So, today I was supposed to get to sleep in, but I was still working on that essay I'd been procrastinating on well into the night, so instead I took a nap and got up early to finish. When I only had about fifty words left I took a shower, got dressed, and went down to breakfast because it was 9:15 and my schedule says breakfast ends at 9:30.
Apparently they changed the schedule without telling me though, because the lady in the cafeteria definitely glared at me, told me breakfast was over at nine, and turned me away. So I finished my essay hungry and bitter. But it wasn't a bad essay.
When I got to class it turned out I could have slept in anyway. Ustaaz Immad had canceled Egyptian for the day because he plans to take us to the Orphanage on the weekend to speak with the children there. Unfortunately, none of us got the memo. So we sat in class for an hour waiting on him before Robyn called him and delivered the news.
I didn't really mind waiting. It was nice to just relax and chat. And half an hour in to the waiting Moutaz, the dar attendant, came in and pretended to lecture us on the history of Alexandria. As far as dar attendants go, he's pretty awesome.
During the second hour before lunch I managed to get some media homework done for tomorrow. Then there was lunch, and Formal Arabic, where I turned in my essay. Afterward, I returned to the dorms intending to take a nap, but my nap somehow turned into a few hours of reading before dinner. When I finally went down to dinner however, there was a big surprise waiting for me.
Hadir has returned from Oman. We caught up on her trip, which she seemed to enjoy, over dinner and then wandered up to the room where she had a present waiting for me. It's a miniature bust of Queen Kiyra, the mother of King Tut. Very pretty. I thanked her, of course, but our reunion was short lived. Her aunt is in town, so she went to stay with her for the night. Also, her mother has returned to Egypt for a while. I'm going to meet them at some point, according to Hadir. They've all been asking about me.
After Hadir left, I went with Megan and Tamar to Carrefour. They needed to stock up on junk food, and I just wanted to get out of the dorms. But of course, I ended up stocking up on junk food too. At least if I miss breakfast again, now I'll have something to eat.
Carrefour is part of a mall, so we ended up wandering a few clothing stores as well, H&M and some Egyptian store whose name I don't remember. After we'd made our purchases I treated the girls to Cinnabon, because I was craving sugar and dessert. It was awesome.
The taxi back was an adventure. We're not used to going too far from home, so we tend to assume that all taxi drivers know where the dorm is. Our cab driver, however, did not. We explained to him as best we could using land markers and reference points, but we don't know street names, so it was a little difficult. Add in the traffic and it took a while for us to get where we were going. But at least the driver was nice, and he had good taste in music, so the long ride wasn't bad. And we got there eventually.
It's kind of nice, seeing my dresser drawer stocked with juices and chips and candy bars. I even have two cans of Mountain Dew for a rainy day. Because this is the last night I'm going to have the room to myself, there are several American girls over making the most of it. In sha' Allah we'll get our homework done soon so we can have a mini American dance party before turning in for the night.
Habiba has also stopped in as I've been writing, so she's back from her travels too. She got a second language partner today because one of the other girls' partners kept bailing on her. It will be a lot of work for her, but she's too brilliant to keep to myself. Either way, we have a meeting tomorrow after dinner. We have to somehow squeeze sixteen hours into the next three weeks. Wish us luck!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
Days 36 & 37: Legal Drugs are a Girl's Best Friend
I should probably title this post with the last half of Day 35 as well, because that's where I'm starting. But I'm not going to, because it wouldn't look uniform. So you're all just going to have to deal with it.
After I posted the other day, Meghan and I wandered towards that beach cafe I told you about, but we passed a tourist market on our way and stopped to do some window shopping. Everything was overpriced, of course, but their jewelry and glass ware was pretty, at the very least. The one thing I did buy was Dramanex (Arab Dramamine) from a pharmacy in the market. Sure, I had to pay the inflated price of twenty pounds, but I figured it would be worth it the next day if it made the twelve hour bus ride a little more bearable.
We did eventually make it to the cafe, which was even more gorgeous inside than out. It was touristy, of course, but once the people working there realize they're getting your business they stop trying to annoying tactics to reel you in and just serve you like normal waiters. My favorite part was that each party gets their own little section, almost like a private room. It's open air, so you can feel the sea breeze, but there are curtains of grass and beads hanging around each section and in the doorways, so you're separated from the other patrons.
We sat around on the low couches, sipping juice and chatting for a while. At one point I had to step our because my roommate called me frantically needing the key. I still don't understand why Egyptian hotels refuse to give out more than one key, but it's very inconvenient. At least we were nearby.
When we finished with the cafe, we headed back to the hotel proper. I caught the last few minutes of the Germany/Uruguay game on the giant projector screen by the pool, and then I sat in Tamar and Meghan's room for a while, chatting. At some point, my roommate had come back to the hotel from one club and gone out to another, but she'd left the key with the front desk, so I was able to pack up and turn in early.
The next day was the bus ride. There would be more to say about it except I'd bought those pills. They were a godsend. I took one just before getting on the bus and passed out for the first six hours of the trip. When I woke up stiff, I only woke up long enough to get off, use the restroom, and get a lunch of potato chips at a rest stop before getting back on the bus and dozing for another three hours. It was bliss, plus a neck ache. But that's the beside the point.
When the pills finally wore off for good, I woke up and joined in some of the conversations around me. Meghan and I watched a play I had saved on my laptop, as well as an episode of Supernatural, then we got off the bus for dinner an hour or two outside Alexandria. I think they were trying to get us back without stopping again, but traffic was murder, and it was getting rather late. I had McDonald's, again. It wasn't as good when I was craving American, but it was acceptable.
Despite all that sleep, when we finally got back to the dorms I was still tired, and the internet was out, so I couldn't do my media homework. I have an essay on a movie due Wednesday, so I tried to watch the movie before going to sleep, but I only got about half an hour in before concentration became impossible.
Luckily, this morning I got to sleep in. And by sleep in I don't mean all day, but they rescheduled our morning class so that I could wake up at eight instead of six. I didn't wake up refreshed, but neither did I wake up exhausted and reaching for the snooze button, so I call that a win. Without my usual snooze period, I had another half hour to watch the movie before I had to head to the dar to do the media homework from the night before (the internet only came back this evening). Overall it was a nice, relaxing morning.
After lunch, I wanted a nap, but I had to finish the movie so I could pass it off to another girl in my class. Just as it was finishing up, Tamar came to see if I wanted to go to the store with her. After all that movie, I wanted some juice, so we went around the corner to pick up juice and cell phone credit and water and chocolate. Tamar even found a children's book to teach her the names of different birds in Arabic when I stopped at the stationary store for a new notebook.
When I got back to the room, I did take that nap. I planned for just an hour, because dinner was coming up fast, but that hour turned in to two, and I only just made it down before dinner was finished. It was fish, which I kind of would have preferred to sleep through, but if I hadn't eaten I'd be hungry now. So at least there's that.
After dinner, I wandered back up to the room and have been puttering around ever since. Ustaaz Mahmoud, from Texas, sent me an e-mail to inquire about my schedule next semester, in case I was interested in being a TA in the fall. That sent me to the UT registrar site, which is like my crack. So I spent a few hours on that, making sure I was on track for graduation and convincing myself I don't want to add a class on the Qura'n in the fall.
All of a sudden it was eleven o'clock, and I hadn't started that essay. And still don't have the motivation to, unfortunately. But, you all got a blog post out of it! And I'm going to go start it now, I promise. At the very least, tomorrow's another eight o'clock morning just because it's Tuesday, and I never have morning classes on Tuesday. So hopefully I'll finish the essay and get some sleep to boot.
Happy evening everyone!
After I posted the other day, Meghan and I wandered towards that beach cafe I told you about, but we passed a tourist market on our way and stopped to do some window shopping. Everything was overpriced, of course, but their jewelry and glass ware was pretty, at the very least. The one thing I did buy was Dramanex (Arab Dramamine) from a pharmacy in the market. Sure, I had to pay the inflated price of twenty pounds, but I figured it would be worth it the next day if it made the twelve hour bus ride a little more bearable.
We did eventually make it to the cafe, which was even more gorgeous inside than out. It was touristy, of course, but once the people working there realize they're getting your business they stop trying to annoying tactics to reel you in and just serve you like normal waiters. My favorite part was that each party gets their own little section, almost like a private room. It's open air, so you can feel the sea breeze, but there are curtains of grass and beads hanging around each section and in the doorways, so you're separated from the other patrons.
We sat around on the low couches, sipping juice and chatting for a while. At one point I had to step our because my roommate called me frantically needing the key. I still don't understand why Egyptian hotels refuse to give out more than one key, but it's very inconvenient. At least we were nearby.
When we finished with the cafe, we headed back to the hotel proper. I caught the last few minutes of the Germany/Uruguay game on the giant projector screen by the pool, and then I sat in Tamar and Meghan's room for a while, chatting. At some point, my roommate had come back to the hotel from one club and gone out to another, but she'd left the key with the front desk, so I was able to pack up and turn in early.
The next day was the bus ride. There would be more to say about it except I'd bought those pills. They were a godsend. I took one just before getting on the bus and passed out for the first six hours of the trip. When I woke up stiff, I only woke up long enough to get off, use the restroom, and get a lunch of potato chips at a rest stop before getting back on the bus and dozing for another three hours. It was bliss, plus a neck ache. But that's the beside the point.
When the pills finally wore off for good, I woke up and joined in some of the conversations around me. Meghan and I watched a play I had saved on my laptop, as well as an episode of Supernatural, then we got off the bus for dinner an hour or two outside Alexandria. I think they were trying to get us back without stopping again, but traffic was murder, and it was getting rather late. I had McDonald's, again. It wasn't as good when I was craving American, but it was acceptable.
Despite all that sleep, when we finally got back to the dorms I was still tired, and the internet was out, so I couldn't do my media homework. I have an essay on a movie due Wednesday, so I tried to watch the movie before going to sleep, but I only got about half an hour in before concentration became impossible.
Luckily, this morning I got to sleep in. And by sleep in I don't mean all day, but they rescheduled our morning class so that I could wake up at eight instead of six. I didn't wake up refreshed, but neither did I wake up exhausted and reaching for the snooze button, so I call that a win. Without my usual snooze period, I had another half hour to watch the movie before I had to head to the dar to do the media homework from the night before (the internet only came back this evening). Overall it was a nice, relaxing morning.
