Day 40: Party in the U.S.A.... in Egypt

It had become nearly impossible for me to wake up on time on exam days. It might just be because I stay up so late studying the night before, but this is the second exam day in a row that I've woken up too late to take a shower. I still made it to class on time, but I was not as fresh as I would have liked to be.

Regardless, the exam wasn't bad. I'm actually fairly confident about this one. Much more confident than I was about the last one at any rate.

In the early evening, I had a second Egyptian class to make up for the one we missed on Monday. The class was rescheduled so we could sleep in after getting back from Sinai. I'm starting to love Ustaaz Immad. He's very sweet, and he teaches us a lot of interesting things. Today's second class focused on the difference between every day expenses in Egypt versus in America. It was very useful. Then after class, he invited me out for tea tomorrow if I'm not busy. I'm going to the beach with Habiba in the morning, and I know Tamar wanted to go to the Jewish temple at some point. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to call Immad, but I'd like to utilize all my resources while here, and he's definitely an important one.

After class, I headed back to the dorms to get some work done, but later in the evening a bunch of us went out to Mermaid, the only American style bar in the city. It's all hard wood and nautically themed decorations and they play American music, by which I mean half the songs actually say America or U.S.A. in them. We listened to Miley Cyrus' Party in the U.S.A. at least three times. It was a lot of fun, just being able to dance and let loose, and it gave me a look at the less proper members of Egyptian society. None of my Egyptian friends would be caught dead within five feet of alcohol, and yet there were men (and a woman) there drinking it. It was a novel experience at the very least.

Half way into the night a lot of the Flagship students left to go to the one gay bar in Alexandria. It's only gay on Thursdays, so they were taking advantage. I stayed at Mermaid with Megan, Tamar, and a bunch of the students from Utah and Middlebury. The Middlebury students are leaving tomorrow, and while I'm not close with any of them, we've shared a lot of nice meals together, so I wanted to say goodbye.

Once the party at Mermaid started to die down we all took a Microbus back to the beach by the dorms. Some people went into the ocean in their clothes, but I sat on the beach chatting with the sane people. The beach in Alexandria isn't the cleanest and I was wearing a skirt that wouldn't have functioned well in the water.

When the swimmers had gotten their fill the girls left the remaining guys to walk back to the dorms. I took a shower and am now sitting in bed writing to you. Going out probably wasn't a great idea as far as staying well rested goes, but it was nice to relax in a familiar environment where I didn't have to worry about what I was wearing or what I was saying.

Tomorrow Habiba's taking Charlie and me with a bunch of other girls to the women's beach to swim. I'm not exactly psyched about the swimming, but I plan to wear shorts and take a book to lay out, sun my legs, and hopefully get some work done. It should be fun. I do have to get up relatively early for that though, so I'm going to go to bed now. Best wishes to all of you!