At the meetings in the dar, it was exciting to see familiar faces again. Ustaaza Radwa and Ustaaza Marwa, two past visiting professors from UT, were there and we were all ecstatic to see them. Ustaaza Radwa even brought a cake for on the Texas boys' whose birthday was yesterday.
After lunch, I had a scheduled interview to evaluate my skills in the Egyptian Colloquial dialect, but I had a free hour beforehand. As such, I tagged along with some of the year long students who had been to Alexandria before to find an ATM. As it turns out the only working ATM we could find (outside the Library of Alexandria) only worked for me. One guy forgot his pin number, one girl's debit card had expired, and the last guy's transaction failed. I felt lucky to have been able to withdraw smaller bills, but because the airport only gave out hundred pound notes. When I got back to the dar, the interview went fairly well, though I forgot the word for pyramids and didn't understand the word for expectations. Because we were all waiting around in the same place for the interviews though, we were able to make plans.
For dinner, most of the UT students went out to an amazing Egyptian restaurant with Ustaazatain Radwa and Marwa. In the summer especially, we have to be careful where we eat out because things spoil so quickly, but we felt safe with not one, but two natives guiding us. On the way to dinner Marwa drove some students to exchange money at the bank while the rest of us walked with Radwa. It was wonderful to explore the city. Everything is so beautiful in its own way. We also managed to break the biggest rule of the entire program, but I figure it's okay, because a professor told us to.
I've heard at least two dozen times in the past few months, "Never cross the corniche. NEVER!" The corniche is a giant highway that runs along the Mediterranean, separating the city from the beach. It's always full of traffic, and no one follows any laws. Somehow, they've turned three painted lanes into four and there's no speed limit. So if there's ever space for you to cross, there's probably someone speeding up to close it quickly. As far as I know, none of us had any intention of trying to cross the death trap. We've heard the stories, someone dies there every day. So you can imagine our surprise when Radwa led us to the corner and began to cross.
At first we freaked out. But as it turns out, the tunnels that run under the corniche and allow one to safely reach the other side end a certain length down the highway and we were at a part that was tunnel-less. So we followed Radwa's lead and crossed. I have to say, it was exhilarating. We were all smiling when we reached the other side. And because there are no intersecting streets on the beach side we reached the restaurant much more quickly.
Now that I've crossed the uncrossable corniche three times, I feel a bit unstoppable. Don't worry, I'll still be extra, extra careful anytime I cross a street, but it's nice to have some confidence.
Dinner was quite an affair. In Alexandria, one pound tends to equate to one dollar, by which I mean something you would pay a dollar for in America (like a bottle of water) you pay a pound for here. Thanks to the exchange rate though, everything is one fifth the American price. So we went to the equivalent of a five star restaurant. The atmosphere was fancy, the lighting low, every plate was about fifty pounds, and the food was amazing.
Because we're in Egypt, we wanted to try as many Egyptian things as possible. Several people got stuffed pigeon, others tried dishes I can't even begin to describe like Koshary and Corsican Chicken, and I think we all considered Mulukhia, but no one had the guts to order it. I ended up getting Fattah - Egyptian risotto with yogurt, onions, meat and some other stuff. And yes, by meat they mean meat. As in unidentified. It definitely wasn't chicken, and it definitely wasn't beef, and because it's Egypt it definitely wasn't pork. My best bet is that it was rabbit, though whatever it was it wasnt' bad.
After dinner, we asked Radwa to take us to her favorite place in Alexandria, and when she started walking we had no idea where we were headed. As it turns out, we walked the entire length of the corniche, which is long, and ended up at this castle like structure which I'd been eying since we arrived. It sits on a little outcropping, so you can see it from almost anywhere on the corniche, and it's surrounded by tables and chairs for people to sit in and enjoy the sea.
It hadn't realized before this what a social spot the corniche was. It looked like half the city had turned out to just hang out on the sidewalk for the evening. There were tons of people on dates, or hanging out with friends. Merchants sold corn, and cotton candy, and little knickknacks along the side of the road. When we got to the parts that were swimable there were massive crowds of men and boys in the water, splashing and playing, with the women sitting on the side watching and chatting. And of course every group of young guys we passed made comments. They were all fairly easy to ignore. In America, I don't even think I would have called it harassment. We even enjoyed the funnier ones.
Radwa bought us all ice cream at the castle, and we wandered around eating it. Aynur bought a kite from one of the merchants along the street and several of us started trying to fly it. Everyone failed, but we failed badly enough that one of the little boys selling kites came over to try and help us, and when he failed to his friends began to join in.
Before ten minutes had passed we had half a dozen little Egyptian boys running around us, jumping off ramparts and trying to fly this kite, which I will add usually ended up flying into us and going down with a crash. It was one of the most entertaining things I've ever seen, until an older man ruined it.
According to Radwa, people have started taking the public chairs alongside the castle and "claiming" them, so to speak, demanding that people pay to sit there despite having no right. One such man who had claimed the chairs near us realized that people were no longer sitting in his area, fearing they might get hit by the kite, and came over to yell at the kids. Thank goodness Radwa was there, because none of us had the language skill to deal with him. She yelled at him for a bit, reminding him it was public property, and he left us all alone, but we still left soon after.
By this time it was early evening, and most of us were quite tired from walking, so we took taxis back to the dorms. It only costs five pounds (one dollar) to go just about anywhere in the city, so it was certainly worth it. The Egyptian girls' curfew was two hours prior to when I returned, so the dorms were swarmed with people. I'm beginning to get used to it though. I've even started singing along with my roommate's ringtone.
I'm going to try to continue these posts on a daily basis, but I'm warning you now that I might miss one or two. I almost fell asleep already tonight, and that's hard with all that's going on in the dorms. I hope you're all doing well back in America. Just because I'm making these mass posts doesn't mean you can't E-mail me if you have something to say!
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