Beyond the Steps of the Union

After a ridiculous 28 hours of travel time, I am home safe and sound and very happy to be able to wear whatever I want and say whatever I want :)! I will update soon about a zillion finishing things (tonight probably and finalize my pictures), but until then know I'm back in the good 'ole USA!

While there is no way I can add all my feelings of the terror, the bittersweet leaving, and of so many things in Cairo and in Islamic/Egyptian culture I wish I could explain and will try to at some point. However, today I will be hanging out with people in the dorms, packing, showering, going out for Lebanese food, then coming back and leaving for the airport at 3:30am. I will be taking a notebook with me on my 28 hour trip back home and will try to write all these memories and observations down and type them up on Monday when I'm laying in my bed getting served hand and foot by my family (hint, hint!). I'll post as soon as I get home around midnight or 1am eastern time on Sunday night/Monday morning! Please pray for my safe return travels as I try to capture the emotions and experience on the way. Love you all!

Warden Message
U.S. Embassy Cairo, Egypt

Several terror bombings rocked the heart of Sharm El Sheikh early July 23rd, causing significant damage and loss of life. As of 7:00 a.m. Cairo time, there are no reports of any U.S. citizen casualties. The Embassy has sent a team to the site to offer assistance to any U.S. citizens who may have been affected. Because of the considerable disruptions in the area, U.S. citizens should postpone all travel to the South Sinai until further notice.

Inquiries concerning the welfare and or whereabouts of U.S. citizens who might be in Sharm El Sheikh may be made directly to the U.S. Embassy Cairo ACS Unit at +2-02 797-3832 or 797-3986 or via the Embassy switchboard at 797-3300.

The U.S. Embassy will be issuing further updates, as the situation clarifies.

As the U.S. Government develops information on any potential security threats to U.S. citizens overseas, it shares credible threat information through its consular information program documents, available on the Internet at . The most recent State Department Worldwide Caution Public Announcement, and Middle East and North Africa Public Announcement contain additional security information. These documents can be found at www.travel.state.gov

Will write about my insane day/night later, but for now it's 4:30 am and I just want to let everyone know I'm in Cairo and safe. Although I'm shook up because the explosions happened at the hotel I was at a few weeks ago, I am okay because we are like 10 hours away from there and the security in Cairo is insane right now. More later. Home in 2 days.

Let me count the ways that I love David Brooks. . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0...

Today has been wonderful thus far! Woke up early, since I feel asleep too early last night while studying, and headed to campus to study Arabic in the courtyard. After about three hours of the courtyard I realized that studying in the courtyard is like studying in the DIAG—you see everyone you know and you just wouldn’t unless you weren’t stressed. I had already written my presentation that is 50% of my final exam grade the night before and basically assumed I would either know the vocab on the test or not! So it was a great morning! When we got to class we did the exam first to relive the stress then our presentations! It was so nice of Iman to switch the order to console us! Even nicer was how great the test was! It is all vocal, but it was basically listening to a bunch of dialogues and filling in orders and who was speaking and a lot of verb stuff! I didn’t ace it, but it wasn’t too shabby!

After having taken summer classes for three summers in a row, it was so exciting to be done with my exam and not have class again until September—and not just not have class but no jobs either! I have nothing left to do this summer but travel and enjoy the beautiful UP!

A quick Khan al Khalili trip added to my job of finishing classes! I picked up a zillion tshirts for my little cousins and am now complete with my shopping! Very happy about that as well! Speaking of the “DIAG analogy”, there were actually rows in the Khan I told everyone we couldn’t go down because I knew too many people—I was there to complete my shopping ASAP not to socialize. Besides, I’ve used up all my Arabic skills on the exam!

Quick frusterations occurred in trying to get my drycleaning since the place didn’t answer and I leave Sunday, but the front desk said they should be open on Friday—a little worried because Friday is mosque day and its revolution day weekend?

After the frusterations I hopped in the shower and got ready to go to dinner on the Nile City boat and then with the girls to the Embassy!

Nile City was our goodbye dinner for our perpetual tour guide and preacher’s son, Anthony, as he heads off for Luxor early Friday morning! Ivan also accompanied us and seemed a little sad that we were sending him to the dorms as we went out with the Marines!

Two taxi rides later we ended up at the right entrance to the Embassy, gave them our passports, and met Rebecca’s friend Emily (the only girl Marine stationed here) to bring us upstairs. Walking into the Embassy was so relieving—you don’t realize how on guard you are all the time until you are in a situation that you can just breathe. Emily took us up to the fifth floor where the “Marine House” is, and we walked into their TV room to be greeted by a whole bunch of American boys! It was a beautiful sight!

The Marine House consists of a huge bar, pool table, big, fluffy leather couches, and a huge big screen TV. They looked like they had it pretty good, and when I asked them if I needed to call my Senators and yell at them about anything, they couldn’t think of any complaints! So I’m more than relieved that they are keeping our most important people happy.

We chilled out for a little bit before some of them called an Embassy van and driver to take us to a karoakee bar! Remind you of Top Gun? It was so much fun to feel so relaxed and to hang out with such Americans. I didn’t realize how much I’ve adapted to Cairo until I heard some of the guys making fun of the donkey cart in front of us in the car or when they were complaining about the traffic or when they were so confused as they were speaking English. However, it was pretty neat to see how well I’ve adapted and that I’ve learned and experienced the little things about Egypt and living in a Muslim country.

At the bar (in the Marriott so very safe!) Rebecca and Emily sang, while all I did was cheer  Two hours flew by and the driver was there to pick us up again. We swung by the dorms, grabbed Ivan, and headed back to the Embassy to watch a movie. I fell asleep because the movie was awful and the couches were amazing, but no one seemed to mind. It was amazing to hang out with a bunch of awesome people—many who dropped out of college after 9/11 to join—and feel so safe. I think culture shock going home is going to happen!

We headed back to the dorms and I crashed ASAP only to wake up Friday morning (now) at almost noon! Today is going to be ice cream day since we ran out of time yesterday, then chilling around downtown, and going out tonight. Tomorrow is going to the Citadel then packing all day! Wow how time flies. . nuts.

Addendum to Yesterday: There will be no pictures posted of last night because of policy with the Marines, and I forgot to mention how sweet one guy was and bought all five of us girls flowers. Yay for American boys!

why i love life even though i'm studying arabic all night tonight:

1) tomorrow is my last day of arabic until september and today i finished poli sci
2) after my exam, tomorrow i break my ten-day no ice cream fast!
3) i discovered after seven weeks of being here that you can buy toast in the cafeteria
4) i'm listening to american country music
5) my friends/family sent me like 100,000 emails
6) tomorrow night i'm partying with the marines at the embassy

this weekend i promise to post my 200 pictures from the nile cruise.

also coming this weekend, i have quite a bit to say about my bittersweet departure.

My “relaxing” four day cruise down to Upper Egypt began with less sleep than planned due to Thursday night’s endeavours. I knew we had to be on the bus to the airport by 4am, but I didn’t want to miss a nice Thursday night meal out and on top of that my friends agreed on Lebanese food!

We were suppose to meet around 10pm, and I assumed we’d be done with dinner by 12:30am when some of them would go out and others (myself in this group) would head back to the dorm so I could sleep for three hours before the journey which began at 4am. Nothing happens as planned in Cairo though. . . .:). . .however, I’ve grown accustomed to this laid back attitude and may have a hard time reassimiliating back to U.S. culture!

At about 11pm we ended up at the Lebanese resteraunt, and I ordered appetizers for everyone—kibbeh, spinach fatyeer, hummos, and calamari—to show everyone how good Lebanese food is. .esp. compared to Egyptian! Ivan and I ordered more kibbeh and lentil soup (because everyone knows that second to icecream and chocolate they have to go with me to get lentil soup when I’m crabby—funny how people can get to know each other so well in such short tim!) and the others ordered lamb and rabbit.

Now, FYI, Sarah happens to be allergic to chicken and its byproducts and a bunch of different vegetables—basically a ton of good stuff she is allergic to—but she had never tried rabbit and despite being allergic to so many things was willing to try it once. Needless to say, we all headed home when she was feeling ill at around 1am, only after two great quotes that are a must from the dinner conversation:

Me: “Indians don’t eat eggs because they come from a cow.” Yup I’m a genius!

Anthony telling me random facts about the late-pope. . .
Me: “Anthony you shoulg go on Jepoardy!”
Ivan: (He’s always saying s/thing good!) “The pope was on Jepoardy?”

Anyways, back to rushing home cuz Sarah felt sick!

I always have to be the girl that sits on people’s laps when we can’t all fit in a taxi and for some reason I protested that night and made Elizabeth be that girl—I was lucky not to be that girl this time!

As we were driving down S. 26th of July Sarah shouted to stop, before we could tell the driver she proceeded to purge all over Elizabeth. We shoved her on the sidewalk, paid the cabby an exhorbinant fee, and I pointed towards an “alley” for her to finish in. Apparenlty the “alley” was a set back, beautiful, marble entrance to an upscale Zamalek apt. building.

