to the pyramids on Friday so it will have to wait. Just kidding. But really. I hope life stays this entertaining for the next foreseeable future, but who knows. Until then, I'll just have to keep breaking hearts....
Monday was quite the day. Two friends and I went to al Maadi, which is a pretty Americanized/Westernized area. Its quieter and greener, and therefore not as hot as downtown Cairo is. My friend Hibar had been to Cairo before, and he knew a taxi driver from his previous trips so we took a ride. If you can get to know a cab driver in Cairo, you keep him. Mohammand Osama is a pretty cool dude; he takes us wherever we want, teaches us Arabic and puts up with a cabful of crazy Americans at all hours of the day. So we drove around Maddi for a bit, then drove past the Citadel. Its an old fortress thing that overlooks part of the city. It was built to protect the people from Crusaders. We didn't go in, but got a few blurry pictures from the highway. Enclosed is also a Mosque. In the year that I'm here, I'm sure Ill make my way to actually see it, especially since its its on the Top 10 Things To Do In Cairo list. We then went to Khan al Khalili (pronounced han al halili) which is a big outdoor bazaar. It was incredible. It was more like a giant maze with stuff everywhere. There were hookahs, dresses and clothes, typical touristy things like scarabs and mini pyramids and papyrus and spices. We didn't stay too long, so we're obviously going to come back. Osama came with us and haggled with the owners so we didn't pay the tourist prices and taught us Arabic so we could try to talk to them. I had my sunglasses on for most of the time we were there, but as we went into one area, the sun was low and I took them off. Out of nowhere, 3 guys swarmed and started calling me Magic Eyes, and one guy said I broke his heart, and another asked how many hearts I break. I was confused, but Osama said it was because of the color of my eyes. So, uh, hey Magic Eyes!
We went back to school for a bit, then headed out to Zamalak for the night. Zamalak is an basically an island in the Nile where the other dorm of AUC are. We met up with my friend Jess from home, and a bunch of us went to this rooftop bar. It was on top of a semi-sketch Korean hotel, but the rooftop was nice and breezy and overlooked the Nile. I had what I think was Egyptian wine, but if it wasn't it was still good. We hung out, got some shisha and of course closed the place down. We got home at 330 and got gross late night food. Typical.
Tuesday another group of us headed back to the Zamalak area, and this time went to the Cairo Tower. Its the tallest building in Cairo, and we were able to go to the top of it around sunset. You could see the whole Cairo area, and through the heavy heavy smog that is forever present, were able to see the tops of the pyramids. (I got a blurry and bad picture that will of course make its way to facebook) We watched the sunset then ventured out to find Abu el Sid, our restaurant of the night. After almost being hit by a few cars and witnessing a collision, we finally found it. It was this big dark building and it was mostly typical Egyptian food. Our group ordered a ton of food, of course, from lamb meatballs to stuffed grape leaves and falafel. We had some interesting main courses, including duck, rabbit, and pigeon. And yes, I did try pigeon. It was small and stringy. I don't anticipate ordering it as a meal anytime soon. On our way home, we hoped in a cab and only one from our group could speak passing Arabic so you can imagine how that was. Our driver didn't know where our campus was in New Cairo , just the general direction, so he agreed to take us if we sort of helped him out with directions. As I'm slightly directionally challenged, I didn't pay much attention to driving (its defiantly better that way anyways) until all of a sudden we go from driving 85 miles an hour between two big rigs to honking and flashing lights at the cab ahead of us and trying to catch up to him. Now we are cruising down the highway chasing another cabbie for reasons unknown to us. We reach him, role the windows down, both cabs slow down to about 25 miles an hour, still between two big rigs. Our driver proceeds to lean across the console and shout for directions from the guy in the other cab. We somehow made it back to campus alive.