After lunch, I wanted a nap, but I had to finish the movie so I could pass it off to another girl in my class. Just as it was finishing up, Tamar came to see if I wanted to go to the store with her. After all that movie, I wanted some juice, so we went around the corner to pick up juice and cell phone credit and water and chocolate. Tamar even found a children's book to teach her the names of different birds in Arabic when I stopped at the stationary store for a new notebook.
When I got back to the room, I did take that nap. I planned for just an hour, because dinner was coming up fast, but that hour turned in to two, and I only just made it down before dinner was finished. It was fish, which I kind of would have preferred to sleep through, but if I hadn't eaten I'd be hungry now. So at least there's that.
After dinner, I wandered back up to the room and have been puttering around ever since. Ustaaz Mahmoud, from Texas, sent me an e-mail to inquire about my schedule next semester, in case I was interested in being a TA in the fall. That sent me to the UT registrar site, which is like my crack. So I spent a few hours on that, making sure I was on track for graduation and convincing myself I don't want to add a class on the Qura'n in the fall.
All of a sudden it was eleven o'clock, and I hadn't started that essay. And still don't have the motivation to, unfortunately. But, you all got a blog post out of it! And I'm going to go start it now, I promise. At the very least, tomorrow's another eight o'clock morning just because it's Tuesday, and I never have morning classes on Tuesday. So hopefully I'll finish the essay and get some sleep to boot.
Happy evening everyone!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Day 35: Sun and Surf and Salt
Today was a day of fun in the sun. And the water. And more sun.
We got up relatively late, since we didn’t have to be at the bus until ten. I didn’t actually end up getting up and going swimming. I was sleepy, despite going to bed kind of early.
The bus, after breakfast, took us to the ocean where we got on two different boats and rode for an hour. Most of us stripped down to our bathing suits early to lie out in the sun. The boat I was on had a lovely padded deck just for sunning, and I figured I should get as much sun as possible on psoriasis before I aggravated it with salt water.
After an hour we got to the first reef. We all rented super expensive snorkels and super expensive fins and those among us who couldn’t swim rented super expensive life jackets. And we all jumped in. Well, most of us. There were a couple people who were paying even higher prices to go diving instead and were waiting for their instructor. And a few people who waited for the second reef because they were scared (veiled girls don’t get in large bodies of water very often). And one girl who got seasick and didn’t do either. But I was going snorkeling, and don’t know details about their trips, so I’m going to pretend everyone had the same experience I did.
The red sea is by far the saltiest sea I have ever been in. A drop of water in my mouth tasted like I’d poured a salt shaker in there. I think the added salt content does something to the water pressure, because we couldn’t dive more than a few feet without our ears popping, and floating was easier than in any other water I’ve ever been in. But it was gorgeous. Clear and blue and perfect.
Our guide was a little bossy. He insisted we all stay together, which is dangerous when you’re all wearing flippers. I have gashes and bruises in a number of places from people kicking me, but it was that or get yelled at every thirty seconds for wandering away from the group. It was worth it though, because the sea life was exquisite. There weren’t as many colors as I remember in the Philippines, mostly browns and yellows and a pink or two, but it was hilarious to chase after schools of fish, trying to catch them and failing ever time. And there was one breed of fish that had about eight different colors in it.
After we’d swam for a while, we headed back to the boat, all tired and thirsty and ready for a break. My lips were killing me, but after a few glasses of water I was fine again. I’m not sure why we stayed docked at that particular place for so long, but we spent a few hours jumping off the upper decks of the boat, swimming around by the boat, and then eating a delicious lunch of fish and pasta and pita chips and cold slaw on the boat. Okay, so I don’t like fish, but the pasta and pita chips were amazing.
Finally, we cast off for another reef, and I sunned myself again because my psoriasis was starting to burn from the salt and there wasn’t anything to wash off with. The second reef wasn’t as pretty, it was mostly coast, but I did see an eel when I accidentally wandered away from the group once, and in one of the reef alcoves there were two fish as big as my arm.
About halfway through this particular excursion, a couple people started having technical difficulties, so we ended early. But we still hung around the reef for a while, just chilling on the boat and what not. About the time we started moving again I fell asleep on one of the benches. Luckily it was in the shade, because as much as I’d been wanting to get sun, I really didn’t need a naps worth.
As it is, I’m a little burned, but only on my back, and it’s not bad at all. I expect it will pale up nicely in a few days, hopefully without peeling.
When the boat docked again, we all got off and onto the bus. I over paid for a Mars Ice Cream Bar, just because Mars bars are the best and I’d never seen it in ice cream form before. For the record, non-ice cream Mars Bars are better.
On the actual bus, we had a bit of a health scare. One of the Egyptian girls on the trip with us, Riwan, has been having some issues since yesterday at the desert. We figured after the long walk and all that dust she was just having an allergic reaction, and after we got some water in her she was fine. Today, however, she started having a full out asthma attack or something. We’re still not sure, but whatever it was she couldn’t breath, at all. Someone gave her an inhaler, and that seemed to help, but by the time we got back to the hotel she was almost non-responsive. They took her to the hospital where they gave her an IV, and according to her roommate she’s back and okay and resting, but all of our thoughts at with her.
The rest of us, all crusty from the sea, jumped in the pool when we got back. It was only open for another forty five minutes or so, but that was all we needed. Some people played chicken, others had hand stand competitions; all your usual pool games. Around that time, a bunch of the girls started planning a shopping trip. There’s a white party (meaning white clothes only) tonight at the biggest club in Sharm Al-Sheikh, and they all want to go. Of course, this being a very sports oriented trip, none of them have many club clothes with them, and especially nothing all white.
Having done so many physical things in the last few days, I’m not exactly in the big party mood. And even if I was, I don’t think I’d be willing to spend that kind of money. On top of the new clothes, it’s a one-hundred and fifty pound cover charge to get in with drinks on top of that. I know the dollar’s five times stronger than the guinea, but that’s ridiculous.
So, right now everyone else is out shopping, and I’m in Meghan’s room, typing. She’s letting me use five minutes of her fifteen pound per hour internet to post this, as well as yesterday’s post. The plan is that after the internet, we’re going to head down to a café on the beach. It looks like Silsila from the outside, even if it is twice as expensive. I’ll try to let you know how that goes tomorrow when I get back to Alex. We’ve got one long bus ride ahead of us, but hopefully it will be bearable. Ustaaza Esma’ has some Dramamine, so I’m hoping that will help me out.
I hope you’re all having a good Saturday back in America!
We got up relatively late, since we didn’t have to be at the bus until ten. I didn’t actually end up getting up and going swimming. I was sleepy, despite going to bed kind of early.
The bus, after breakfast, took us to the ocean where we got on two different boats and rode for an hour. Most of us stripped down to our bathing suits early to lie out in the sun. The boat I was on had a lovely padded deck just for sunning, and I figured I should get as much sun as possible on psoriasis before I aggravated it with salt water.
After an hour we got to the first reef. We all rented super expensive snorkels and super expensive fins and those among us who couldn’t swim rented super expensive life jackets. And we all jumped in. Well, most of us. There were a couple people who were paying even higher prices to go diving instead and were waiting for their instructor. And a few people who waited for the second reef because they were scared (veiled girls don’t get in large bodies of water very often). And one girl who got seasick and didn’t do either. But I was going snorkeling, and don’t know details about their trips, so I’m going to pretend everyone had the same experience I did.
The red sea is by far the saltiest sea I have ever been in. A drop of water in my mouth tasted like I’d poured a salt shaker in there. I think the added salt content does something to the water pressure, because we couldn’t dive more than a few feet without our ears popping, and floating was easier than in any other water I’ve ever been in. But it was gorgeous. Clear and blue and perfect.
Our guide was a little bossy. He insisted we all stay together, which is dangerous when you’re all wearing flippers. I have gashes and bruises in a number of places from people kicking me, but it was that or get yelled at every thirty seconds for wandering away from the group. It was worth it though, because the sea life was exquisite. There weren’t as many colors as I remember in the Philippines, mostly browns and yellows and a pink or two, but it was hilarious to chase after schools of fish, trying to catch them and failing ever time. And there was one breed of fish that had about eight different colors in it.
After we’d swam for a while, we headed back to the boat, all tired and thirsty and ready for a break. My lips were killing me, but after a few glasses of water I was fine again. I’m not sure why we stayed docked at that particular place for so long, but we spent a few hours jumping off the upper decks of the boat, swimming around by the boat, and then eating a delicious lunch of fish and pasta and pita chips and cold slaw on the boat. Okay, so I don’t like fish, but the pasta and pita chips were amazing.
Finally, we cast off for another reef, and I sunned myself again because my psoriasis was starting to burn from the salt and there wasn’t anything to wash off with. The second reef wasn’t as pretty, it was mostly coast, but I did see an eel when I accidentally wandered away from the group once, and in one of the reef alcoves there were two fish as big as my arm.
About halfway through this particular excursion, a couple people started having technical difficulties, so we ended early. But we still hung around the reef for a while, just chilling on the boat and what not. About the time we started moving again I fell asleep on one of the benches. Luckily it was in the shade, because as much as I’d been wanting to get sun, I really didn’t need a naps worth.
As it is, I’m a little burned, but only on my back, and it’s not bad at all. I expect it will pale up nicely in a few days, hopefully without peeling.
When the boat docked again, we all got off and onto the bus. I over paid for a Mars Ice Cream Bar, just because Mars bars are the best and I’d never seen it in ice cream form before. For the record, non-ice cream Mars Bars are better.
On the actual bus, we had a bit of a health scare. One of the Egyptian girls on the trip with us, Riwan, has been having some issues since yesterday at the desert. We figured after the long walk and all that dust she was just having an allergic reaction, and after we got some water in her she was fine. Today, however, she started having a full out asthma attack or something. We’re still not sure, but whatever it was she couldn’t breath, at all. Someone gave her an inhaler, and that seemed to help, but by the time we got back to the hotel she was almost non-responsive. They took her to the hospital where they gave her an IV, and according to her roommate she’s back and okay and resting, but all of our thoughts at with her.