No one really cared at this point about anything but making sure she was okay. We got her hair back, bought some water, Sprite, and t.p. and prayed she wouldn’t go into shock—as she apparently does if she eats chicken and we all knew this in case it ever happened. Luckily she was okay after that!

After a long walk back I got to bed around 2:30ish with Sarah safe in her bed and rabbit added to her already long allergic list. I woke up an hour later mad that I had even tried to sleep and made it worse. Melanie and I excitedly chatted on the bus all the way to the airport gate where I bored EgyptAir to Luxor and slep for the hour—only to wake up for the orange juice.

As soon as we arrived in Upper/Southern Egypt (so named Upper because the Nile River flows North so South Egypt is the Upper part of the Nile) we bored another bus and loaded up on our cruise boat where AUC students were occupying 70/100 people on board! By 8:30am we were back in the bus and heading to the Valley of the Kings.

Walking through 120 degree heat from 9am to 1pm we saw a huge expanse where Egyptians hid the pharaoh’s tombs once they realized that the pyramid tombs were easily spotted and raided. All though out the “sand” mountain are entrances to tombs that number over twenty. A whole community lives on top of the tomb—many of their ancestors built their houses over alternated entrances to the tombs and made their livelihood from raiding them.

We entered three different tombs (no pictures were allowed, sorry!) and saw elaborate paintings and chamber ways. Most of the inside relics have been put in museums or looted at one point in time.

After the HOT experience we found our way to the temple of Hatshepsut—a woman pharaoh. Much was destroyed by a pharaoh after her, but it was awesome to see the sculptures that brought her her legitimacy. There were sculptures of her mother giving birth to her with her father as the god.

As we were on the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor and our cruise ship was on the East Bank and it took us a long time to bus it to the one side, all 70 of us hopped into three flatboats and took a boat back to our ship for lunch. We were all over the Nile this weekend!

The ride was cool and refreshing, but as I’ve mentioned before the Nile water is disgusting and full of parasites. To add to that the cruise boats just empty their “tanks” into the river. It is so sad to see how behind this country is in every aspect environmentally.

Quick lunch was followed by a much needed siesta for a couple hours to be out of the sun in the hottest part of the day. Our cruise was an Egyptian Five Star which is about equivalent to a modest but clean Holiday Inn type hotel. The foyer had all the beauty of a nice cruise but the rooms were simple but clean and there was a small pool and chairs on the top deck. However, I did enjoy that each of our rooms had a balcony so I could stare at the Nile each morning!

At 4ish we headed to the Karmak Temple and to the Luxor Temple. Karnak is on a 60-acre plot tha once held 34 temples—it’s the main temple and the only surviving one as well. It is the largest archeological site and the most beautiful site I’ve ever seen. There are two obelisks (originally many more but they are in various locations now such as in the Metro Art Museum in NYC) still standing and hundreds of over 300-600 pound pillars that once helf up a roof. This temple lasted through many dynasties—from Ramses to Tue to Hatsheptut to Akenahten. Our tour guide was fantastic (Egyptology profs from AUC come and explain it all to us—we are so dang spoiled!), but I surprised myself at how much I remember from Babyon’s People’s of the Middle East drama and Seymour 6th grade—yup he was that good of a teacher!

It’s so breathtaking to see all the sites that one reads about their whole life in school, and this weekend we saw more temples and tombs and archeologists sites that I feel as if I’ve conquered Egypt!

Noteworthy about Karnak is that this is the site that archeologists learned how the ancient Egyptians built such high temple walls with such large bricks in a time with no machinery. During the building of a wall the Persians came to Egypt and all the builders had to leave the job site and go to fight. In such haste, they left a wall half done with ramps of mud leading up the next level to be built! The mud is still in the exact spot today as evidence of how the ancient Egyptians rolled the bricks right up the ramps to the top layer!

Next was the smaller Luxor Tmeple that was covered for a number of years after a Nile flood of salt and sand that covered the entire temple so deeply that the city had roads built on top and a mosque still stands today—one part in the hillside they left and the other side completely exposed and held up by the temple (see pictures to understand what I mean!). You can see the remains of a road between the top of a temple pillar and the mosque. This temple was fascinating because it was converted for a period of time to a Greek temple—complete with half Corinthian columns—and for a period of time it was used as refuge for Christians in Egypt. So there is a wall knocked out and an altar put in and the vauge remains of an old painting of the last supper. It strikes me as so ironic that Christians still need refuge today in Egypt; they are “permitted” to practice, but it is illegal for anyone to convert to Christianity.

After Luxor we went to see how alabaster is carved and papyrus made. Fun to see, but not cool enough for my tired hands to explain. I did think alabaster was like a cement type material poured into a shape before this weekend, so I guess it was exciting to find out is is a rock found high in the desert mountains. And seeing the papyrus being made made the Egyptians even prouder than they already are, but it was cool to see how the first forms of communication began.

A little drama because I “left” Chris and Melanie behind occurred! I actually told my bus that they were missing (because they are always so busy taking pictures like fiends), but the person in charge said the other bus would wait for them. Chris was not happy with me when they ended up walking a mile in the wrong direction then taking a cab back to the cruise ship, but everyone vouched for my attempts so I got out of the blame!

That night I needed a little down time so I showered and got dressed up while some people went to look at the temples lit up before our ship departed, but after that I was quite cranky then very zen. See we only had one room key and I didn’t want to leave because Mel didn’t have a key and I didn’t want her to be locked out. However, she didn’t come back until 1am so I sat there all night waiting for her. By midnight I gave up, put my pajamas on, and read all night; which ended up to be a good thing so that the next day I was totally well rested and ready to go after the previous night of no sleep. I was annoyed though that I had to wait up until she got back so I could hear her knocking. I felt bad because she came in going off about how great her night was and I shut her up and said I needed to sleep and I’d talk to her in the morning. However, as I looked back the next day it was great to have a night by myself (first time since being in Egypt) and to have some real down time.

Yes Egypt is always very laid back with a lot of “downtime” in cafes and resteraunts and beaches (when we are lucky!), but one is still always on their guard here and it is going to be nice to be able to really relaz in August. In fact, this might be the best summer yet—two months in Egypt and two months at home, no job, tons of travel, and tons of fun! I’ve had awesome summers in the past but this is relaxing, educational, culturally and spiritually aware, and invigorating!

Saturday morning we woke up in Edfu (south of Luxor, we traveled through the night, I love cruise ships!) and headed down for breakfast before taking horse drawn carriages to the Edfu Temple. A beautiful, massive temple for the god Horus built at the Ptolemic Period. We saw parts of the Old Kingdom temple that was in that site, but much was built during the Greek inspired period.

After the tempke, Chris, Mel, and I hopped back into Carriage Nimra thamayneen (80) and tried to explain to our “driver” Ahmed’s plees that even if he had kids to feed we were not allowed to give him baksheesh since our ALI organizer Madame Nadia takes care of every little detail. It was tough explaining that in Arabic, but I did my best. And this time I didn’t leave Chris and Melanie behind !

Saturday afternoon we laid out by the pool until we fried. It was so glamourous to be on the top deck of a cruise ship looking out over the fertile banks of the Nile and the desert in the backdrop while seeing small farms, sand huts, and small mosques along the edges. There were children swimming along many of the river banks, and they would excitingly wave as the ship cruised by them.

When I was exhausted from the sun I read and slept in my cabin as we cruised towards KomOmbo—obvi life in Egypt has been pretty rough this summer ! I’m now a certifiable spoiled brat!

At sundown we docked at KomOmbo and saw the temple erected there in honor of Horus and of a local crocodile god. They worshipped the croc—an evil god—because they needed to please it so that it would not attack the Egyptians as they crossed the Nile. This temple was relatively newly built (right before the turn to AD), but it is one of the least preserved because the French stole blocks from it for buildings. It holds three interesting things: 1) a tax-o-meter which is a hole which measures the level of water in the Nile and based on the water depth (an underground canal to this hole) the taxes got raised or lowered for the year 2) the first calendar ever written 3) mummified crocs.

After the temple I hurried up and showered and got ready for dinner—it is so exciting when one feels clean in Egypt! Cleanliness is such a novelty here! After day six of no junk food, I had some jello! (Just keeping you updated at how proud of myself I am!!)

Saturday night a group of ids went out to find a bar in KomOmbo. Ironically since Egypt is such a strict authoritarian Islamic rule, the truth to Cairo is that there are more bars that one can count and no drinking age is ever enforced. Similarily when you enter the Cairo airport there is a sign that drug use is death by hanging, but even I know what stores you can get weed at. I guess the Bob Marley playing in the background of convenience stores is usually a good giveaway!