Today we went to the Egyptian Museum, but first proceeded to miss the free bus that would take us there. So roomie and I hoped in the first safe cab we happened to see and tried to tell the driver who spoke no English were to go. Through bad cell phone connections and very butchered Arabic on our part, we made it to Tahrir Square in record time. Cameras were not allowed and they wanted us to leave them in a 'safe' area, which seemed a little shady, so we smuggled our cameras in..in our pants. And maybe took a few pictures (without the flash of course!) This museum is very big and very not air conditioned. They have thousands of things from thousands of pyramids throughout Egypt. It was amazing how many artifacts there was. It seemed slightly disorganized and was more of a free for all in the sense that there was no order to follow and not many labels for things so we drifted and did our (semi illegal) thing. They have eleven or twelve royal mummies that they charge you to go see, so we paid and saw the faces of Rames and Seti and a few other famous mummies unwrapped. They also had mummied cows and horses and alligators. I'm not sure how mummied alligator helps you pass into the afterlife, but hey, if it works. Oh, and I saw the for real mask of King Tut. It weights almost twenty five pounds and it rivals the Crown Jewels in worth. It was a good time.
We took the train back to Maadi for dinner. The train has separate cars for men and women, which was interesting. The male car looked like a typical subway would at home-jam packed. At least the female car wasn't like that; there was room to breath at least. It is also only a pound to ride, which is about 18 cents. Iowa (the phonetic spelling of Yeah) Anyways, we went to this seemingly cute Asian restaurant. We ordered our food, got it and started to eat. You already know that this isn't going to end well, right? So I was mowing down some chicken Marsala/curry dish, which was quite delightful, until my fork pulled out something black. Something that had six legs and antennae. And took up at least the length of my fork. Yep, nice little big bug in there. I legitimately almost puked. The waiter took it away as I was trying to figure out if I should laugh, cry or puke. I settled on a weird combination of the first two. The manager came over, apologized to my friend, whom he knew, then asked if I put the bug in there myself. Obviously this guy doesn't know me at all, because the size of this bug is something that if I saw on the street, I would scream and or freak out. We left very quickly after that.
So I guess I've been in Egypt for a week now. I've seen and done quite a bit, and have somehow managed to not have my schedule for classes. Hopefully I'll get it tomorrow. If not, well, we're going to the pyramids on Friday so it will have to wait. Just kidding. But really. I hope life stays this entertaining for the next foreseeable future, but who knows. Until then, I'll just have to keep breaking hearts....
Saturday, August 28, 2010
They Try To Make Me Go To Rehab I Say....Yes?
Hi, my name is Kristen Belle-Isle and I went to Rehab tonight. Obviously, rehab's don't exist in Egypt because Muslims don't drink..or at least they are not supposed to drink. Anyways, we went to do random errands to this place which is about ten minutes away. Rehab (pronouced Ra-haab (think of Saab when you say the 'a's)) is a pretty bustlin place at night. Since its Ramadan, everything closes around 4 and opens again after sunset, but the places will say open until 3 or 4 in the mornings if they're social places. Shisha is very popular and you can find it anywhere and at any time. We have yet to do it but some of my friends went last night in downtown Cairo and they had a blast. This trip was a quick one, just to exchange money, get cell phones and Sim cards and grocery's. The exchange rate is pretty great if your American, and things are pretty inexpensive for us. But if your Egyptian, they are very expensive. I spent almost 200 pounds tonight on food and laundry detergent and water which is only around 35 dollars. But enough about that, lets talk shawarmas. First of all, they are delicious if they are done right. The ones on campus, not so much, and they are ridiculously overpriced. How typical of a school to not only make them less than desirable, but to make them dumbly expensive. These were from a little restaurant in Rehab that most would consider sketchy, and I'm pretty sure if there were Food and Safety Regulations, they would have some pretty serious fines. But whatever. So if you want a shawarma, you can get either chicken or beef and a huge chunk of meat are cooked on this big spit open flame thing and then the meat is shaved off and onions and peppers and unfortunately tomatoes are added to that and then simmers some more. Then, you can have it either on pita bread or a grinder role and they put some hummus on it and volia. Most people get the beef in pita, which is what we got tonight. It was quite delightful.