The rest of us, all crusty from the sea, jumped in the pool when we got back. It was only open for another forty five minutes or so, but that was all we needed. Some people played chicken, others had hand stand competitions; all your usual pool games. Around that time, a bunch of the girls started planning a shopping trip. There’s a white party (meaning white clothes only) tonight at the biggest club in Sharm Al-Sheikh, and they all want to go. Of course, this being a very sports oriented trip, none of them have many club clothes with them, and especially nothing all white.
Having done so many physical things in the last few days, I’m not exactly in the big party mood. And even if I was, I don’t think I’d be willing to spend that kind of money. On top of the new clothes, it’s a one-hundred and fifty pound cover charge to get in with drinks on top of that. I know the dollar’s five times stronger than the guinea, but that’s ridiculous.
So, right now everyone else is out shopping, and I’m in Meghan’s room, typing. She’s letting me use five minutes of her fifteen pound per hour internet to post this, as well as yesterday’s post. The plan is that after the internet, we’re going to head down to a café on the beach. It looks like Silsila from the outside, even if it is twice as expensive. I’ll try to let you know how that goes tomorrow when I get back to Alex. We’ve got one long bus ride ahead of us, but hopefully it will be bearable. Ustaaza Esma’ has some Dramamine, so I’m hoping that will help me out.
I hope you’re all having a good Saturday back in America!
Days 32, 33 & 34: Thou Shalt Not Suffer Death by Mountain Climbing
Alright. So, I’m typing this into word from Sharm Al-Sheikh and I will post it into my blog later, mostly because the pool is closed and I’m a little tired, but not quite tired enough to sleep. Well, that and everyone is either going out clubbing or going to bed, neither of which I’m a fan of.
Starting at Wednesday, I got up and went to class, like any other day, except this time I took my big suitcase with me, which got me a lot of strange looks and a lot of calls from taxis passing by. I didn’t really need as big a suitcase as I took, but it was that or my back pack and my back pack was not big enough for even the most basic essentials for four days in the desert.
Class was class, and as soon as it was over we filed on to the bus to wait for an hour until the second bus got there for the rest of us (and brought out lunch). Exactly like the trip to Cairo pretty much. After that hour, however, we were in for a treat. Twelve hours on a bus in psychotic Egyptian traffic, meaning swerving and swaying and the whole nine yards. I was fine for the first half of it or so, but my stomach still cringes at the memory of that last bit. It might have been better if I could have slept, but for some reason my mind was not drifting, so I was conscious the whole time.
Dinner consisted of a stop at a road side stand that sold chips, chocolate and soda. So… basically we all had a bag of chips and a candy bar. Not exactly nourishment. Then we piled back on and finally made it to Sinai. Literally Sinai, as in Mount Sinai, at two in the morning, where we filed out and put on our hiking boots. Or in most cases sneakers.
For those of you who don’t know the history, Mount Sinai, or Mount Mousa (Moses) in Arabic, is the mountain Moses climbed to get the Ten Commandments. At the top now is a tiny church, but it’s only there for people who’ve come for pilgrimage. No one practices there regularly.
The oldest monastery in the world, Deir St. Katherine, is at the bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore it. Apparently there are a lot of old texts from all the Abrahamic religions inside. There’s also a well that’s said to make you love your husband or wife more if you drink from it. I wanted to bring some of the water back to America, but we were on a tight schedule. All I saw of the complex was the outside and a little outer garden through which I walked to get to their one guinea squat toilet bathrooms. That itself was gorgeous. But anyway, back to the story.
From two in the morning to six in the morning we hiked. Or more accurately climbed. Since I don’t have the internet I can’t look up the statistics for you, but Mount Sinai isn’t exactly tiny. The path was a winding loop of rocks and sand with vertical drops on every side, no railings, and even less light. Most of us made it by the light of our cell phones, which luckily didn’t span very far, because if we’d seen how close our stumbles bought us to careening off the side, a lot of us probably would have given up earlier. It was a bit like walking through the Mines of Moria, for those Lord of the Rings fans out there
But we persevered. After about three hours of walking, we came to near vertical steps that took another hour. Luckily, I was in a group nearer the front, meaning most of us would rather die of exhaustion than take too many breaks. It helped, pushing each other. It also helped that every fifteen minutes or so there was another stand selling outrageously priced water, juice, and snacks. I’m not gonna lie, my anger at the ten guinea chocolate bars definitely made me want to reach the top more. That and my refusal to let the camel riders beat me.
You have to climb the last hour of stairs no matter what, but you can pay eighty-five Egyptian pounds for a camel to take you the first three. Every little bit another caravan of tourists, looking horrified that there was nothing more than a camel standing between them and their deaths, would wander past us. I wasn’t going to let them shame me like that though, and neither was anyone else in our group.
Basically what I’m getting at is that it was torture, and by the time we got to the top we all thought we were going to die. A few girls actually didn’t make it and decided to stay at the last rest station before the stairs, rather than take the last and most dangerous leg of the journey. I understand their trepidation, but I figure if you can make it that far, you might as well push the whole way, just to say you did.
Anyway, I’d kind of been hoping the top of the mountain would be this awe inspiring experience, and it was nice, but unfortunately it was tourist trap. People had been climbing the mountain all night, and there were hundreds milling around in a space made for about twenty. I saw the sunrise, I took pictures, I picked up a few souvenirs, and then I just wanted to get out of there. I’ll remind you, I hadn’t slept since I woke up for classes at six in the morning the previous day.
I don’t know how Moses did it.
The descent from the mountain was easier, but we were all in misery at that point, so I don’t think we acknowledged or cared. It was still dangerous, mostly because we couldn’t control our speed on such a steep incline, and there were still jagged rocks as far as the eye could see, but at least we could see the edge of the path as well as where the rocks were. It didn’t stop us from slipping, but it did stop us from outright tripping on them like we did on the way up. I twisted left ankle once and my right ankle twice, but they were all light, thank goodness. Some people came out much worse for wear.
We got to the bottom of the mountain maybe two hours after sunrise, met up in front of the monastery, and loaded on to the bus and drove to a hotel. But not to sleep, of course, just to shower and have breakfast. As it turns out, all of the Egyptian girls, one of the American guys who was in Egypt last year, and out program director weren’t stupid enough to attempt such a climb. So they slept, like normal people.
Honestly, I was just bitter at this point. Breakfast was pretty good, even if I was falling asleep over it. Once we’d all eaten, we got back on the bus and drove for about three hours to the coast city of Dahab. I popped two aspiring and slept this time, even if it wasn’t well.
Dahab, like most of the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, is a major tourist trap. They specialize in snorkeling and scuba diving and deal mostly with Russians and Italians, but it’s not uncommon for Americans to wander through. The Red Sea is spectacular, and you can see Saudi Arabia from the coast. I have pictures.
When we got to the resort (yes resort) at Dahab, we had an hour and a half before the group left for optional snorkeling at a place called Blue Hole. It’s an area where a meteor hit the coast, so there’s a really deep pool with all sorts of wildlife. There was no way I was going to be coherent enough to snorkel in an hour and half, so my plan was to sleep the four hours until dinner, then wake up and go the beach. That, of course, didn’t happen. I went to sleep and slept until six o’clock the next morning. Sixteen hours. That I needed. Badly.
I woke up barely able to move, but at least no longer tired. Stretching helped a bit with the soreness, but not much. Then I got dressed, packed up, and went to the best breakfast I’ve had in Egypt so far. They had everything American, like toast and omelettes and fake liquid scrambled eggs that they may or may not have forgotten to cook. But then on the other hand they had the best of Arabic breakfast, like breads and cheeses and mango juice. And a sweets table, of course, with donuts and honey drizzled delicacies. It didn’t really make up for the miserable day before, but I was willing to take what I could get.
The first thing on the schedule for the day was a safari in the desert, which confused us all. Sinai isn’t really known for its animals, and sure enough we saw a couple goats, but nothing or note. Turns out, the safari was meant for us to look at mountains, lots and lots of mountains. We piled into about seven different jeeps, drove on a road for an hour, off roaded for another half hour, and finally ended up in the middle of the desert, surrounded by huge cliffs and deep valleys. Valleys which we descended into.
We had about four guides and two Bedouins between us all. They interspersed themselves and we descended among the rocks for an obstacle course like hike in a hundred and six degree weather. I’m not going to complain about this hike, because despite everyone else’s whining, I really did enjoy it. Thanks to the different minerals in Sinai, the mountains are all different colors: red and yellow and black and green. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and when we took a break the Bedouins played drums on trash cans for us and sang in Arabic.
I got a little sun, but I’m not by any means burned. The only part that I really had any issue with was at the very end. Because we descended into a valley, we had to climb back out of it. We literally climbed a sheer cliff, having to find hand and foot holds, without any safety equipment. One girl literally started to hyperventilate when we had to cross this narrow rock bridge type construction. That part was fun though, and I didn’t have any issues. But after the first climb, we crossed a huge set of sand dunes and climbed a sand cliff to the top.
Sand is not fun. At all.
At least the end was at the top of that second cliff. We caught our breath and rehydrated for a while and waited for everyone else to finish. I was at the front of this group, and we had quite a while to wait considering some people were putting up a fight about such strenuous activities for the second day in a row. One of the Egyptian girls actually passed out, and one of the American’s got sick from drinking water too quickly. The Bedouins were friendly though, and I bought a souvenir or two from them as well.
We went back to the hotel in the same jeeps we came in. I definitely think I was in the best jeep. First of all, we were an all girls jeep, with myself, Kaylea, Tamar, Meghan, Grace, and Ustaaza Esma’. Esma’ teaches Egyptian for the program, and while I’d never talked to her before, I was happy for the chance to meet her. She was educated in France, speaks Italian almost fluently, and is incredibly sweet. We had a lot of conversations to and from the safari.
Ours was also the best jeep because we had the best driver and the only police officer. Whenever a large group of foreigners travels in Egypt, they have to have a tourism police officer with them. Officer Mahmoud, for whatever reason, chose our jeep, and so we were always in the front of the procession. He was also very nice about pointing out important landmarks on the road, like Sleeping Camel Mountain, which looks like a sleeping camel. As for our driver, Muhammad, when it got to off roading he was sure to make it as fun as possible for us. It was like a real life roller coaster. We were all screaming and flying out of our seats, all with Amr Diab (world famous Egyptian singer) in the background. It was an awesome experience.