Aight Saturday night, Melanie slept and Chris and I had a great plan to sleep on the deck of the boat as we cruised down the Nile to Aswan; everything changed when we realized he brought his laptop on the cruise! From 11 to about one we sat on his balcony and looked at his thousands of pictures from the trip—beautiful pictures from every angle with every ray of light, black and whites, temples, animals, children! He knows how to capture them all, and my terrible photography skills were impressed! He is always skipping the tours and taking pictures for hour.

After discussing for the 1000 time the 1000 new discoveries of how we were raised in worlds apart (Detroit versus the UP) and our lives at the same college where our paths never crossed, we agreed to skip the deck because the mosquitos were out (West Nile virus/typhoid anyone?) and watch a movie! How big of tools were we by matching a movie on a Nile cruise? It was so nice to do a “normal life” thing though! I got to bed after 3am and getting up for our Sunday morning tour of Aswan was awful—totally exacerbated by the 120 F degree heat!

The morning was spent in a backwards fashion—we visitied the air conditioned Nubin Museum first then the temple at noon in the high heat. I was annoyed by our poor planning and tired of seeing the temples but a few things were really cool. Upper Egypt—close to Sudan—has a group of people called Nubians who are sort of a mix between Arab and African. They speak their own language—not Arabic—are not as dark as other tribal Africans but their territory extrends from Egypt into south African nations. They were once ruled under Pharaohnic rule, once Ottoman, once Christian, and are now Muslims so their heritage is closer to Arabs than African tribes.

The temple we visited on Sunday, Philae, was actually moved after a Nile River flood threatened to destroy it. UNESCO and the US had an extensive campaign to move it to an island in the Nile, and we had to take a boat to get to the temple.

It was not strikingly exciting for me after seeing so many temples and Karmak clearly being the first and best, but there was much evidence of Christians turning it into a church back in history.

Lunch, nap, then we hopped off our ship right into another motorboat up the Nile to a Nubian village where we had tea, a dancing party, looked at their items for sale, and played with the children. I “got down” with Fatima—a girl about ten years old who loved to dance, play pat-a-cake (I know kids every corner of the earth are the same!), and shake her hips! She was adorableand of course I had to buy a broken wooden Nubian doll from her. It was difficult because they don’t speak Arabic, but it was well worth seeing where they live and playing with the children.

After we took the motorboats back to the ship, showered, and had dinner, a ton of us headed to the souk. All this only after the guy at the water stand tried to sell me weed! I love shopping in markets (if you haven’t noticed yet!!), but this was especially great because I went with Femi and Chris, who don’t speak Arabic, so I got to practice Arabic the whole time while feeling safe. It was hilarious how excited everyone in the market was to see them as well since Femi is Nigerian and Chris is a black American so they all thought that they were Nubian and were so excited they shared a skin color! It was great bartering for them and helped them pick out masks. I really wanted to pick up a Nubian mask for my father who collects them and who doesn’t have any African masks, but they were all too scary and reminded me of the one that we actually had to burn because it freaked too many people out and my dad didn’t want “evil” in our house.

It definitely wasn’t Cairo because the souk closed down so early—by 11pm—and we had to come back to the ship and chill until 3am when we were heading by bus to Abu Simble. I just planned on sleeping on the bus for the six hours it would take us total (and still be back from the site by noon!) and then sleep all day on the cruise ship before flying back to Cairo from Aswan late Monday night. Sadly, I forgot about homework. . long week ahead with finals tomorrow and Thursday!

I should be studying right now for my poli sci final, but I wanted to finish this blog entry tonight for a variety of reasons:
1) won’t have any time to blog this week when I’m studying like crazy
2) don’t want emails asking if I’m okay
3) don’t want to forget it if I don’t have time to write until I’m back in the states

So it continues. . .

Yesterday I did end up taking a 20 minute catnap before heading to the lounge at 3am for shai (tea) and then boarding our bus for Abu Simble. We sat on the bus for about 45 minutes and it was super hot and smelled like exhaust; finally, we switched busses and got going to Abu Simble before 4am after we had to wait for our police escort (we roll in style at AUC!!). We arrived at the temple at 7am, and it was already well over 100 degrees.

I had mixed emotions when they said to be back on the bus by 9am. I was glad that it wouldn’t get to the average temperature of 120 F degrees while we were there and that we would get back in order to have plenty of free time on the docked cruise ship before flying home, but that we drove three hours each way to see two temples in two hours!

However, by 9am I was exhausted and was so ready to head back to the cruise ship! Abu Simble is an amazing temple that was constructed for Ramses because he was from Upper Egypt before being made a Pharoah in Memphis. Next to it is a temple dedicated for one of his wives, Nefertiti. He actually had over 40 wives and mistresses plus over 100 children, but Nefertiti was the major wife.

The most impressive part about Abu Simble is that they also moved this temple from a spot a few hundreds yards away and about a 100 yards lower than it is now because when the High Dam was built is started to flood the temple. Most impressive is that twice a year the sun shines on just Horus and Ramses, but the archeologists did such an amazing town moving the temple that the sun event only occurs a day late.

We hopped back in the bus and had another three hours of disasterous sleep—feet on my chair, people’s head flailing everywhere, and a quick stop to see the Aswan Dam. The Dam was relatively unexciting. It is the largest dam in the world and it did create the world’s largest man-made lake, and the dam is shaped like a pyramid, but it is still just a dam ! And right now a larger dam is being built in China since the Chinese keep trying to outdo the rest of the world!

The rest of the events go as follows: back to the ship, lunch, shower, homework, chilling out as we wait for our flight back to Cairo, staying up super late last night to get Arabic in order for today, and waking up this morning to get my room cleaned one last time and to do a little homework.

About two weeks ago until the weekend I was so ready to go home, but this weekend rejuvenated me (as do all weekends I spend outside of the dirty city of Cairo), got me semi-rested/relaxed, and made me appreciate the vastness of Egypt and their diversity of history outside of the strict culture of Cairo. Spending four days on a boat made me closer to a lot of the students at AUC (this wasn’t a “study abroad” trip like some of the others) and making those bonds tighter will make it harder to leave. It always happens for all the programs or things I’m involved in—everyone gets close right before it’s time to leave!! In short, this weekend was just what I needed to get me through my American blues! I just hate it always happens at the end. . .although I’m sure the pollution of Cairo for five days and finals will help me leave this town ! Time flies when you are seeing new sites (haha however thousands of years old they are!), meeting new people, studying, and basically traveling around the world like a high-class brat! Time flies when you are having fun !

Today Arabic class was exhausting but fun! We learned and sang a Nancy Ajram song (basically Lebanon’s Brittany Spears) and went over words for Doctor’s appointments which only made us laugh forever that we didn’t learn all of them during the first week we were here! I did my Arabic homework today already. All I have left is to study all my poli sci (since I missed a three hour class yesterday!), to go to my last Arabic class tomorrow, to take my poli sci exam, and then to spend all of tomorrow night studying Arabic.

Not sure when I’ll write again or when my 200 pictures from this weekend will be up, but I will do them when I have time (probably this weekend!) Miss you all!

SO HUGE!! MUST READ!! http://www.family.org/cforum/...

Quick post as I get ready for an hopefully amazing 4 day cruise on the Nile aboard the Sonesta Mood Goddess cruise line!

This morning was spent memorizing zillions of verbs to show up at my Arabic class to find out it didn't change anything in my quiz--I didn't know half of the story she was telling us and we had to fill in the blanks! Oh well! I have no poor grades yet, and one quiz that is worth only 3% of my grade shouldn't hurt too much!

Post-class lunch and doing up Rebecca for her invite with a Marine friend from home (she is stationed in Egypt) who invited her to the Embassy for a Marine's happy hour. Sarah and I treated Rebecca like a lifesize Barbie and did everything from her nails to teaching her how to use my products to tame frizz and scrunch her always-pulled-back curly hair and even teaching her how to put on mascara. We dressed her adorably, gave her a set of rules for social situations, and watched our adorable little girl fly away to a land of beautiful American boys. Jealous, Blair, Sarah, and I sat and watched all the parts of Troy with Brad Pitt to be reminded of blond boys (boys none of us liked before we came here!) It was a great girl bonding time, but then the Arabic I am missing on my cruise (yay no class for two days = only three days of class left this summer!) called me and I spent a good hour or so working on a story and recording it for the teacher!

Now I'm going to finish packing for Luxor/Aswan/Abu Simble--a dilemna because the cruise ship is nice but the touring during the day requires "safari" clothing and the weather is expected to be between 110-120 degrees F. After packing will be shower, dinner, then sleeping for a couple hours before heading out at 4am for the cruise!

Just wanted to post (so people don't freak out like last time I went on a three day weekend!) to let everyone know: I WILL BE AWAY FROM CAIRO FROM 4AM FRIDAY TO ABOUT 11PM ON MONDAY NIGHT!

Miss and love you all! Keep those emails coming. .I love 'em! 10 days til free soil!