As always, what kind of post would it be if I didn't mention the driving. Let's just say it takes some getting used to. Okay, a lot of getting used to. But here's the deal. If you want to get to Rehab, there are two ways. There's the right why, which takes longer. Who wants to do that? Duh. And there's the way that is seemingly acceptable. And it involves driving down the wrong side of the street playing chicken with the drivers coming head on at you, usually at 40 miles an hour. We of course went that way both ways, and we went head to head with a nice large dump truck. Since he was obvioulsy in our way, we honked the whole way down the street. I think when I go home, I'm going to employ Egyptian driving tactics and see where it gets me....
There are a ton of things to do at night and the school has made traveling relatively easy for us, which has been very helpful. Last night, a crew went on a fallucca ride down the Nile. A fallucca is a boat that sits about 20ish people and you just cruse around the Nile. Anthony Boudain on the Travel Channel went on one when we did his show on Egypt. So it follows that I'm just as awesome as Anthony Bourdain. My TV show will be starting next month. The bus ride to downtown was longer than the fallucca, but of course, it was quite entertaining, especially when our driver got mad at the person next to us and started cursing the guy out through the window. Obviously we had no idea what he was saying, but since Arabic sounds like your permanently pissed off anyways, it was pretty impressive.
It's been a pretty hectic few days, but things are starting to settle down just a little. We are starting to adjust to the crazy time changes, which means staying up until 2 or 3 and sleeping until noon. Yeah, I know, I don't even do that at home, but I'm going to chalk it up to the sun and that most young Egyptians try to stay intside during the hottest part of the day. And its ridiculously hot. I'm going to freeze my ass off in December. And probably miss the sand, or rabal (which is how you say sand in Arabic, phonetically spelled of course). My phone finally works. I will put the number up, and calling and texting is okay, and it won't charge your phone which means it charges mine. So yeah, I'm basically saying call minimally, and get your ass on skype. Feel free to text me on my birthday though. Or come for a big ol celebration here. Just kidding! 0107210939.
Just for a clarification on my last post, Muslims wash the right side because it is the good side.
Anyways, I'm about to crawl into my sadly uncomfortable bed that resembles sleeping more on a table then a bed. Someone want to get me a chiropractor for when I come home? It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Goodnight from 5,608 miles away :)
As always, what kind of post would it be if I didn't mention the driving. Let's just say it takes some getting used to. Okay, a lot of getting used to. But here's the deal. If you want to get to Rehab, there are two ways. There's the right why, which takes longer. Who wants to do that? Duh. And there's the way that is seemingly acceptable. And it involves driving down the wrong side of the street playing chicken with the drivers coming head on at you, usually at 40 miles an hour. We of course went that way both ways, and we went head to head with a nice large dump truck. Since he was obvioulsy in our way, we honked the whole way down the street. I think when I go home, I'm going to employ Egyptian driving tactics and see where it gets me....
There are a ton of things to do at night and the school has made traveling relatively easy for us, which has been very helpful. Last night, a crew went on a fallucca ride down the Nile. A fallucca is a boat that sits about 20ish people and you just cruse around the Nile. Anthony Boudain on the Travel Channel went on one when we did his show on Egypt. So it follows that I'm just as awesome as Anthony Bourdain. My TV show will be starting next month. The bus ride to downtown was longer than the fallucca, but of course, it was quite entertaining, especially when our driver got mad at the person next to us and started cursing the guy out through the window. Obviously we had no idea what he was saying, but since Arabic sounds like your permanently pissed off anyways, it was pretty impressive.
It's been a pretty hectic few days, but things are starting to settle down just a little. We are starting to adjust to the crazy time changes, which means staying up until 2 or 3 and sleeping until noon. Yeah, I know, I don't even do that at home, but I'm going to chalk it up to the sun and that most young Egyptians try to stay intside during the hottest part of the day. And its ridiculously hot. I'm going to freeze my ass off in December. And probably miss the sand, or rabal (which is how you say sand in Arabic, phonetically spelled of course). My phone finally works. I will put the number up, and calling and texting is okay, and it won't charge your phone which means it charges mine. So yeah, I'm basically saying call minimally, and get your ass on skype. Feel free to text me on my birthday though. Or come for a big ol celebration here. Just kidding! 0107210939.