After the safari, we returned to the hotel to pick up our bags and got on the road for Sharm Al-Sheikh. Sharm Al-Sheikh is an even more famous tourist destination than Dahab. It’s on the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula, and anytime I’ve seen rich Egyptians taking vacations in the movies, it’s always been to Sharm. We got into the resort at about six-thirty and I had an hour until dinner, so I called Mom and we chatted for a bit. She was busy with Church camp stuff, but at least she doesn’t have to read this blog as carefully ‘cus I’ve pretty much told her all of it.
Dinner was nice, a buffet, but the buffet was spread all around the room with different food tables between different sets of dining tables and it was very hard to know what was available and then get to it. It still had a fairly nice salad and pasta dinner. Even if the salad was a bit of a letdown, I was ecstatic to have it. We can’t eat the salad in Alexandria because it’s washed in tap water.
After dinner was free time, but apparently it’s customary in Egyptian resorts to close the pool at seven. Something about it not being safe after dark even though there are lights everywhere. I was disappointed, because after all that desert I really wanted a swim. There isn’t even a beach to swim on. Apparently it was the same story in Dahab, but I slept too long to notice.
With swimming closed to us, we didn’t have many options. I explored the boardwalk type area with Grace for a while, but there wasn’t anything that really caught my eye. The hotel was throwing a beach party at ten, but no one really wanted to go with all the tourists that were going to be there. It’s odd, being one of the majority again. Like I said, everyone here is Russian, so we blend right in. All the girls have been wearing shorts and bathing suit tops. I even saw some veiled girls getting weird looks. I was a little offended, because this is their country, but it just goes to show how different the tourist spots are.
Eventually, most of us ended up at the hotel bar, if for no other reason than it had the comfiest seats. We sat, some of us drank (lightly, due the great expense), and we chatted and played cards. When the group started to break up, some to go out on the town, others to go to bed, I headed back to the room to shower. I still had desert on me that I’d wanted to wash off in the ocean and/or pool. I also needed to clean out my purse. They told us to buy snacks in Alexandria for the bus ride, so I bought chips and a chocolate bar. The chips got eaten, the chocolate got forgotten about in a side pocket. In the desert. It only ruined a miniature notebook, and I was able to salvage the notes from it, so I’m just going to buy a new one and transfer them all when I get back to Alex.
That about brings you all up to speed. I’m thinking about waking up early tomorrow to go for a dip, because we’re not going snorkeling until ten, but I might just take my beauty rest instead and try swimming after. We’ll see.
Starting at Wednesday, I got up and went to class, like any other day, except this time I took my big suitcase with me, which got me a lot of strange looks and a lot of calls from taxis passing by. I didn’t really need as big a suitcase as I took, but it was that or my back pack and my back pack was not big enough for even the most basic essentials for four days in the desert.
Class was class, and as soon as it was over we filed on to the bus to wait for an hour until the second bus got there for the rest of us (and brought out lunch). Exactly like the trip to Cairo pretty much. After that hour, however, we were in for a treat. Twelve hours on a bus in psychotic Egyptian traffic, meaning swerving and swaying and the whole nine yards. I was fine for the first half of it or so, but my stomach still cringes at the memory of that last bit. It might have been better if I could have slept, but for some reason my mind was not drifting, so I was conscious the whole time.
Dinner consisted of a stop at a road side stand that sold chips, chocolate and soda. So… basically we all had a bag of chips and a candy bar. Not exactly nourishment. Then we piled back on and finally made it to Sinai. Literally Sinai, as in Mount Sinai, at two in the morning, where we filed out and put on our hiking boots. Or in most cases sneakers.
For those of you who don’t know the history, Mount Sinai, or Mount Mousa (Moses) in Arabic, is the mountain Moses climbed to get the Ten Commandments. At the top now is a tiny church, but it’s only there for people who’ve come for pilgrimage. No one practices there regularly.
The oldest monastery in the world, Deir St. Katherine, is at the bottom of the mountain. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore it. Apparently there are a lot of old texts from all the Abrahamic religions inside. There’s also a well that’s said to make you love your husband or wife more if you drink from it. I wanted to bring some of the water back to America, but we were on a tight schedule. All I saw of the complex was the outside and a little outer garden through which I walked to get to their one guinea squat toilet bathrooms. That itself was gorgeous. But anyway, back to the story.
From two in the morning to six in the morning we hiked. Or more accurately climbed. Since I don’t have the internet I can’t look up the statistics for you, but Mount Sinai isn’t exactly tiny. The path was a winding loop of rocks and sand with vertical drops on every side, no railings, and even less light. Most of us made it by the light of our cell phones, which luckily didn’t span very far, because if we’d seen how close our stumbles bought us to careening off the side, a lot of us probably would have given up earlier. It was a bit like walking through the Mines of Moria, for those Lord of the Rings fans out there
But we persevered. After about three hours of walking, we came to near vertical steps that took another hour. Luckily, I was in a group nearer the front, meaning most of us would rather die of exhaustion than take too many breaks. It helped, pushing each other. It also helped that every fifteen minutes or so there was another stand selling outrageously priced water, juice, and snacks. I’m not gonna lie, my anger at the ten guinea chocolate bars definitely made me want to reach the top more. That and my refusal to let the camel riders beat me.
You have to climb the last hour of stairs no matter what, but you can pay eighty-five Egyptian pounds for a camel to take you the first three. Every little bit another caravan of tourists, looking horrified that there was nothing more than a camel standing between them and their deaths, would wander past us. I wasn’t going to let them shame me like that though, and neither was anyone else in our group.
Basically what I’m getting at is that it was torture, and by the time we got to the top we all thought we were going to die. A few girls actually didn’t make it and decided to stay at the last rest station before the stairs, rather than take the last and most dangerous leg of the journey. I understand their trepidation, but I figure if you can make it that far, you might as well push the whole way, just to say you did.
Anyway, I’d kind of been hoping the top of the mountain would be this awe inspiring experience, and it was nice, but unfortunately it was tourist trap. People had been climbing the mountain all night, and there were hundreds milling around in a space made for about twenty. I saw the sunrise, I took pictures, I picked up a few souvenirs, and then I just wanted to get out of there. I’ll remind you, I hadn’t slept since I woke up for classes at six in the morning the previous day.
I don’t know how Moses did it.
The descent from the mountain was easier, but we were all in misery at that point, so I don’t think we acknowledged or cared. It was still dangerous, mostly because we couldn’t control our speed on such a steep incline, and there were still jagged rocks as far as the eye could see, but at least we could see the edge of the path as well as where the rocks were. It didn’t stop us from slipping, but it did stop us from outright tripping on them like we did on the way up. I twisted left ankle once and my right ankle twice, but they were all light, thank goodness. Some people came out much worse for wear.
We got to the bottom of the mountain maybe two hours after sunrise, met up in front of the monastery, and loaded on to the bus and drove to a hotel. But not to sleep, of course, just to shower and have breakfast. As it turns out, all of the Egyptian girls, one of the American guys who was in Egypt last year, and out program director weren’t stupid enough to attempt such a climb. So they slept, like normal people.
Honestly, I was just bitter at this point. Breakfast was pretty good, even if I was falling asleep over it. Once we’d all eaten, we got back on the bus and drove for about three hours to the coast city of Dahab. I popped two aspiring and slept this time, even if it wasn’t well.
Dahab, like most of the coast of the Sinai Peninsula, is a major tourist trap. They specialize in snorkeling and scuba diving and deal mostly with Russians and Italians, but it’s not uncommon for Americans to wander through. The Red Sea is spectacular, and you can see Saudi Arabia from the coast. I have pictures.
When we got to the resort (yes resort) at Dahab, we had an hour and a half before the group left for optional snorkeling at a place called Blue Hole. It’s an area where a meteor hit the coast, so there’s a really deep pool with all sorts of wildlife. There was no way I was going to be coherent enough to snorkel in an hour and half, so my plan was to sleep the four hours until dinner, then wake up and go the beach. That, of course, didn’t happen. I went to sleep and slept until six o’clock the next morning. Sixteen hours. That I needed. Badly.
I woke up barely able to move, but at least no longer tired. Stretching helped a bit with the soreness, but not much. Then I got dressed, packed up, and went to the best breakfast I’ve had in Egypt so far. They had everything American, like toast and omelettes and fake liquid scrambled eggs that they may or may not have forgotten to cook. But then on the other hand they had the best of Arabic breakfast, like breads and cheeses and mango juice. And a sweets table, of course, with donuts and honey drizzled delicacies. It didn’t really make up for the miserable day before, but I was willing to take what I could get.
The first thing on the schedule for the day was a safari in the desert, which confused us all. Sinai isn’t really known for its animals, and sure enough we saw a couple goats, but nothing or note. Turns out, the safari was meant for us to look at mountains, lots and lots of mountains. We piled into about seven different jeeps, drove on a road for an hour, off roaded for another half hour, and finally ended up in the middle of the desert, surrounded by huge cliffs and deep valleys. Valleys which we descended into.
We had about four guides and two Bedouins between us all. They interspersed themselves and we descended among the rocks for an obstacle course like hike in a hundred and six degree weather. I’m not going to complain about this hike, because despite everyone else’s whining, I really did enjoy it. Thanks to the different minerals in Sinai, the mountains are all different colors: red and yellow and black and green. It was beautiful, and peaceful, and when we took a break the Bedouins played drums on trash cans for us and sang in Arabic.
I got a little sun, but I’m not by any means burned. The only part that I really had any issue with was at the very end. Because we descended into a valley, we had to climb back out of it. We literally climbed a sheer cliff, having to find hand and foot holds, without any safety equipment. One girl literally started to hyperventilate when we had to cross this narrow rock bridge type construction. That part was fun though, and I didn’t have any issues. But after the first climb, we crossed a huge set of sand dunes and climbed a sand cliff to the top.
Sand is not fun. At all.
At least the end was at the top of that second cliff. We caught our breath and rehydrated for a while and waited for everyone else to finish. I was at the front of this group, and we had quite a while to wait considering some people were putting up a fight about such strenuous activities for the second day in a row. One of the Egyptian girls actually passed out, and one of the American’s got sick from drinking water too quickly. The Bedouins were friendly though, and I bought a souvenir or two from them as well.