Day three of my diet (it’s hard not to eat chocolate when Cadbury is everywhere!) and I had the best laugh since I’ve been here—one of those tummy hurts, cheeks hurt, laughing so hard that you don’t make noise laughs. . .finally!

After an Arabic class that seemed to last forever and studying outside in the heat I arrived at my seminar to find out it had been cancelled and we had readings to do instead! Oh what a joyful moment to find out that three hours of my day could be committed to reading my poli sci coursepack and finishing it so I wouldn’t have to bring it on my four-day cruise that I am so anxiously awaiting. . .then I realized that since I wouldn’t be in class on Monday due to the cruise then I don’t have a class before the final! Oh well I finished all the readings + the new ones and will visit Kazziha’s office on Tuesday.

So after that joyful moment and getting my homework done, I chilled around my room packing for the cruise while being quite confused as to what kind of clothes I need for touring temples and the desert all day and being on a boat all night!

Some of us went to Euro Deli for dinner and I managed to find a delicious and healthy American dish—grilled chicken and vegetables! I still craved chocolate but I had my friends yell at me! I’ve survived day three.

When I got back I spotted Ivan in the glass study room and ran to say hi. Why is it that whenever you are supposed to be quiet your biggest laugh attack begins?! The laugher began when Ivan talked about how his visa expires tomorrow, but since his passport got stolen when we were in Sharm he doesn’t have his passport for another week to get his visa renewed and he exclaimed, “They’ll deport me and they’ll do me a favor!” The laughter began and did not stop as well dwelled on how anxious it is at the end of being in Egypt then we began quoting some of the best quotes of the trip, and then we ended by getting stared down by the others in the study room and we peared outside to the cafeteria and the courtyard through the glass (the study room is a glass room in the middle) and laughed until I cried about how many socially akward Arabic students we’ve met here. It was a good laugh—like the conversations Ali Kirby and I used to have when we laughed at everyone in Mrs. Soderberg’s speech class!

I will post some of the funny quotes so that I don’t forget them, even though I doubt they will make sense to my audience! But on another great note—everyone was complaining today about having to show their i.d.s to get onto campus! When I rolled up this morning and as I hopped out of the bus heard “Get your i.d.s out!” I smiled at yesterday’s endeavours and that Mahrein and I changed the system for good 

QUOTES:

“They’ll deport me, and they’ll do me a favor.” Ivan

“I washed my apple in rubbing alcohol.” Me

“I know what a vesbo is! My dad bought them for our whole family so we’d switch churches!” Russ

“Damnit, I’m like the sun. I can’t stop being hot!” Russ

“Baaaab dats a dwoar” Tim in his New Jersey girl accent

“I stole his soul!” Sarah

Rebecca: “We should shut the door to the courtyard!”
Me: “They air condition the courtyard?”

it's been a rough few days. . .London. . .Turkey. . .and now Israel & Lebanon.

Israel Link: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/...

Lebanon Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/...

nothing can be said.

Yanni. . .today was hilarious. . .yanni.

Let me first start by explaining the word “yanni”. I had this stark realization when it came out of my mouth automatically today—as opposed to joking or mockingly in the past—that I have lived in Cairo. Yanni means “okay”; it is similar to sorority girls saying “like” or yoopers saying “ya know”. Egyptians say it when they speak in Arabic or English. And. .it came out of my mouth automatically today! We often joke about the words “tieb” (use it when you end one subject and begin discussing the next), “yanni”, and “maashee” (means do you get it? Used at the end of explaining something and a reply is not needed), but I can not believe that I said yanni in a normal context. I guess I picked up my “southern y’all” for the summer!

Slept in a bit today, brought my white capris to the laundry to get the bleached and to try to explain in Arabic that they can’t put wet pants on top of colors (because they got blue all over my capris) and that since it was their fault I shouldn’t have to pay, then did the normal class thing!

After class, Mahrein and I headed to Mobacco—I’m obsessed but I’ve had to go to five different Mobacco stores to get my family members the right sizes! After Mobacco we went back to the school to catch the shuttle—and here the fun begins!

It’s one of those stories that Mahrein and I have told so many times to the whole dorm since it was so funny that I’m exhausted of telling it. .but here goes!

So only recently has the bus security guy in the afternoons been checking our shuttle i.d.’s to make sure we live in the dorm. Pretty sure I wrote a post about a girl protesting a few weeks ago but as a recap we have a dorm/shuttle i.d. and a university i.d. (they love bureaucracy here!) and only one security guard ever checks—usually the guy that’s on the guard from 3:30 to 7:30pm. Well on most days of the week we take the 3pm shuttle (after Arabic) and no one checks anything—because I’m paranoid and because a few times a week I take the 7pm shuttle, I bring my little, cheap, easy to reproduce card with me!

However Mahrein never submitted her pictures to get the i.d. made and since she usually takes the earlier bus it’s not big deal, but today we went shopping so she needed the i.d. she doesn’t have to get on the bus! (I could go on an hour rampage about how many dang passport pictures this school has of me since we had to get a zillion taken and turn them in for everything!)

So I didn’t want to pay for a taxi or wait for one, and there was no way I was letting Mahrein get in one herself so when they came around on the bus to check i.d.s (they never check the picture) we tried to cheat the system a little bit and share my i.d. I’m not saying what I did was right, but the bureaucracy is ridiculous, it’s not safer for an AUC GIRL student to take a taxi by themselves than ride the bus without an i.d. and he’s the only guy that checks i.d.s anyways. Apparently people have been trying to do this lately so he got smart and we got caught and dragged up to the Manager of Security’s office.

Feeling like we were sitting in the principle’s office in third grade we complained and were actually scared as we waited for the Manager to step out of his office—little did we know he’d be thanking us soon !

We, of course, blurted out our reasoning as fast as possible and started to bust out our fake tears when the Manager was more interested in how Mahrein went six weeks without an i.d. She explained that we only need it sometimes; the manager’s attention was now diverted to the guard that dragged us up to the office. I quickly pointed at the man all the AUC students loathe (because he is the only guy that checks i.d.s) and announced that he is the only guard that checks. Our manager gave our once-hating-us-captor a pat on the back and a “good job”, and we got a look from him that said “I hated you two girls ten minutes ago for giving me grief but will forever thank you”.

Mahrein and I were pleased we made a new friend with the guard but still sat anxiously to see if we would have any punishments—apparently the Manager was a little too upset that they never check i.d.s and I’m pretty sure he was thinking about when to hold a staff meeting and not anything having to do with punishing us!

He told us not to worry about our escapade but that he would see to it that Mahrein got her i.d. asap and proceeded to ask her for her AUC i.d. number. She confessed that she did not have her student i.d. on her either and the manager questioned how she got into class. We told him that we only need to show our i.d.’s at one entrance so we don’t need to carry them on us because we can walk to a different entrance—now he was livid! He couldn’t believe his little security team was not checking all of these things. He thanked us for the information, told us he was going to call a staff meeting and that from now on we should be prepared with both of our i.d.s, he thanked us again for the information, the guard that now loves us escorted us to the next shuttle, and we rode home off the hook !

After eating some pasta and chilling in the lounge of the dorm it’s time I get going on my Arabic! But. .yanni. .what a day!

With the four-day cruise coming up I've been spending all week trying to stay way ahead in Arabic and to finish my poli sci coursepack. Spent way too much time doing homework today, but all in all I guess that's what I'm here for. Did they really have to put the "study" in study abroad?

Got my second poli sci exam back and am proud my moderate approach to the I-P conflict rewarded me an A! I made sure to make my paper less controversial than the support of the Iraq war on my last mideterm (which I did not get an A), but I made sure to approach it from an angle that would not make me write anything I disagreed with--I could not do that for a good grade. I discussed how domestic politics have hindered the peace process--a reasonable way to avoid a controversial topic but still putting in my opinion. Very proud of myself :)

Today we discussed democracy and Islam--more on that after the next class. . .but some interesting things were discussed today. Will definately outline it tomorrow or Wednesday.

Sorry for such a short post, but I've been doing way too much homework today, stayed up way too late last night, and am hungry because Sarah and I are implenting a diet for the last two weeks of Egypt--operation lose all the fried tameeya and icecream!! More tomorrow when I'm not so tired :)

Ticked off at Vodafone (the owner of Verizon and the wireless that is starting its Coca-Cola style domination) but finally figured out how they make all their money. One can buy a number (a SIM card) for almost every country in the world and prepaid cards. However I finally discovered the catch. After a few weeks the prepaird card expires—even if you don’t use all the minutes—and if you don’t recharge your minutes before the card expires your phone expires and it costs 20 pounds to reactivate. So last week I bought an “old card”. Basically they screwed me over and gave me a card that expired this week, not realizing it I just ordered a new cell card to recharge my phone and call home since AT&T does not work (I’ve tried like every day in the past five weeks). However, the new card was all used up on “recharging my phone”. The only good thing is that this was a good card so it lasts until August 15th—except that all my minutes were gone on recharging my phone so now I still have to go buy a phone card to recharge my minutes to call home. Ticked—sometimes you just want to call home!

