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 :)