We went back to the hotel in the same jeeps we came in. I definitely think I was in the best jeep. First of all, we were an all girls jeep, with myself, Kaylea, Tamar, Meghan, Grace, and Ustaaza Esma’. Esma’ teaches Egyptian for the program, and while I’d never talked to her before, I was happy for the chance to meet her. She was educated in France, speaks Italian almost fluently, and is incredibly sweet. We had a lot of conversations to and from the safari.
Ours was also the best jeep because we had the best driver and the only police officer. Whenever a large group of foreigners travels in Egypt, they have to have a tourism police officer with them. Officer Mahmoud, for whatever reason, chose our jeep, and so we were always in the front of the procession. He was also very nice about pointing out important landmarks on the road, like Sleeping Camel Mountain, which looks like a sleeping camel. As for our driver, Muhammad, when it got to off roading he was sure to make it as fun as possible for us. It was like a real life roller coaster. We were all screaming and flying out of our seats, all with Amr Diab (world famous Egyptian singer) in the background. It was an awesome experience.
After the safari, we returned to the hotel to pick up our bags and got on the road for Sharm Al-Sheikh. Sharm Al-Sheikh is an even more famous tourist destination than Dahab. It’s on the very tip of the Sinai Peninsula, and anytime I’ve seen rich Egyptians taking vacations in the movies, it’s always been to Sharm. We got into the resort at about six-thirty and I had an hour until dinner, so I called Mom and we chatted for a bit. She was busy with Church camp stuff, but at least she doesn’t have to read this blog as carefully ‘cus I’ve pretty much told her all of it.
Dinner was nice, a buffet, but the buffet was spread all around the room with different food tables between different sets of dining tables and it was very hard to know what was available and then get to it. It still had a fairly nice salad and pasta dinner. Even if the salad was a bit of a letdown, I was ecstatic to have it. We can’t eat the salad in Alexandria because it’s washed in tap water.
After dinner was free time, but apparently it’s customary in Egyptian resorts to close the pool at seven. Something about it not being safe after dark even though there are lights everywhere. I was disappointed, because after all that desert I really wanted a swim. There isn’t even a beach to swim on. Apparently it was the same story in Dahab, but I slept too long to notice.
With swimming closed to us, we didn’t have many options. I explored the boardwalk type area with Grace for a while, but there wasn’t anything that really caught my eye. The hotel was throwing a beach party at ten, but no one really wanted to go with all the tourists that were going to be there. It’s odd, being one of the majority again. Like I said, everyone here is Russian, so we blend right in. All the girls have been wearing shorts and bathing suit tops. I even saw some veiled girls getting weird looks. I was a little offended, because this is their country, but it just goes to show how different the tourist spots are.
Eventually, most of us ended up at the hotel bar, if for no other reason than it had the comfiest seats. We sat, some of us drank (lightly, due the great expense), and we chatted and played cards. When the group started to break up, some to go out on the town, others to go to bed, I headed back to the room to shower. I still had desert on me that I’d wanted to wash off in the ocean and/or pool. I also needed to clean out my purse. They told us to buy snacks in Alexandria for the bus ride, so I bought chips and a chocolate bar. The chips got eaten, the chocolate got forgotten about in a side pocket. In the desert. It only ruined a miniature notebook, and I was able to salvage the notes from it, so I’m just going to buy a new one and transfer them all when I get back to Alex.
That about brings you all up to speed. I’m thinking about waking up early tomorrow to go for a dip, because we’re not going snorkeling until ten, but I might just take my beauty rest instead and try swimming after. We’ll see.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Days 30 & 31: Don't Read on an Empty Stomach
Yesterday wasn't me skipping. I promise. There just wasn't a lot to say. I got up, went to class, came home, took a nap that turned into nearly a full nights sleep, and did my homework. Nothing you really needed to hear about.
Oh! But I did go to Abu Rabiyya for lunch. For those of you who read the Flagship Blog you know that's the little Arab fast food restaurant that's so popular among students. They warned us about going there during the summer, because food spoils more quickly, but recommended that we still try it, as long as we were careful about what we ordered. So I, along with a few friends, trekked over during break. The hummus was great, and the fried cheese. For my meal I had an Arab hamburger of sorts. I don't even remember what it was called, but it tasted a bit like a hot dog on a burger bun. I think I might be a little sick from it today, but it's nothing drastic. Mostly just discomfort.
Today was almost as uneventful, though Egyptian Dialect class was extra fun. I had a presentation on spinsters in Egypt (I can elaborate on that if anyone's interested in a culture lesson), and then we learned about the different things we're going to see in Sinai: Saint Katherine's monastery, the direct descendant of Moses' burning bush, and a whole lot of sand.
Meghan has been craving American pizza for a while now, and I can't say it didn't sound good, so instead of eating at the dorms for dinner we went to the local Pizza Hut. It was expensive, as expected, but incredibly delicious. We got a "King Crust" pizza, which I've never seen in America. Its crust is inlaid with cream cheese and meat balls so that it looks like a crown. The meat balls were okay, the cheese was to die for. Also, like at McDonald's, the soundtrack was pleasantly surprising, and the wait staff very accommodating to Americans without refusing to speak Arabic.
That's really it for the last two days. Tomorrow we leave for Sinai directly after class. I am taking my computer with me this time because we'll be gone for four days (until Sunday), but I'm not sure what the internet availability will be at the hotels. Hopefully I won't fall behind like I did during/after the Cairo trip, but if I'm too tired I hope you'll excuse me for sleeping instead of writing.
Oh! But I did go to Abu Rabiyya for lunch. For those of you who read the Flagship Blog you know that's the little Arab fast food restaurant that's so popular among students. They warned us about going there during the summer, because food spoils more quickly, but recommended that we still try it, as long as we were careful about what we ordered. So I, along with a few friends, trekked over during break. The hummus was great, and the fried cheese. For my meal I had an Arab hamburger of sorts. I don't even remember what it was called, but it tasted a bit like a hot dog on a burger bun. I think I might be a little sick from it today, but it's nothing drastic. Mostly just discomfort.
Today was almost as uneventful, though Egyptian Dialect class was extra fun. I had a presentation on spinsters in Egypt (I can elaborate on that if anyone's interested in a culture lesson), and then we learned about the different things we're going to see in Sinai: Saint Katherine's monastery, the direct descendant of Moses' burning bush, and a whole lot of sand.
Meghan has been craving American pizza for a while now, and I can't say it didn't sound good, so instead of eating at the dorms for dinner we went to the local Pizza Hut. It was expensive, as expected, but incredibly delicious. We got a "King Crust" pizza, which I've never seen in America. Its crust is inlaid with cream cheese and meat balls so that it looks like a crown. The meat balls were okay, the cheese was to die for. Also, like at McDonald's, the soundtrack was pleasantly surprising, and the wait staff very accommodating to Americans without refusing to speak Arabic.
That's really it for the last two days. Tomorrow we leave for Sinai directly after class. I am taking my computer with me this time because we'll be gone for four days (until Sunday), but I'm not sure what the internet availability will be at the hotels. Hopefully I won't fall behind like I did during/after the Cairo trip, but if I'm too tired I hope you'll excuse me for sleeping instead of writing.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Day 29: A Whole Lot of Nothing
So it's just my luck that I finally catch up and there's... really nothing to say. Classes were fine. I went, I came back to the dorms, ate lunch, took a nap, woke up, went to dinner, and now I'm doing homework. Exciting, right?
I did get a bit of good news in Formal Arabic. We always have Formal class on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and our schedule for this lesson has activities scheduled accordingly. This weekend, however, is the entire programs trip to Sinai, and because the peninsula is ten to twelve hours away by bus, we're leaving Wednesday after class and returning late Sunday night. As in no classes on Thursday or Sunday.
I was concerned, because according to the schedule we have a paper due Thursday and a test on Monday, so I went to talk to the professor. This man is now my hero. "We'll just do it next week," he says. So now, I don't have the weight of a billion major projects on my shoulders just before the trip. Sure, there's still half a billion for my other classes, but somehow that feels much more manageable.
Oh! Also, with only a little more than a month left here, I've started keeping my eyes open for souvenirs. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know this, but for those of you who aren't either leave a comment here (which I think you can do without an account) or E-mail me at lawilliams11@gmail.com telling me what you'd like, be that kitschy statues of the pyramids, or a postcard, or a picture of the Sphinx, etc. Heads up, if you're asking for a postcard, or if you don't live in the San Antonio/Austin area, an address would also be nice.
So... that's all for today. It was mostly business, but oh well. Habiba should be coming over later tonight for a language partner meeting. We'll be reading another article together and discussing new vocabulary and the life. It should be fun.
On that note, Happy Continued Fourth of July everyone!
I did get a bit of good news in Formal Arabic. We always have Formal class on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, and our schedule for this lesson has activities scheduled accordingly. This weekend, however, is the entire programs trip to Sinai, and because the peninsula is ten to twelve hours away by bus, we're leaving Wednesday after class and returning late Sunday night. As in no classes on Thursday or Sunday.
I was concerned, because according to the schedule we have a paper due Thursday and a test on Monday, so I went to talk to the professor. This man is now my hero. "We'll just do it next week," he says. So now, I don't have the weight of a billion major projects on my shoulders just before the trip. Sure, there's still half a billion for my other classes, but somehow that feels much more manageable.
Oh! Also, with only a little more than a month left here, I've started keeping my eyes open for souvenirs. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know this, but for those of you who aren't either leave a comment here (which I think you can do without an account) or E-mail me at lawilliams11@gmail.com telling me what you'd like, be that kitschy statues of the pyramids, or a postcard, or a picture of the Sphinx, etc. Heads up, if you're asking for a postcard, or if you don't live in the San Antonio/Austin area, an address would also be nice.
So... that's all for today. It was mostly business, but oh well. Habiba should be coming over later tonight for a language partner meeting. We'll be reading another article together and discussing new vocabulary and the life. It should be fun.
On that note, Happy Continued Fourth of July everyone!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Days 22 - 28: Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
Alright, alright, I know I'm a terrible person who can't keep up with her blog, but please bear with me. I'm going to try to squeeze a lot in to this post.
I left off at the end of last weekend, so... classes on Sunday were fine. Nothing really important to say about them. That night though, Habiba and I were trying like mad to make up for all the language partner hours we've been missing. We went (along with Zeinab and Darcy) to San Stefano, the biggest mall in Alexandria.