Oh well, nothing can be done til about 10:30 tonight when Sarah and I head to the all-night café Insomnia to read poli sci all night if we have to (where they supposedly have healthy American food—hopefully, I’m starting to feel really unhealthy and plan on going home and being on the biggest diet ever!!).

Today was a normal day: paid for the Nile Cruise (a bit costly but worth it), studied a bit, went to Arabic class and found out that I got an A on the presentation part of my exam (we will get the other grade tomorrow or the next day), then grabbed lunch with Mahrean and Anthony at Euro Deli—so good! After that I came to my room, did emails (they are never ending and not looking forward to two-months of voicemail built up on my cell when I get home!), read and critiqued an article for poli sci, and wrote an Arabic speech.

Right now just venting how much I hate Vodafone (althought I would buy stock—they are taking over the world) and waiting for Sarah to shower so we can head to study more and eat!

Random Egyptian things I’ve been thinking about adding for a while:

“Egyptian Rain”: what we call the disgusting water you get on you when you walk down the street, comes from the air-conditioners

“Arabo Trash”: those that grew up in wealthy households (different than Eurotrash) and don’t know the difference between Arabic and English, just converse with a combination of words in each (regardless of who they are talking to!)

Toilette: somehow more proper for a girl to ask where that is rather than the “hamam”, also the location in Egyptian homes for the washing machine, dryer, and water heater

Bak-sheesh: a tip Egyptians want for everything, ex: “here’s the directions. . .bak sheesh?”, no shame in asking

“Egyptians have hearts, Americans have brains.”: ridiculous quote from our “personal shopper” yesterday

Tammy’s: an Egyptian brand of cereal that copies all American brands for about the tenth of the price, never buy it because even if it has the same name (apparently copywrite/trademark laws don’t work here!) it’ll be disgusting

“Bakra Inshahallah” Tomorrow, God willing: means it’ll never happen in the next few weeks (sarcasm)

“Inshahallah” God willing: won’t happen in our lifetime (sarcasm)

“Eaza” means “I want”: a word we play games with, when we say “let’s only talk to each other in Arabic” it usually follows with us going off with a list of what we want back and forth: rugel gameel, icecream, yanam. . . .it goes on and on 

I’ll try to add some more random stuff in the future cuz it’s kind of fun to see the little things!

Yesterday Anthony and I headed to our first Friday church service (we are usually on trips on the weekends so we go on Sunday nights). It was so much better than the quiet, poorly-attended Sunday services. There was youthful music, rather than hymns, many families with small children, and others our age that are studying Arabic or there to do missionary work. As usual there was a large Sudanese congregation, and they were celeberating the immigration of a family this week to Australia—where they can practice their religion and get jobs.

After church a young British couple invited us to join their weekly after church treat and took us out to Hardees with their family of four—ranging from ages ten to two. The father—Jason—orginall y moved here with his wife and one child because he was doing computer programming work which allowed him to live anywhere and he wanted to start doing some ministry. After a while the computer industry fell a bit and his family received a sponsorship to stay on and do missionary work full time. They are now here with their four children—three girls and a baby boy—and the father is learning Arabic and also Arabic sign language and is working on evangelism—the most dangerous job in this country. The pastor at the church I’ve been attending is allowed to be a Christian minister in Egypt since he is registered as ministering to ex-pats; however it is totally illegal to convert Muslims to Christianity—so God bless this family’s heart for risking themselves. The mother—Allison—has a teaching degree and has been teaching the oldest daughter (a very bright child who knows Arabic but pretends she doesn’t) at home and the other two school-aged girls are going to a school for MK’s.

We had some awesome discussions about how Egypt brings the Bible to life—how parables are better understood once you see the culture of the Middle East. It was so wonderful to speak openly about the Bible and its heritage in the Middle East while livening amongst 70 million Muslims.

Some of the parables we discussed were washing of the feet (as a totally necessary task here), how Jesus’ class was determined by his dress (here you address people with different titles depending on what they wear, ex: western clothing or galebeya) and yet in his rags he spoke out to the elders in the temple—the educated and those much higher above him, and about the parable of hiring people for a day (since that is common here, the men sit out in the morning with their tools and wait to be hired for a day’s job). It’s so amazing how much the Bible comes to life when you are living in the culture of its heritage.

Today shopping I bought myself a beautiful, handpainted papyrus of the Holy Family traveling from the Temple to the pyramids. It’s so amazing to think that the Holy Family was in this land. I’m not sure that they were this far over—the city claims so—but I’ll have to investigate some Christian websites, etc. to find out what the general consensus is amongst historians/arecheologists .

Yesterday, after the lunch with the amazing family we stopped at the sight of Saddat’s assassination and his tomb (and saw the changing of the guards—they just don’t march as well as they do in the US/Britain). Apparenlty it’s not a huge tourist site and the guards were very excited to see us. I always tease Anthony and Melanie that they are going to make a tour book since they know everything about every site. Well Anthony was busy taking pictures and acting like the huge dorky tourist he is to notice that the guards were ridiculous and stalking me around. I’ve gotten pretty good at avoiding scary men and marriage proposals, but it’s tough to avoid the guards that take your camera and get pictures with you. I finally had to be mean and yell “Cul-los” (enough) in Arabic very firmly. I do have the pictures to prove they were nuts though. Wow, I could write a book of stories about crazy Egyptian men.

After sleeing away my sickness from the night before and the pictures with Ali and Ahmed, Sarah, Elizabeth, and I headed to the mall in Zamalek. I bought a pirated version of Lion King with Arabic dubbed in and a beautiful pair of pink linen pants—both purchases came to under 20 US! Then we headed to Mohandessien to an Indian resteraunt.

I was not too excited after having to live with the smell of curry for a whole of freshman year and kept making fun of Elizabeth because she works at a resteraunt in NY called “Curry House”. I made sure she knew I lived there once—Betsey Barbour. I was presently surprised by how amazing my meal was. I ordered a dark lentil dish with rice. It was awesome! (First, I made Elizabeth go through the menu with me and tell me which ones wouldn’t have curry!!)

Post-dinner we walked around the town to look at shops and hang out in the flurry of the people when we felt water on our backs. After a few sprays we turned around to realize boys thought it was funny to spray us with squirt guns. I politely told them to stop in Arabic and that it was “mish kouis”. Our “cute talking in Arabic” just instigated it even more. After weaving in and out of a group of totally veiled women—assuming they’d stop—I finally yelled for the second time in one day. This time I did not try to be nice in Arabic but shouted to stop in English. They didn’t need to understand the language (which they didn’t) to understand my tone.

After five weeks of being able to walk away and avoid confrontation, I had two encounters that demanded assertiveness in one day. It makes me realize how brave my daddy was to send his baby girl to Egypt because the attitude of the men is so extreme towards women—Western women is more ridiculous than extreme! It’s undescribable. However, those great confidence lessons I’ve learned growing up have helped me handle many of the situations I’ve been confronted with face to face. In addition, knowing some Arabic has really helped me feel secure in many situations.

To ensure that the boys were gone we walked into a women’s clothes store. I don’t think it was someplace we should have been and we got out as fast as we realized that. There were spandex dresses and body suits with huge holes cut out, skanky tops and mini skirts, and accessories. To explain how bad it was I’ll just say a few things: 1) I would have been ashamed to even see the display through a window in the States (and) 2) only shady guys were in there buying clothes. Once we got back we were talking to people in the lobby and apparently the area of town we were in is known for prostitutes and yup that’s what that clothes store was for! I’m glad we got out fast!

This morning Sarah and I went to Café Tobasco for breakfast and found a wonderous discovery—they had American pancakes. Not just any old American pancakes though, THEY HAD MAPLE SYRUP! IN EGYPT. .HOW NUTS IS THAT!?! It made a great start to my day before heading to Mobacco (the polos with the camel on them) and buy 7 shirts for under 100 US! After dropping off our purchases we headed to Khan al Khalili—doing whatever we can to help the Egyptian economy and to promote the love of Americans !

In a city of 22 million—the densest city in the world—and in the largest market in the world it’s funny how you can run into you “friends”. As soon as we got there Sarah and I ran into Ahro who took us around for the entire afternoon. We went to the Egyptian market—where locals shop, the items are cheaper because they are made on that side then sent to Khan to be sold at higher prices to tourists. We spent a good two hours in a papyrus shop, a little bit of time at “factories” and then at a little café. It’s fun to do the shopping with the Egyptians because before you buy you sit and have a cup of way too strong tea with way too much sugar and talk your best Arabic-English gargle. Being with Ahro was nice too because felt so safe—he is a 27 year old, “English-speaking”, Moroccan-Egyptian, hopeless philosopher/romantic, university student. I’m sure we got things a bit more expensive since he probably make commission to bring us to each store—but this is still much cheaper than prices on the tourist side. Equipped with the Arabic names for spices I wanted I went to a beautiful spice store! Quite exciting!