Just for a clarification on my last post, Muslims wash the right side because it is the good side.
Anyways, I'm about to crawl into my sadly uncomfortable bed that resembles sleeping more on a table then a bed. Someone want to get me a chiropractor for when I come home? It'd be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Goodnight from 5,608 miles away :)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Your Daily Ramadan Tidbit
Here's a random thought. Ramadan is the holiest month for Muslims, in which they fast from sunup to sundown and pray more than usual. So its Ramadan right now, it will end September 11th (just a little weird?) but during this month, you change the time. So normally Egypt is 7 hours ahead of the East Coast, but right now its only 6 hours. So its 730 at home, and normally it would be 230am but since its Ramadan its only 130am. Talk about really messing you up. Good night!
A Humanitarian Trip to Egypt...
I have to say that I had a grand plan of what I wanted to say in my first ever blog from Egypt...but instead I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to post a new entry because the website thought it would be helpful and only have the website in Arabic. So I opened every link until I got the right one. Just had to get that out there. On to the more interesting things.
My trip began at Logan, where we arrived three and half hours before my flight which ended up being delayed. As anybody who remotely knows me, I do not know how to pack; I had to take almost everything which ended up in my bags weighing a ridiculous amount. So we were anticipating having to pay overweight baggage fees. So I went to check in and this very nice man named Dexter starts talking to us and asking me where I was going and why. We're chatting away and my bags are weighted. Yeah, my two bags are very very overweight. So Dexter looks and me and says, "You are going on a humanitarian trip to Egypt, right? And the scale did say 50 pounds, correct?" I agreed, and he continued to check me in and I (well, my parents) saved three hundred dollars in baggage fees. Looks like I can't buy anything in Egypt....yeah right. I had known that there were many delays so I wasn't surprised to sit around and then sit on the runway for about an hour before we were finally able to leave at 8pm. I was hanging out in my seat unobtrusively waiting to get off when hottie two rows up stood up. And turned around. And ended up being Sammy Adams. I got to see my famous person.
My flight to Cairo didn't leave until midnight so I was able to experience the joys of hanging around an airport. The flight was pretty boring except the few things I will mention here:
1. Nice, Italy, Greece and Corsica look awesome from 37,000 feet
2. If your going to the Middle East, the on flight navigation follower thingy will tell you which direction Mecca is and how far it is
3. The girl I sat next too was going to AUC too and she had diabetes (Tit, this is absolutely for you)
5. Lower Egypt is wicked green. Until its not. Then its just sand, and a lot of it.
It turns out that there were about 30-40 AUC people on my flight so we all convened and chatted as we went through customs and got our bags. I walked into the lobby of the airport to find the driver and immediately 6 guys surrounded me like bees asking where I was going and if they could help. I was saved by a nice guy named Mr. Muhammad who arranges trips and tours for college groups and people Dr. Phil sends to Cairo. Seriously, I saw a picture of them together too. I was grabbed by some older male within five minutes. I turned around and was about to say something but I didn't. I don't think that would have gone over well at all. We finally left the airport, and experienced Cairo driving-no stoplights, no traffic lights and while there are lanes but they might as well not be. If you want to let a car know you are behind them, honk. If you want them to move, honk. If you are changing lanes, honk. If your trying to say hi, honk. It makes New York driving look tame.
We finally got to AUC, which is legitimately in the middle of the desert. Don't laugh, I know Egypt is all desert and I shouldn't be shocked, but there is nothing but construction and sand for miles and miles. The campus itself is wicked awesome. Karma is truly a bitch because Miss-Can't-Pack-and-Has-Overweight-Bags ended up on the third floor of the furthest dorm. Obviously. My dorm isn't really a dorm, more of what my roommate and I are calling a palace. Its a three story structure and its all outside and open. I have a short hallway and I walk outside onto a terrace and its the same on every floor. There's wicker chairs and tables and umbrellas so we can sit outside wherever and its all within our unit. Its very fun. The rooms are legit and not that small and air conditioned because holy hell its hot. It would be nice because the humidity isn't all bad but everybody wears long sleeves and pants and stuff. It's manageable at school but its insane if you go downtown. Cairo is the most polluted city in the world and its very dirty (and it goes without saying sandy). We were walking along the Nile tonight (its 426 at home and 1126 at night here) and there was this god awful smell and right on the side of the road was a dead cat....or dog. A dead animal and it had clearly been there for a while. Very unpleasant. There are also mountains of trash and other 'things' everywhere. Nobody will say its clean but it is undeniably cool.