Now when I say mall, I mean mall, in almost exactly the same shape that you've all seen malls. Food courts with KFC and Pizza Hut, little kiosks with people selling cell phones or drawing charicatures, and lots of name brand, over priced stores. It was still fun to wander around, and Zeinab even bought some things. She's engaged, and it's custom in Egypt for brides to get entirely new wardrobes to start their new lives.
One of the nicest features of the mall, in my opinion, was the grocery store. It was a lot like Carrefour in the respect that it stocked American products, if not with American names. They had real milk (which everyone here's been dying for since they only serve heavy cream in the dorms) and cereal and Pringles and Mars bars and it was all fantastic.
Habiba bought me a bag of Egyptian chips, insisting I had to try them. They weren't bad, but I've never been a huge fan of chips, and the flavors here are awkward: ketchup and mustard, honey and sweet pepper. It's a little disconcerting. In exchange, I bought her a Mars bar. So, okay, I know it's more European than American, but she'd never had one, and they're ridiculously good. If they even sell them in America I've never found them, so I try to fill up while I'm out the country.
While at the mall, I got a phone call from Tamar who wanted to go to the circus of all places. Yes, I had homework, but I don't like saying no to experiences in Egypt, and I didn't know when I'd find someone else who wanted to go with me.
Now before you start getting confused, there's a circus that's pitched it's tent (and yes, it's literally a tent), in the school yard of the French boys school across the street from the girls' dorms. From our asking around, we have since learned that it is an Egyptian/Russian joint project and shows up in Alexandria every summer. At the time, all we knew was that there was a large tent across the street playing loud music every night for a couple hours.
When we showed up, the show had already started, but we were only fifteen minutes or so late. Ticket prices ranged from thirty to a hundred pounds. Luckily, we bought the cheap ones, because they're only about ten feet further from the ring than the hundred pound ones. And the hundred pound seats? As good as in the ring.
I love the fact that Egypt doesn't have safety codes, because nine times out of ten the safety codes in America are only protecting the idiots. For example, despite the fact that there were going to be lions in the show, there's no minimum perimeter requirement. They just put up a fence around the ring and anyone stupid enough to stick their arm through is just going to have to pay the consequences.
The acts themselves, while entertaining, left me finally understanding the old expression "to run off and join the circus." It was a hodge podge of people who were good at balancing and twirling and dancing. One girl balanced tubes on her feet, another hula hooped on about dozen different parts of her body. And then there were the obvious acts: the tight rope walker, the fire eater, the trapeze artist (though he was on silk chords instead of a trapeze). Some were more impressive than others, the fire eater most of all because on top of the fire, he also ground his face into broken glass and smashed a concrete block over his head with a hammer.
It's worth mentioning at this point that being a circus, the dress code wasn't exactly up to Egyptian par. I felt a little bad for the tight rope walker because while she was quite good at what she was doing, there was definitely a dirty old man next to us who just clapped louder the wider her legs got in her slightly skimpy outfit. It was modest, by American standards, but it showed far more leg than even I've seen in the last month, and I live with girls.
The second half of the show was all about the animals. There was wiener dog in the beginning who came out with the clowns. They weren't great clowns, but at least the dog was cute. He did jumping tricks and then "understood" Arabic by picking the same color the crowd was yelling from red, yellow, or green.
There was a somewhat mangy horse that mostly ran in circles. The poor thing's hair was falling out, and it was clearly underfed, but it performed like a pro, jumping through hoops of fire and walking upright on its hind legs (with the help of a bench).
After the horse came the main event. We knew they had lions because there had been a lion cub wandering around outside for pictures, but I hadn't realized just how many. After taking a break to set up the security fences, the trainer brought out three giant male lions, a female lion, and a tiger. It was mostly the tiger doing tricks. Jumping from raised platform to raised platform and through suspended hoops. Then over lions through suspended hoops and finally through flaming hoops. One of the lions gave high fives, another rolled over. Mostly it was just cool being that close to them.
Despite it's somewhat lackluster appearance (there's a better Arabic word for it, but it doesn't really translate) I throughly enjoyed the Circus, and hope to go back at some point before it leaves. That night, however, I had homework, so I returned to the dorms, did it, and slept a bit.
On Monday, I finally got to meet with Ustaaz Nour about my first exam. It wasn't stellar, which was disappointing, but having talked with the other students I'm not the only one. Due to the format of the test, it was quite possible to know the entire lesson back to front and still fail as most the questions required outside information that many of us had not learned yet. Ustaaz Nour and I had a nice long discussion about it though, he's a very nice man, and I'm confident that the next exam will be more on our level.
That evening there was a soccer game. Not World Cup, but better. The annual US vs. Egypt match on the University field, but which I mean all the Egyptian students versus all the American students battling it out for bragging rights. I went with a large group from the dorms, but I didn't play. Still, there was juice in the stands, and it was a great game to watch. Despite the excitement, I left a little early to work on homework. I heard later that the US won for the first time in years. Go us!
After I'd mostly finished my homework that night Habiba came over for language partner hours, since I don't have class until 11 AM on Tuesdays. She's an Arabic major at the University, and as such has a lot of great literature. We read through a short story of hers about a taxi driver who's upset that high class writers feel like they can write about lower class issues without talking to the lower class. It was interesting, and I learned more than I think I have in any language partner meeting yet, but I still think I would have understood the story better on my own, being able to focus and go slowly. Also, one of the major goals of the language partner program is to get to explore Alexandria, so as much as we both enjoyed the reading, we probably won't be doing it too much.
Tuesday brought a set of American troubles with it. I'd been putting off reading my Arabic House lease because, let's face it, even if I have any issues it's not like I can sit down with the landlord and talk them out from Egypt. But it was due on June thirtieth and Tuesday was the twenty-ninth, so I sat down in the dar and went over it after classes. There were one or two things I wasn't ecstatic about, but that I could live with, and I know the UT legal team has been over the document with a fine toothed comb. So I signed it and E-mailed it off (thank goodness the scanner in the dar is working again).
The only problem left after signing the lease was how to pay my first months rent. Even if I have my check book with me in Egypt, which I don't, mailing it from here wouldn't exactly be efficient. Thank goodness my parents love me. I E-mailed my mother to call me ASAP (phone calls only work one way), and asked her to write and send the check for me. Her, being as amazing as she is, did, and then dad transferred the money from my account to theirs later. It didn't get to Austin until the first, but I've spoken with Helena and there doesn't seem to be any problem with that.
When I finally got back to the dorms I crashed. It had been a long night the day before and I needed a nap. The best part of the nap was that I woke up refreshed and more than ready to write my presentation for media class. The presentation was fairly loose, it just had to be on an assassination, or at least an attempted assassination. I, having just completed a history class in which we focused in depth on the Indian revolution, chose Gandhi. Sure, it's not that original, but I feel like I had some information to share that the class hadn't heard before. For instance, did you know Gandhi survived four assassination attempts before the radicals finally got to him?
Anyway, this blog isn't about Indian history, so I'm not going to focus on the content of the presentation. I spent a good few hours writing and rehearsing, but it just wasn't sticking in my head. Habiba, being such a sweetheart, came in and edited the presentation for me at something like three in the morning, and said she'd be up for breakfast, if I wanted to practice on her after I had it memorized better. I'd planned to take her up on it, but unfortunately my alarm did not go off. I still had plenty of time to get dressed and eat breakfast and what not, but not enough to practice, much to my chagrin.
In class, however, it turned out that a lot of people were relying heavily on their written papers to give their presentations, so I made a few marks near the parts I was forgetting and gave a near flawless presentation (with only a little reading in between). It was a good feeling, especially considering the day.
As many of you know, Wednesday was my birthday. I tried not to make a big deal out of it, no one really knew, but I had let it slip to Tamar and Megan earlier in the week and Tamar, trying to be nice, just wouldn't leave me alone. She tried to buy me cake at least three times, and I only barely stopped her. It was the middle of the week, and I was tired, and despite my presentation success, not in the mood to celebrate. So that night I made plans to go out the next night instead, did homework, and went to bed. Unfortunately, the next night didn't work out quite as planned.
A few of us had been dying to go to this somewhat touristy dance club. The only one in Alexandria, in fact. It's called Mermaid, and they're so used to American students that apparently they let us take over when we come in: play our music, drink our drinks, organize the tables however we like. I was excited, so we made plans to leave the dorms around 10:30. When 10:45 rolled around and I hadn't heard from anyone, I made a few phone calls. It turns out everyone had already left. Not being able to take a taxi by myself, I turned in early again only to be woken a few hours later by a slightly tipsy Tamar waving a Mars bar in my face. It was a birthday present, and kind of sweet, but in my half asleep state all I could really do was take it, mumble a thank you, and fall back into bed.
The early night was probably a blessing because I had to be up early the next morning for an outing with Habiba. In direct translation, we went to the animal garden, or, as it's more commonly known in English, the zoo. Zoos are usually kind of sad to begin with, but the Alexandria zoo even more so. The cages are itty bitty, and the animals not well cared for. Other than that, the zoo itself wasn't all that different. I learned useful words, like elephant, and ostrich, and took a lot of pictures.
What was different about the zoo was the people who were there. Since the zoo is fairly cheap, and fun for all classes, there was a variety of people spending the day. And they don't spend the day like Americans spend the day. They spend the day like it's an actual park. Sure there are animals, but that doesn't stop them from playing catch or soccer or tag. While next to the baboon enclosure (by the way, Arabic does not differentiate between monkey and baboon, which confuses me) we met some women out with their children, all of whom had their faces painted. There's an adorable picture of them, for those of you who haven't seen it on Facebook yet. (Note: Unless Habiba requests I share more, these will be the only pictures on Facebook until I'm back in America. The internet connection is much too slow here to make it worth the hassel.)
There's also a miniature fair off of the zoo with a few run down rides, cotton candy, and a game or two. We tried to get on the ferris wheel, but the line was long, and it was hot, and we ended up wandering back to the zoo instead.
When we finally left the zoo a few hours later there was a man selling an unrecognizable fruit out front. Habiba explained to me that it was a stripped prickly pear, and insisted I try one. I was little wary, as I am of most street food, but I used my hand sanitizer and took a bite. It was actually pretty tasty, and though the seeds were a little hard they were easy to swallow. The vendor, once he realized I wasn't from Egypt, tried to give us the fruit for free, insisting it was a new experience for me. Just another example of how sweet Egyptians, or Alexandrians rather, can be. We gave him a pound anyway and went on our merry way.