After parting ways with Ahro we headed to the tourist side to find my “friend” whom I made a big purchase from a few weeks ago. This time I felt bad because I did not have time to sit for tea or to talk (and thankfully no kohl on my eyes this time!!). He was incredibly helpful though. I walked in and said what I wanted and how much I was willing to pay and that I was in a rush. He added five pounds to the price, found one, and I bought the gift. I did not argue because once you establish a relationship with a seller it is their obligation to give you the best price and you are abusing the friendship if you try to get it too cheap! It was fun to have “friends” to buy my items from and to frequent.

After we left the main drag we decided to wander around the neighborhood and other parts of the souk. About an hour later we realized that we were quite a surprise to the neighborhoods and we better find our way out. It was awesome to see the people and how they lived—cages of chicken, little shops, men fighting or playing chess. Every time I go to Islamic, Coptic, or Old Cairo I like to wander a little bit and see the life of the lower class—the real people here. We finally found a tourist police and found our way to the street—at least a mile or two from the entrance to the souk! Hot, dirty, perfume covered (they love to throw perfumes on you in this country), and sandy we made it to Seoudi to buy our groceries (granola bars for breakfasts and water) for the week.

Finally I’ve settled in for the night after a shower, getting my room phone fixed, ordering pasta from al-Dente, and writing in my blog/downloading pictures! Now it’s time to study and try to figure out how to use my phone card to call my ‘rents since my cell phone is out of minutes! This week will be uneventful—just classes until the Nile Cruise on Friday-Monday . . but I will post a little bit every day. Until then, Godspeed.

It is time for communities to speak out against terrorism! It’s about a change of “hearts and minds”. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0...

After a long, restless, sick night I am able to relay to you the events of yesterday that I am sure all you anxious readers have been waiting to hear. The evenst of today will have to wait until after my midday nap and my shopping excursion and will be posted later this evening. It seems that if I skip a day of posting the world—by the world I mean my friends and family—all worry themselves to death. So here are the events of yesterday’s midterm, jazziness, and complaining. . . .

On Wednesday night I celebrated not feeling sick for a week! However, as soon as my body realizes how wonderful that is and I brag about, Cairo interrupts and wreaks havoc once more. I woke up yesterday morning earlier than normal to study for my Arabic midterm and to meet with my poli sci professor to see if I could miss a class for a trip next week; I just didn’t realize that these everyday tasks would take twice as long. After a bit of dying I decided to hydrate myself and somehow make it to campus.

Two juice boxes and 48 ounces of water later I managed to climb the stairs to Kazziha’s office to discover he had slept in that day. It was totally imperative to get an answer on missing class—it’s a seminar only twice a week so missing one is huge—to know if it would hurt my grade or not because I have been looking forward to the Nile Cruise for over a month. I slipped him a note under his door, assuming I was breaking some sort of cultural norm of some sort, and to the one positive aspect of my day, he wrote me an email in the affirmative that I could miss class, it wouldn’t hurt my grade, and if enough of us go on the trip he’ll hold an extra session for us! It was all downhill from there!

I ate a banana, yogurt, and granola bar—knowing the few pieces of food that are safe—and headed to the library to study for my exam. Before I knew it Arabic class had come. Fifty percent of the grade for the midterm was a presentation, which seemed to go decently well, but the other 50% was a listening test—some parts manageable, others not so much! Regardless it was done!

I went book shopping for American children’s books in Arabic—bought the Little Princess, Peter Pan, & Charles Dicken’s Christmas Story—then I came home feeling a bit better, got my weekend’s Arabic homework done, and then got ready for our night out at the Cairo Jazz Club.

All was going well when the six of us piled into the table at the relaxing atmosphere of the Jazz Club. We were enjoying the calamari, wearing Western amounts of clothes, and the fabulous gnocchi I had when the band start around midnightish. Saera and I started to die of smoke as more and more people filed in for the performance, and we went outside for a quick break. Unfortunately, everyone else felt bad about us being outside so they all left the Jazz Club even though I tried to tell them not to—step one of my ruining everyone’s night. What wonderful friends I’ve made to put up with this.

Next step was going to go chill somewhere—finding “somewhere” (esp. in a taxi) is always an adventure and this time I was not let down!

After unsuccessfully trying to fit six people into a taxi since Tim “knew where the dessert place was” we agreed on following his taxi and ended up spending a bit of time driving around Sh. 26th of July. I can not forget the picture of Tim leaning his newly bald head out the window and shouting “ah-la tuul” (go straight) and my taxi driver making fun of him for the next twenty minutes while their taxi driver kept driving up next to our car and winking at Sarah and I! It was quite a ride—fun although my stomache was starting to hurt and my eyes were still stinging. I figured it was nothing chilling and drinking tea and eating icecream couldn’t solve. I was wrong!

We did not end up finding the “somewhere” and instead ended up paying the taxi drivers a huge fee to bring us to where they liked the desserts. They pulled one of those moves where they took us up and down side streets so we got lost and didn’t know how much to pay them so we paid too much! Oh well!

When we got out of the taxi Tim decided that he knew a place nearby instead of the one the taxi drivers brought us to. Now remember, I’m usually a HUGE fan of walking around with no destinations—in fact, it’s one of my favorite things to do (even when Rebecca goes nuts because she always needs a destination and I never do)—but at this point my stomache-ache was getting worse each step. Then my poor friends. . .my complaining began! Finally after a few unsuccessful attempts I declared the dreaded “we arre going home”. I feel awful still for ruining the night—first the jazz club then the dessert place—but this city’s pollution and food and my little Midwestern body don’t go together well.

Sarah took good care of me and gave me a bottle of water while the boys apologized profusely—even though it was clearly my fault I ruined the night. I owe them all big time now! Sheesha or icecream on Ally soon! After Sarah took care of me I called the family at Lake Mary and interrupted their wine and (most likely) gazebo session. They had no choice but to listen to me complain. My dad said he knew I must really have been sick if I skipped out on icecream—I tell ya, everyone knows about my addiction!

At about 3am I finally fell asleep to wake up at 8am for church today. After I get back from shopping I’m relay all of today’s events. But so everyone knows—the little bit of sleep, the large quantities of water, and taking a nap this afternoon will make me better! So no worries. . .I won’t go ruining anyone’s night tonight. Besides, even if I was sick still/got sick latera, how could I ever skip out on shopping? :)

Today was just another day closer to the weekend! Had a relatively uneventful Arabic class since our midterm is tomorrow. However, my amazing, motherly teacher, Imam, brought in a fruit cake type thing for Gurees’s birthday! It was so sweet of her and nice to have an interruption in the two hour long class! I was so excited to have cherries and kiwis and peaches—all the great things covered in sugar and on top!

After spending the entire morning (ten til noon) outside studying for poli sci (it was only like 90 degrees today and it was beautiful to go all day and not break a sweat like I normally do just walking to class!), I grabbed lunch after Arabic and crammed for my second midterm today. I was totally nervous because I know so much on the Arab-Israeli conflict but so little on the Syrian-Lebanese conflict—which he barely covered and we had no formal coursepack on the subject. However, when we got the exam I was relieved! It was not a ridiculous lose-lose situation question like the last exam on Iraq! The question was name two of the reasons that the conflict has yet to be solved! One was super easy: domestic politics, domestic politics! The second one I had to search a multitude of other smaller reasons an decided to go on the safe and moderate side (to try to get an A instead of graded down for my opinion!) and talked about international involvement—from lack of involvement in Europe and from America’s very recent acknowledgement of a two-state solution under Bush. Hopefully I can get a good grade and still uphold my values!

Tonight I just finished preparing an Arabic presentation for class tomorrow. Soon I need to work on vocabulary because the second part of our midterm is a listening activity! I’ll have all morning to study as well because even though I slept a lot last night I’m tired!

On a random note my teacher for poli sci was so funny today in the midst of us talking about a difficult issue. He was like “let me bring some light to this issue.” “Why would someone want to leave the U.S. or Europe or civilization to come to the mess we call the Middle East. . .Devotion to Jerusalem? Then visit and go back home to civilization!” It sounds semi-awful to put the situation it that light, but trust me an old Palestinian teacher in Egypt joking about how ppl should not want to live in the Middle East was funny on exam day!

Off to solve some MFCR BS (it never ends because people never do their work and are all too "ambitious") then to study Arabic.

Half way through my 20th year—happy half birthday to me!
Interesting Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/0...

On another interesting note, the NYTimes that we always joke off of the popular bumper sticker as being “A Little Left of Lenin” is starting to seem entirely conservative after reading the likes of Al-Ahram and Al-Jazeera each week!