Anyways, we went on a tour..well many tours. We went to Old Cairo which is home to the oldest Christian church, Jewish temple and Muslim mosque in the same area. We went to a normal Christian church and a Coptic Christian church, which is Egyptian Orthodox. Many of the icons were from the 6th and 7th century. Truly amazing. We also went to St. Sergio's which is were Mary and Jesus hid from persecution while they were in Egypt. The actual crypt where they hid is not open to the public but we were able to see the entrance. The church opens it every Sunday and only to Bishops and the like so they are able to pray. We went to the oldest mosque in Africa which was huge! We were told to take off our shoes and all the girls were given robes which covered our arms and heads and since it wasn't prayer time, we were able to walk around with the men in our group. If it had been prayer time, we would have been able to go into the woman's section only. The mosque was preparing for juma, which is the big Friday prayer, during which there will be a 40-50 minute lecture and prayer. Its hard to find a spot on Fridays. When Muslim prays, they first wash their face, rise their mouths, and wash their hands and feet, always the left first because it is the impure side. It was very interesting.
One of the most unsettling things I saw today was when we first got off the bus in Old Cairo. We were all standing in the street and there were two people fighting. It was a man hitting a women. We were all shocked but we didn't know what to do except stand there. Obviously that doesn't happen noticeably in the streets at home, but here its accept as a norm. I have a feeling there are going to be many more incidents that occur that will shock me,but this was the first.
Anyways, its late, we're hungry so were going back to the only place that's open 24/7 on campus right now, a Cafe Tabasco. Its alright. Eh. I haven't eaten pigeon yet. But I did get mashed potatoes unexpectedly last night. Well see. See ya later gater (didn't see one of those either...yet :)
My trip began at Logan, where we arrived three and half hours before my flight which ended up being delayed. As anybody who remotely knows me, I do not know how to pack; I had to take almost everything which ended up in my bags weighing a ridiculous amount. So we were anticipating having to pay overweight baggage fees. So I went to check in and this very nice man named Dexter starts talking to us and asking me where I was going and why. We're chatting away and my bags are weighted. Yeah, my two bags are very very overweight. So Dexter looks and me and says, "You are going on a humanitarian trip to Egypt, right? And the scale did say 50 pounds, correct?" I agreed, and he continued to check me in and I (well, my parents) saved three hundred dollars in baggage fees. Looks like I can't buy anything in Egypt....yeah right. I had known that there were many delays so I wasn't surprised to sit around and then sit on the runway for about an hour before we were finally able to leave at 8pm. I was hanging out in my seat unobtrusively waiting to get off when hottie two rows up stood up. And turned around. And ended up being Sammy Adams. I got to see my famous person.
My flight to Cairo didn't leave until midnight so I was able to experience the joys of hanging around an airport. The flight was pretty boring except the few things I will mention here:
1. Nice, Italy, Greece and Corsica look awesome from 37,000 feet
2. If your going to the Middle East, the on flight navigation follower thingy will tell you which direction Mecca is and how far it is
3. The girl I sat next too was going to AUC too and she had diabetes (Tit, this is absolutely for you)
5. Lower Egypt is wicked green. Until its not. Then its just sand, and a lot of it.
It turns out that there were about 30-40 AUC people on my flight so we all convened and chatted as we went through customs and got our bags. I walked into the lobby of the airport to find the driver and immediately 6 guys surrounded me like bees asking where I was going and if they could help. I was saved by a nice guy named Mr. Muhammad who arranges trips and tours for college groups and people Dr. Phil sends to Cairo. Seriously, I saw a picture of them together too. I was grabbed by some older male within five minutes. I turned around and was about to say something but I didn't. I don't think that would have gone over well at all. We finally left the airport, and experienced Cairo driving-no stoplights, no traffic lights and while there are lanes but they might as well not be. If you want to let a car know you are behind them, honk. If you want them to move, honk. If you are changing lanes, honk. If your trying to say hi, honk. It makes New York driving look tame.