It was still only a little past noon, and neither of us really wanted to go back to the dorms yet, so we wandered the streets for a while. The zoo is in a part of Alex I'd never been to before, near the boys' dorms, and it was nice to explore. We walked, and we chatted, and Habiba stopped by a salon to check prices for her roommate.
Egyptian women are far more particular about hair than American woman. Despite the fact that no one's ever going to see it outside the home, they insist on waxing everything. Even the unmarried ones. And by everything I mean brows to arms to toes. You name it. But it's cheaper here, like everything else. 150 pounds for full body. I'm almost tempted to try it...
After the salon, we continued our wandering until we ended up in a neighborhood called Ibrahimiya, where Habiba's family had a summer home while she was growing up. She knew the area very well from her childhood and took me to the best sugar cane place, as well as a nice pharmacy so I could by aspirin and dental floss, and a miniature mall to buy souvenirs. I finally found a great place to buy papyrus! If you want one let me know! They're printed, not hand-painted, but all that means is they run from sixty cents to twenty dollars instead of starting in the hundreds of dollars and going up.
I also managed to buy my first Arabic news paper. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I'm still rather proud of myself.
After Ibrahimya we took the tram home. It's amazing how many fewer stares I get just by virtue of having a muhagiba (girl in a head scarf) with me. I did homework for most of the evening, despite wanting a nap, and went to bed early again. Go me, two nights in a row.
Thanks to my early night, I managed to get up for breakfast this morning. (I would like to put special emphasis on this morning, meaning I've finally caught all the way up. *dances*) There was supposedly a movie in the dar I was supposed to watch and write a paper on, and while I didn't know the name, some girls from my class were meeting there later to watch it, so I wandered over. I still had a lot of other work to do, and the dar is a great place to work on Saturdays because it's nearly empty and has the only comfortable furniture I've found in Egypt to date.
When the other girls got there, however, they didn't know the name of the film either. So, we spent some time calling all the other people in our class, and coming to the realization that none of them know, called our professor. Who didn't answer. Luckily, the professor had a contingency plan that if we were unable to watch the movie, we could write a story using the new expressions we learned in class instead. So we sent him an E-mail, explaining out situation, and telling him we were going to do that instead.
Afterward, I checked my E-mail, went back to the dorms for dinner, and then read out on the balcony all night. Don't be fooled though, it wasn't just for pleasure. I have a reading assignment due tomorrow. And I still have to write that story... But at least I'm caught up on my blog!
Now, few more miscellaneous notes before I sign off:
1. Hadir, my roommate, has officially left the country. She told me when she left last Friday that she'd be back on Monday. And if she wasn't going to be back on Monday, she'd call. She never called. And she never came back. By Wednesday I was getting a little worried and planned to call her that night, but a conveniently timed text message arrived that made that unnecessary. Apparently, she got a last minute visa or plane ticket or something and had to rush out of the country. And international calls are expensive, so I understand why she didn't call when she got there. Either way, now she's in Oman with her mother, and I'm not entirely sure when she's coming back. The original plan was ten days, but since I'm not sure what day her departure flight was, I can't even begin to hypothesize a return date.
2. The washing machine on my floor is broken. I know it's not that important, but as long as I'm telling you all the details of my life, I might as well add that major inconvenience. I can go to a different floor, sure, but: The first floor is pretty exclusively for administration. The second floor washer has always been broken. The third floor has double traffic from the second floor. I'm on the fourth floor. And it's mostly American's living on five through seven, which means they wash more, and the washer is never empty. And since I don't live on their floors, I can't leave my door open and pounce on the dryer when it's current occupant wanders down the hall. I have three clean pairs of pants left. Hopefully I'll find a solution to my problem before Tuesday.
3. Last, but best, and on a much happier note: What is the deal with Egyptian chocolate? I swear they put crack in it. It's absolutely to die for. As most of you know, I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I was craving sugar the other day, so I wandered down to a shop and bought a candy bar. Galaxy Hazelnut Chocolate, made in Egypt. Nearly a week later I'm still raving about it. It was that good. I bought another bar today, but they didn't have any plain hazelnut, so I had to get a fruit and nut bar. The dried raisins changed it up a little, but they did not change the fact that the chocolate is heavenly. Why doesn't America make chocolate like this? They would make a killing. Hershey needs to take some lessons.
Anyway, that's all my rambling for today. Now that I don't have to make up back logs before I can write about the present day, I'm going to try to be better about publishing shorter posts more often. We'll see how that goes.
Also, Happy Birthday to my big brother Jason! In Egypt time, his birthday was technically yesterday, but it's still going strong in America, so I'm sending the wishes anyway.
On an Egypt time note, Happy Fourth of July! There was a party on Friday for the American students, but tickets were a little expensive, and I was out with Habiba, so I didn't go. I've heard there might be some activities going on tomorrow night, but we'll see.
I left off at the end of last weekend, so... classes on Sunday were fine. Nothing really important to say about them. That night though, Habiba and I were trying like mad to make up for all the language partner hours we've been missing. We went (along with Zeinab and Darcy) to San Stefano, the biggest mall in Alexandria.
Now when I say mall, I mean mall, in almost exactly the same shape that you've all seen malls. Food courts with KFC and Pizza Hut, little kiosks with people selling cell phones or drawing charicatures, and lots of name brand, over priced stores. It was still fun to wander around, and Zeinab even bought some things. She's engaged, and it's custom in Egypt for brides to get entirely new wardrobes to start their new lives.
One of the nicest features of the mall, in my opinion, was the grocery store. It was a lot like Carrefour in the respect that it stocked American products, if not with American names. They had real milk (which everyone here's been dying for since they only serve heavy cream in the dorms) and cereal and Pringles and Mars bars and it was all fantastic.
Habiba bought me a bag of Egyptian chips, insisting I had to try them. They weren't bad, but I've never been a huge fan of chips, and the flavors here are awkward: ketchup and mustard, honey and sweet pepper. It's a little disconcerting. In exchange, I bought her a Mars bar. So, okay, I know it's more European than American, but she'd never had one, and they're ridiculously good. If they even sell them in America I've never found them, so I try to fill up while I'm out the country.
While at the mall, I got a phone call from Tamar who wanted to go to the circus of all places. Yes, I had homework, but I don't like saying no to experiences in Egypt, and I didn't know when I'd find someone else who wanted to go with me.
Now before you start getting confused, there's a circus that's pitched it's tent (and yes, it's literally a tent), in the school yard of the French boys school across the street from the girls' dorms. From our asking around, we have since learned that it is an Egyptian/Russian joint project and shows up in Alexandria every summer. At the time, all we knew was that there was a large tent across the street playing loud music every night for a couple hours.
When we showed up, the show had already started, but we were only fifteen minutes or so late. Ticket prices ranged from thirty to a hundred pounds. Luckily, we bought the cheap ones, because they're only about ten feet further from the ring than the hundred pound ones. And the hundred pound seats? As good as in the ring.
I love the fact that Egypt doesn't have safety codes, because nine times out of ten the safety codes in America are only protecting the idiots. For example, despite the fact that there were going to be lions in the show, there's no minimum perimeter requirement. They just put up a fence around the ring and anyone stupid enough to stick their arm through is just going to have to pay the consequences.
The acts themselves, while entertaining, left me finally understanding the old expression "to run off and join the circus." It was a hodge podge of people who were good at balancing and twirling and dancing. One girl balanced tubes on her feet, another hula hooped on about dozen different parts of her body. And then there were the obvious acts: the tight rope walker, the fire eater, the trapeze artist (though he was on silk chords instead of a trapeze). Some were more impressive than others, the fire eater most of all because on top of the fire, he also ground his face into broken glass and smashed a concrete block over his head with a hammer.
It's worth mentioning at this point that being a circus, the dress code wasn't exactly up to Egyptian par. I felt a little bad for the tight rope walker because while she was quite good at what she was doing, there was definitely a dirty old man next to us who just clapped louder the wider her legs got in her slightly skimpy outfit. It was modest, by American standards, but it showed far more leg than even I've seen in the last month, and I live with girls.
The second half of the show was all about the animals. There was wiener dog in the beginning who came out with the clowns. They weren't great clowns, but at least the dog was cute. He did jumping tricks and then "understood" Arabic by picking the same color the crowd was yelling from red, yellow, or green.
There was a somewhat mangy horse that mostly ran in circles. The poor thing's hair was falling out, and it was clearly underfed, but it performed like a pro, jumping through hoops of fire and walking upright on its hind legs (with the help of a bench).
After the horse came the main event. We knew they had lions because there had been a lion cub wandering around outside for pictures, but I hadn't realized just how many. After taking a break to set up the security fences, the trainer brought out three giant male lions, a female lion, and a tiger. It was mostly the tiger doing tricks. Jumping from raised platform to raised platform and through suspended hoops. Then over lions through suspended hoops and finally through flaming hoops. One of the lions gave high fives, another rolled over. Mostly it was just cool being that close to them.
Despite it's somewhat lackluster appearance (there's a better Arabic word for it, but it doesn't really translate) I throughly enjoyed the Circus, and hope to go back at some point before it leaves. That night, however, I had homework, so I returned to the dorms, did it, and slept a bit.
On Monday, I finally got to meet with Ustaaz Nour about my first exam. It wasn't stellar, which was disappointing, but having talked with the other students I'm not the only one. Due to the format of the test, it was quite possible to know the entire lesson back to front and still fail as most the questions required outside information that many of us had not learned yet. Ustaaz Nour and I had a nice long discussion about it though, he's a very nice man, and I'm confident that the next exam will be more on our level.
That evening there was a soccer game. Not World Cup, but better. The annual US vs. Egypt match on the University field, but which I mean all the Egyptian students versus all the American students battling it out for bragging rights. I went with a large group from the dorms, but I didn't play. Still, there was juice in the stands, and it was a great game to watch. Despite the excitement, I left a little early to work on homework. I heard later that the US won for the first time in years. Go us!