Aight finishing my previous table of contents:
Fourth of July
Midterms, Classes, etc.
MFCR/CR Excitement
Room Situation

Yesterday was quite depressing to get up and go to five hours of class when I wanted to be wearing red, white, and blue and walking through Ludington Park or in a parade with a bunch of Republicans. People were very kind when they saw the Americans here—wishing us a Happy Day. Our professor for poli sci wasn’t as excited when we didn’t want to continue the discussion passed class time because the American students had to get over to Maadi for the Embassy’s outdoor party themed “Maadi Graas”!

As we drove through Maadi—an expensive, beautiful area of Cairo I had never been in before where many ex-pats live—we were so excited to see Americans celebrate! We had no idea how emotional it would be!

After walking through the most ridiculous amount of security and spotting the snipers on the rooftops we flashed our passports as we heard country music in the background! The tears almost came! We walked into the event and saw a huge table area surrounding an American flag dancefloor. This whole area was covered by an outside structure which was decorated in Red, White, and Blue and more Coke stations than one could imagine—and the Coke was the American formula (less carbonated) and in American cans (Egyptian cans open by a pulltab and are obvi written in Arabic). To the left (facing the stage) was the food line with hotdogs and chicken nuggets, and icecream, behind us and on the sides not enclosed by the structure leading up to the back of the field were booths for children and adults—typical fairgames for free, massage booths, and a maardi graas mask making booth, as well as blow up slides and areas for children! Everyone was so happy and making jokes about Egypt (kind ones!) and their love of America.

It felt so good to hear the Star Spangled banner, to see Marines enjoying themselves, men and women conversing freely, and to be able to understand everyone around you. It’s funny how quickly you adapt to the language around you and we had to think hard to say the little things in English—like please and thankyou.

I’ve never appreciated America more on a Fourth of July than this one. There were no negative comments about our leaders, the state of our country, no politicians fighting, just a whole ton of Americans living abroad sharing their joint experiences of being in an oppressive country. I was so proud to be an American.

Last night was spent catching up on major Arabic homework—a few recordings and writing a presentation for today. I fell asleep around 2ish only to be woken up at 7am to hear about my parent’s Fourth. While I was glad to hear that my brother has arrived safely in Italy and that they enjoyed their Fourth, I was a little jealous to not have seen the fireworks from the Boes’ law with my best friends, but nothing in the whole world would make me want to change the experience of sharing my appreciation of my liberties with others who have also lived in Egypt.

Today was my Arabic presentation which hopefully went okay. I think I used a few fusha words on accident! After grocery shopping and getting my laundry done, soon I will have to study for my test tomorrow in poli sci then my test in Arabic on Thursday!

Few things: Apparently the dorm finally caught up with the fact that neither Melanie nor I have roommates (the bureaucracy here is a mess!), and she is moving in sometime today or tomorrow! Which is totally cool with me since she is one of the first girls I became friends with when I got here! Nice to have someone I already know well move in!

Also without much drama and hopefully without further ado. . .the original, voted-in, non handpicked by Saul, hardworking MFCR Board is back in place! Not sure if more fights are going to go down, but don’t really care. I have such more incentive to follow through with my Outreach Plan when I have a Chair that created and supports the idea and when I respect who I work with! Pretty exciting! For proof it’s all good check out our re-updated website: http://www.mfcr.org/page.php?...
To see the letters and details check out http://www.bconservatives.blo...

This next post will be so long that it requires a little outline in the beginning for one—to help me collect my thoughts and two—so you can see what you want to read. This past weekend’s trip (Thursday through Sunday) ranged in emotions and experiences from a spiritual journey to relaxation and liberation. This post will range from desert monasteries to loving every minute of lavish beaches and must include today’s Fourth of July excitement and academic challenges that made me realize reality after this most awesome five days!

Order:

Day 1 of Trip: Bus Ride to St. Katherine’s
Day 2: Climbing Mount Sinai
Day 3: Beaches of Sharm al Sheikh
Day 4: Snorkelling in the Red Sea and Bus Trip Back
Day 5: Class and Fourth of July
Little College Republican Note

On Thursday a bunch of us high-tailed it out of Arabic class as early as possible to grab our overstuffed bagged lunches and get cozy on the bus for the forthcoming six hour drive. Complaining about the journey ahead, I had no idea how worth it is was going to be or how much appreciation I would gain for the rich history of Egypt outside of the pharaohs.

One of the interesting things to note is how we roll at AUC. I’m not sure that I ever mentioned the police escort our bus had on our Alexandria trip, but on this trip we actually had an armed guard on the bus. I’m not sure what he was packing—but it was huge. The armed guard was nice reassurance as we had to go through so many road side stops, especially near the Suez Canal.

I knew I needed to sleep because we were to arrive in St. Katherine’s (on the Sinai Peninsula) around 9 or 10pm and were going to promptly eat and then wake up at 2am to climb Mount Sinai for the sunrise. However, the last thing I could do was fall asleep and after joyfully escaping part of Arabic class for the day it was the last thing on my mind! So I just kind of listened to my IShuffle and stared out the window at the never ending sand, got excited when I saw the Suez Canal sign, and then never even realized when we were near the Canal because we went in a tunnel under the water and it didn’t dawn on me that that was the Canal! I tell you I can be so “blond” sometimes.

On a random note, my IShuffle was still filled with the music from the plane ride to Egypt—loaded with Arabic music when I was way too excited and ready to be surrounded by Arabic! However, on this bus ride I definitely skipped the Arabic songs for the 80’s music and country !

I never fell asleep, our bus got a flat tire and added an hour to our trip, and we ate as soon as we got to the hotel so I could not fall asleep after eating. I wish I could add so many more details but with five days worth to write about it’s just not possible!

At about 1am I finally fell asleep in our dingy hostel (the only thing near Mount Sinai) and woke up at 2am to throw on some pants, hiking shoes, tank top, tshirt, and sweatshirt because of the change in temperature with elevation! At about 2:30am we met our Bedouin guides who were to lead us up the mountain. We were in groups of ten; my guide was Mostafa. However a lot of the American students with us brough flashlights which ruined the beautiful sight of stars—which I haven’t seen since I left home—and which made the climb actually harder by casting shadows and by bouncing up and down. Therefore Tim, Ivan, and I made an excellent decision to run up the Mount until we got away from the all the AUC kids! After about ten minutes of running we lost everyone and our breaths! It wasn’t even 3am and we were going strong down to our tank tops!

Random Note:
Mount Sinai called “Jabal Horeb” and the part we climbed the Mount of Moses is called “Jabel Musa”.

After our great feat of passing all the AUC students we walked at a normal pace because the harder climb was coming when we ran into the Asian tour group on camels. If you don’t already know, camels move slowly and a large congregation of tourists shouting on camels are loud (think North Campus Library !!), therefore “the boys” and I had no choice but to dodge the camels and run ahead of them. After a few minutes of running I was about to die because the cliff got steeper, I have short legs, we saw a scorpion and I had to do my best to not act like a sorority girl but like a yooper girl, and I fell flat on my face into camel dung trying to dodge a camel’s head that nudged me. This is where the “brother at your shoulder” analogy was fully realized.

On this trip I’ve realized that everytime I’m on a cliff of some sort I’m just waiting for someone to come up behind me and grab me and say “Don’t fall!”. It’s really funny that once I realized that in Alexandria I’ve realized how many things I do not because I want to but I just picture my brother behind me being “Do it Ally!”. It’s why I’ve done half of the things I brag about doing! Also it’s why I can’t resist a “Do Not Enter” sign. Well, at this point, after falling in camel poop, cutting my foot on a rock, and trying to climb some sharp edges to keep ahead of everyone I realized that my brother was pushing me. I could not let the boys write me off as some silly girl so even when I was exhausted I kept going! I moved so quickly that when I got the the top of the Mount I actually had to change shirts because I was so soaking in sweat! However, our speed was not rewarded—rather we were punished.

While it should take about two and a half hours to get up the Mount it took us about two. I was warned by a law student to take the walk up slow because if you get up too early you’ll sit and freeze to death until the sun comes up. While we were busy proving ourselves to everyone, we forgot how ridiculously cold it would be at the top. At this point I took off my sweaty shirt, put on a different one with my sweatshirt, tied a hankerchief around my neck to keep it warm and tried to huddle on the cliff. Of course the brother analogy lived again! Tim and Ivan climbed on top of the dilapidated old church on top of the Mount and claimed it was less windy. While I was not so thrilled about already sitting on the edge of a cliff for two hours, I was less thrilled by sitting on the roof of a church on the edge of a cliff for two hours until the sun came up. But before I knew it, Bryan was yelling at me in my mind and the boys were hoisting me on the roof. The one catch was I got to be a girl and borrow Tim’s sweater while he froze to death. I felt slightly bad, but after all that I still deserved to be a girl !

Sitting on the roof of Mount Sinai—where God revealed the Ten Commandments to Moses—was a time for quiet reflection for a good hour. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm as I appreciated the amazing history of the Sinai Peninsula—where Moses led the Israelites—and where I could cherish the foundations of my faith after having spent a month in a city full of unbelievers. To imagine Moses spending fourty days on the Mount with God in the barren desert really made me meditate on sacrifice and purpose.