We finally got to AUC, which is legitimately in the middle of the desert. Don't laugh, I know Egypt is all desert and I shouldn't be shocked, but there is nothing but construction and sand for miles and miles. The campus itself is wicked awesome. Karma is truly a bitch because Miss-Can't-Pack-and-Has-Overweight-Bags ended up on the third floor of the furthest dorm. Obviously. My dorm isn't really a dorm, more of what my roommate and I are calling a palace. Its a three story structure and its all outside and open. I have a short hallway and I walk outside onto a terrace and its the same on every floor. There's wicker chairs and tables and umbrellas so we can sit outside wherever and its all within our unit. Its very fun. The rooms are legit and not that small and air conditioned because holy hell its hot. It would be nice because the humidity isn't all bad but everybody wears long sleeves and pants and stuff. It's manageable at school but its insane if you go downtown. Cairo is the most polluted city in the world and its very dirty (and it goes without saying sandy). We were walking along the Nile tonight (its 426 at home and 1126 at night here) and there was this god awful smell and right on the side of the road was a dead cat....or dog. A dead animal and it had clearly been there for a while. Very unpleasant. There are also mountains of trash and other 'things' everywhere. Nobody will say its clean but it is undeniably cool.
Anyways, we went on a tour..well many tours. We went to Old Cairo which is home to the oldest Christian church, Jewish temple and Muslim mosque in the same area. We went to a normal Christian church and a Coptic Christian church, which is Egyptian Orthodox. Many of the icons were from the 6th and 7th century. Truly amazing. We also went to St. Sergio's which is were Mary and Jesus hid from persecution while they were in Egypt. The actual crypt where they hid is not open to the public but we were able to see the entrance. The church opens it every Sunday and only to Bishops and the like so they are able to pray. We went to the oldest mosque in Africa which was huge! We were told to take off our shoes and all the girls were given robes which covered our arms and heads and since it wasn't prayer time, we were able to walk around with the men in our group. If it had been prayer time, we would have been able to go into the woman's section only. The mosque was preparing for juma, which is the big Friday prayer, during which there will be a 40-50 minute lecture and prayer. Its hard to find a spot on Fridays. When Muslim prays, they first wash their face, rise their mouths, and wash their hands and feet, always the left first because it is the impure side. It was very interesting.
One of the most unsettling things I saw today was when we first got off the bus in Old Cairo. We were all standing in the street and there were two people fighting. It was a man hitting a women. We were all shocked but we didn't know what to do except stand there. Obviously that doesn't happen noticeably in the streets at home, but here its accept as a norm. I have a feeling there are going to be many more incidents that occur that will shock me,but this was the first.
Anyways, its late, we're hungry so were going back to the only place that's open 24/7 on campus right now, a Cafe Tabasco. Its alright. Eh. I haven't eaten pigeon yet. But I did get mashed potatoes unexpectedly last night. Well see. See ya later gater (didn't see one of those either...yet :)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
One Week
So, its official. In exactly one week I will be en route to Cairo, Egypt. Well, New York City first. I'm starting to believe everybody who told me I'm crazy and maybe I am. But at any rate, I'm about to journey 5,608 miles to one of the oldest civilizations in the world for a year and I have a feeling it is going to be one hell of a journey. So if you can't come and visit me, even though you all should (and this does constitute a good nine month advance) read this and you can pretend you're in Egypt too. Or Skype (kristen.belle.isle). Or something. Say hi. I'll try to be a good blogger and update this with tales of treasure hunting and pyramid tour guiding and my sad attempts at trying to blend into the Egyptian culture with pale skin and blue eyes. But, its official. In exactly one week I will be en route to Cairo, Egypt.
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