After I'd mostly finished my homework that night Habiba came over for language partner hours, since I don't have class until 11 AM on Tuesdays. She's an Arabic major at the University, and as such has a lot of great literature. We read through a short story of hers about a taxi driver who's upset that high class writers feel like they can write about lower class issues without talking to the lower class. It was interesting, and I learned more than I think I have in any language partner meeting yet, but I still think I would have understood the story better on my own, being able to focus and go slowly. Also, one of the major goals of the language partner program is to get to explore Alexandria, so as much as we both enjoyed the reading, we probably won't be doing it too much.
Tuesday brought a set of American troubles with it. I'd been putting off reading my Arabic House lease because, let's face it, even if I have any issues it's not like I can sit down with the landlord and talk them out from Egypt. But it was due on June thirtieth and Tuesday was the twenty-ninth, so I sat down in the dar and went over it after classes. There were one or two things I wasn't ecstatic about, but that I could live with, and I know the UT legal team has been over the document with a fine toothed comb. So I signed it and E-mailed it off (thank goodness the scanner in the dar is working again).
The only problem left after signing the lease was how to pay my first months rent. Even if I have my check book with me in Egypt, which I don't, mailing it from here wouldn't exactly be efficient. Thank goodness my parents love me. I E-mailed my mother to call me ASAP (phone calls only work one way), and asked her to write and send the check for me. Her, being as amazing as she is, did, and then dad transferred the money from my account to theirs later. It didn't get to Austin until the first, but I've spoken with Helena and there doesn't seem to be any problem with that.
When I finally got back to the dorms I crashed. It had been a long night the day before and I needed a nap. The best part of the nap was that I woke up refreshed and more than ready to write my presentation for media class. The presentation was fairly loose, it just had to be on an assassination, or at least an attempted assassination. I, having just completed a history class in which we focused in depth on the Indian revolution, chose Gandhi. Sure, it's not that original, but I feel like I had some information to share that the class hadn't heard before. For instance, did you know Gandhi survived four assassination attempts before the radicals finally got to him?
Anyway, this blog isn't about Indian history, so I'm not going to focus on the content of the presentation. I spent a good few hours writing and rehearsing, but it just wasn't sticking in my head. Habiba, being such a sweetheart, came in and edited the presentation for me at something like three in the morning, and said she'd be up for breakfast, if I wanted to practice on her after I had it memorized better. I'd planned to take her up on it, but unfortunately my alarm did not go off. I still had plenty of time to get dressed and eat breakfast and what not, but not enough to practice, much to my chagrin.
In class, however, it turned out that a lot of people were relying heavily on their written papers to give their presentations, so I made a few marks near the parts I was forgetting and gave a near flawless presentation (with only a little reading in between). It was a good feeling, especially considering the day.
As many of you know, Wednesday was my birthday. I tried not to make a big deal out of it, no one really knew, but I had let it slip to Tamar and Megan earlier in the week and Tamar, trying to be nice, just wouldn't leave me alone. She tried to buy me cake at least three times, and I only barely stopped her. It was the middle of the week, and I was tired, and despite my presentation success, not in the mood to celebrate. So that night I made plans to go out the next night instead, did homework, and went to bed. Unfortunately, the next night didn't work out quite as planned.
A few of us had been dying to go to this somewhat touristy dance club. The only one in Alexandria, in fact. It's called Mermaid, and they're so used to American students that apparently they let us take over when we come in: play our music, drink our drinks, organize the tables however we like. I was excited, so we made plans to leave the dorms around 10:30. When 10:45 rolled around and I hadn't heard from anyone, I made a few phone calls. It turns out everyone had already left. Not being able to take a taxi by myself, I turned in early again only to be woken a few hours later by a slightly tipsy Tamar waving a Mars bar in my face. It was a birthday present, and kind of sweet, but in my half asleep state all I could really do was take it, mumble a thank you, and fall back into bed.
The early night was probably a blessing because I had to be up early the next morning for an outing with Habiba. In direct translation, we went to the animal garden, or, as it's more commonly known in English, the zoo. Zoos are usually kind of sad to begin with, but the Alexandria zoo even more so. The cages are itty bitty, and the animals not well cared for. Other than that, the zoo itself wasn't all that different. I learned useful words, like elephant, and ostrich, and took a lot of pictures.
What was different about the zoo was the people who were there. Since the zoo is fairly cheap, and fun for all classes, there was a variety of people spending the day. And they don't spend the day like Americans spend the day. They spend the day like it's an actual park. Sure there are animals, but that doesn't stop them from playing catch or soccer or tag. While next to the baboon enclosure (by the way, Arabic does not differentiate between monkey and baboon, which confuses me) we met some women out with their children, all of whom had their faces painted. There's an adorable picture of them, for those of you who haven't seen it on Facebook yet. (Note: Unless Habiba requests I share more, these will be the only pictures on Facebook until I'm back in America. The internet connection is much too slow here to make it worth the hassel.)
There's also a miniature fair off of the zoo with a few run down rides, cotton candy, and a game or two. We tried to get on the ferris wheel, but the line was long, and it was hot, and we ended up wandering back to the zoo instead.
When we finally left the zoo a few hours later there was a man selling an unrecognizable fruit out front. Habiba explained to me that it was a stripped prickly pear, and insisted I try one. I was little wary, as I am of most street food, but I used my hand sanitizer and took a bite. It was actually pretty tasty, and though the seeds were a little hard they were easy to swallow. The vendor, once he realized I wasn't from Egypt, tried to give us the fruit for free, insisting it was a new experience for me. Just another example of how sweet Egyptians, or Alexandrians rather, can be. We gave him a pound anyway and went on our merry way.
It was still only a little past noon, and neither of us really wanted to go back to the dorms yet, so we wandered the streets for a while. The zoo is in a part of Alex I'd never been to before, near the boys' dorms, and it was nice to explore. We walked, and we chatted, and Habiba stopped by a salon to check prices for her roommate.
Egyptian women are far more particular about hair than American woman. Despite the fact that no one's ever going to see it outside the home, they insist on waxing everything. Even the unmarried ones. And by everything I mean brows to arms to toes. You name it. But it's cheaper here, like everything else. 150 pounds for full body. I'm almost tempted to try it...
After the salon, we continued our wandering until we ended up in a neighborhood called Ibrahimiya, where Habiba's family had a summer home while she was growing up. She knew the area very well from her childhood and took me to the best sugar cane place, as well as a nice pharmacy so I could by aspirin and dental floss, and a miniature mall to buy souvenirs. I finally found a great place to buy papyrus! If you want one let me know! They're printed, not hand-painted, but all that means is they run from sixty cents to twenty dollars instead of starting in the hundreds of dollars and going up.
I also managed to buy my first Arabic news paper. I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but I'm still rather proud of myself.
After Ibrahimya we took the tram home. It's amazing how many fewer stares I get just by virtue of having a muhagiba (girl in a head scarf) with me. I did homework for most of the evening, despite wanting a nap, and went to bed early again. Go me, two nights in a row.
Thanks to my early night, I managed to get up for breakfast this morning. (I would like to put special emphasis on this morning, meaning I've finally caught all the way up. *dances*) There was supposedly a movie in the dar I was supposed to watch and write a paper on, and while I didn't know the name, some girls from my class were meeting there later to watch it, so I wandered over. I still had a lot of other work to do, and the dar is a great place to work on Saturdays because it's nearly empty and has the only comfortable furniture I've found in Egypt to date.
When the other girls got there, however, they didn't know the name of the film either. So, we spent some time calling all the other people in our class, and coming to the realization that none of them know, called our professor. Who didn't answer. Luckily, the professor had a contingency plan that if we were unable to watch the movie, we could write a story using the new expressions we learned in class instead. So we sent him an E-mail, explaining out situation, and telling him we were going to do that instead.
Afterward, I checked my E-mail, went back to the dorms for dinner, and then read out on the balcony all night. Don't be fooled though, it wasn't just for pleasure. I have a reading assignment due tomorrow. And I still have to write that story... But at least I'm caught up on my blog!
Now, few more miscellaneous notes before I sign off:
1. Hadir, my roommate, has officially left the country. She told me when she left last Friday that she'd be back on Monday. And if she wasn't going to be back on Monday, she'd call. She never called. And she never came back. By Wednesday I was getting a little worried and planned to call her that night, but a conveniently timed text message arrived that made that unnecessary. Apparently, she got a last minute visa or plane ticket or something and had to rush out of the country. And international calls are expensive, so I understand why she didn't call when she got there. Either way, now she's in Oman with her mother, and I'm not entirely sure when she's coming back. The original plan was ten days, but since I'm not sure what day her departure flight was, I can't even begin to hypothesize a return date.
2. The washing machine on my floor is broken. I know it's not that important, but as long as I'm telling you all the details of my life, I might as well add that major inconvenience. I can go to a different floor, sure, but: The first floor is pretty exclusively for administration. The second floor washer has always been broken. The third floor has double traffic from the second floor. I'm on the fourth floor. And it's mostly American's living on five through seven, which means they wash more, and the washer is never empty. And since I don't live on their floors, I can't leave my door open and pounce on the dryer when it's current occupant wanders down the hall. I have three clean pairs of pants left. Hopefully I'll find a solution to my problem before Tuesday.
3. Last, but best, and on a much happier note: What is the deal with Egyptian chocolate? I swear they put crack in it. It's absolutely to die for. As most of you know, I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I was craving sugar the other day, so I wandered down to a shop and bought a candy bar. Galaxy Hazelnut Chocolate, made in Egypt. Nearly a week later I'm still raving about it. It was that good. I bought another bar today, but they didn't have any plain hazelnut, so I had to get a fruit and nut bar. The dried raisins changed it up a little, but they did not change the fact that the chocolate is heavenly. Why doesn't America make chocolate like this? They would make a killing. Hershey needs to take some lessons.
Anyway, that's all my rambling for today. Now that I don't have to make up back logs before I can write about the present day, I'm going to try to be better about publishing shorter posts more often. We'll see how that goes.
Also, Happy Birthday to my big brother Jason! In Egypt time, his birthday was technically yesterday, but it's still going strong in America, so I'm sending the wishes anyway.
On an Egypt time note, Happy Fourth of July! There was a party on Friday for the American students, but tickets were a little expensive, and I was out with Habiba, so I didn't go. I've heard there might be some activities going on tomorrow night, but we'll see.
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