Sitting on the roof of the church was amazing! The wind was calm, I could view the mountains for miles and miles to come, and I was the first to see the sun pop out of the clouds to bring light to all of God’s creation. At this time the Asian group had reached the top and were singing hymns, Germans on the roof top with me were reading the Bible in their own tounge, and people all around were sobered with the awe and wonder of the Lord.

After the sunrise and the pictures (will be posted soon), we made our way down the mountain the longer “back” way. This time was trying because of the desert heat once the sun rose, but it was amazing to see another side of the Mount and to not have camels in one’s way. On a random note, there were a few shops along the way up the front of the mountain for water, etc., which I refused to go near, but on the back there was nothing but peace.

We finally made it back down the Mount by 9am, headed to the hotel and attempted to clean up for a few minutes before breakfast and our visit to St. Katherine’s monastery at the bottom of Mount Sinai.

Saint Katherine’s monastery is the oldest, always inhabited/in use monastery in the world. There exists a library with some of the original Greek and Arabic translations of the Bible, many theological first sources, and writings from as far back as the second century (maybe more, but that’s what I remember!)! Right now they are just updating them as needed onto digital photographs and many documents are on original photos in the Library of Congress—but still many works are untouched or unused for research as the library still serves it’s primary purpose of education and reflection for the monks at the monastery.

We walked through the facility and into the Orthodox Church—a small room rather elaborately ornated in gold chandeliers, colorful murals, and ancient artifacts of St. Katherine. They hold about multiple services a day but for the monks and open services on the feast of the Saint.

After visiting the beautiful sanctuary we visited the museum and learned the history of Katherine. She was martyred in Alexandria in 310 C.E., but her remains were said to be found at the top of Sinai in the 9th century. The Museum is filled with beautiful paintings and relics from every Orthodox ruler from Justinian to the last Czar oF Russia. In addition it is one of the only places in the world with icons of the early centuries of the Church—as many were destroyed during the eight and ninth century during the Islamic Conquests but Sinai was never affected.

At this point the peak of the visit occurred: the monastery was built around the original Burning Bush of Moses. After a few hundred years the original bush was dying from being cut off from sunlight so the monks replanted some of the offshoots and the Bush is on display today above the heads of tourists so it will not be touched or destroyed. To see the history of the Bible and to practically touch faith from the visit to Mount Sinai count heal any “doubting Thomas”.

A smelly two hour bus ride later we entered a whole different world. Sharm al Sheikh—the land of the rich Gulf Arabs, even richer Americans (since it’s much cheaper to head south), and Eurotrash. We stayed at a five-star hotel—the Swiss Movenpick. While the facilities, food, location, service, etc. were immaculate, the rooms were simple but top-notch clean. There was no comparing this to the disgusting hotels of Alexandria and and St. Katherine’s by far, and how AUC got us the rooms at such a cheap rate we are yet to find out!

My sore “climbing” legs were rejuvenated by a quick shower and the excitement of wearing a tanktop and mascara (since we were at a resort!)! I bounced out the door to the most amazing dinner buffet ever! Complete with fresh fruit, salads, pastas, meats, the largest desert table I’ve seen thus far in Egypt, AND a Movenpick icecream cart (all included!). We ate to our heart’s content after climbing Mount Sinai for hours that day and then went out to explore the sights of the developing strip of Sharm.

Sharm has the feel of a developing Cancun on the strip of nightclubs but with the class of a Greek isle. There are no shady hotels, and the Egyptian “marriage-proposal” men were somehow swept away from the town by tourist police. The souvenier shops charge 50 pounds for items that are 5 pounds in Khan al-Khalili and women wear little—amount of clothing that would get them either raped or covered with a robe in Cairo. However, the walk along the beach was exhilarating to finally feel the wind on my arms and to feel little fear. We didn’t stay out too late that night because our bodies were not used to the humidity and were exhausted from the climb, but I could barely fall asleep with excitement for the breakfast buffet and for a whole two days ahead of me on the beach!

We woke up moderately early to sign up for a snorkeling trip for Sunday morning and to grab food and hit the beach. I gained a new addiction: Egyptian pancakes! They are similar to the natellas that Kase and I get for desert at Rendevous but even more amazing! Not sure what they are made of or what they do, but I ate about four of them with chocolate on top and fresh fruit juice!

We headed to the beach where I had to learn to overcome a new fear: jelly fish. The beaches of Sharm remind me of the beaches in Maui or Cancun—a never-ending strip of hotels—but all with the same problem: jellyfish. For some reason the salt content of the Red Sea near the Sinai is quite high and the jellyfish are made up of such a high salt content that only the very large ones sting. But that didn’t stop me from freaking out! I’m not talking about an occasional jellyfish—I’m practically a fish in water that would never bother me! I’m talking about swimming in jellyfish in shallow water and about one every yard in the deeper water. After the first few touched me I pretended to get over my fear, but I never really will!

We spent the whole day swimming, laying on the beach, laying by the pool, writing postcards, and falling asleep in the sun to wake up to raccoon eyes and a sore kneck! After a month in the pollution of Cairo and after slight homesickness this is totally what I needed! Add the fact that we had spent seven hours on a mountain the day before and no one felt guilty about doing nothing! It was beautiful! I would go back any day I could!

That night we had the wonders of experiencing another buffet—this time seafood! My other longing since arriving in Cairo! I will honestly be able to make it the only 20 more days until I get home because of this past weekend! Also, I got to wear my white capris and pretend I was in a country where it didn’t matter what I wore—it was beautiful!

On an exciting educational note, when speaking to the waiters at the resteraunt they were so well trained they spoke back in fusha (the written form of Arabic that is the same across the Arab world). One, I was excited that I recognized that they did that. Two, I was excited that since I’ve been studying “fuus-ha” at school for the past year I know much more vocab than in Egyptian colloquial. And Three, I was overall impressed at how well they accommodate the Arab tourists not from Egypt!

That night we walked around then sat at an outside “Bedouin Bar” and Tim and Rebecca smoked more sheeshaw than physically possible, Ivan drank the strongest Turkish coffee I’ve ever seen, and I drank enough strong tea to help me get over the fact that random rich dudes were capitalizing on the fact that many, many generations ago their families might have been in tribes, that Bedouins didn’t smoke sheeshaq as it originated in the Far East, and that the puffy pillows we were sitting on on the ground might have fleas. After we spoke to “our” Bedouin in Arabic for long enough we were able to get him to turn off the American movement and put on Amr Diab for me ! Finally, I could settle into the “Bar” and relax for the good portion of the night we spent there!

Funny things in Sharm:
-Just now being built up so random mix of nighclubs from different countries and type such as a Salsa Club, Little Buddha, and the Back in the USSR Club, the Sounds of Detroit place, and the Bedouin bars and Arabic coffee shops
-Lights of Vegas, cleanliness of America (not big enough to have dirtiness of Cairo yet), and one strip contrary to the built up “spring break” places of the West
-random contrasts of Europeans in little clothing and Gulf Arabs in full facial/body garb

On Sunday, I woke up celebrating the fact that many of my friends who didn’t go on this trip were going to be sitting in Arabic class when I was going snorkeling in the Red Sea! We left the hotel early that morning after some serious confusions about the bureaucracy of where to pick up snorkels with the receipt and where to meet everyone; the night before we also had to get government clearance because we would be snorkeling in a national park—Raz Muhammad. Finally we were on our way on a narrow, windy road through the desert—the last thing that you’d expect to take to get to the Sea.

We stopped at some amazing places along the way such as a fault line in the middle of the desert that you could look into and see sea water, an area with mangroves trees (trees that take in salt water and leave the water fresh and actually fight pollution, they have sadly been dying off in all tropical areas because of development), and a “magic lake” so entitled because there is an element in it that prevents the lake from being seen on satellite images. Finally we made it to the water!

To snorkel in beautiful coral reefs and look up to see the sand dunes of the desert was one of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had. While I have been to some amazing places for snorkeling, this was definatley at the top of my list! I saw so many fish I had never seen before: a species which moved its fins up and down, orange fish with brown and blue poka dots, many rainbow colored fish, the list goes on and on. The spot is suppose to be the third best in the world—only behind the Great Barrier Reef and Belize. After exhaustion from the chilly deep water Chris and I gave up and laid on the desert beach. It was absolutely perfect in the middle of nowhere!

However, as soon as we got back to the hotel we had to shower, hurry up and make the bus home, and sit for an uneventful seven hours! I got back at about midnight that night and stayed up quite late working on Political Science, fell asleep at some point, and woke-up to my first Fourth of July in Egypt.

I now must get back to working on my Arabic presentation for today, but today after class I will contine with details of the Fourth in Egypt, of MFCR/CR exciting developments, and of my crazy week of midterms.

Just wanted to make sure I got this posted so people stop freaking out and thinking I’m dead since I didn’t post while on vacation to the Sinai!