it's hot during the day

In Arabic class today we studied the words "masmua" and "mamnua" and "lazim"--allowed and forbidden and necessary. We discussed various environments, and what was allowed and forbidden in each. Class was boring--eating is forbidden in the classroom, and studying is allowed in the library. Some interesting cultural points, however, came up.

Such as:
-In Egypt, you need to pay entrance fee to a park--though it's usually just a few pounds.

-In the US, you are allowed to eat and drink in the cinema, though talking is forbidden. In Egypt, everything is allowed. Even chatting on the cell. Also, there's usually a five minute intermission during movies--I associate movie intermissions with Gone With the Wind and The King and I--among the few American movies pretentious enough to make an intermission in the recording.

the metro women's car and other fun

While riding the metro one afternoon, a pack of middle-school aged boys jumped in the women's car just as the doors were closing. Pushing each other and giggling, the ring leader of the rebels ran the length of the car, and then ran back to his friends. Grannies and girls sighing impatiently, the boys hopped off the train at the next stop.

artsy fun

Mosque of Amr Ibn al-As

the copycenter...

At Stanford we often have to buy "coursereaders" for classes. They're photocopies of articles and excerpts from books that the prof/TA compiles. They're usually ridiculously expensive, supposedly bc of copyright issues. Well, copyright laws don't really exist in egypt. In my history class, the professor has this book he wants us all to read, but it's hard to find in Egypt, and tends to be expensive. So, to make life easier for us, he's put a copy on reserve at the library, and we're meant to take it to the sketchy copy center across the street, and ask them to copy the ENTIRE book for us. The center charges 2 piasters (less than half a cent) per page, so the 500 page book should cost me no more than three dollars. It's sickeningly wonderful.

"no, you hang up first!"

We don't have our own internet, but we steal our neighbor's. Problem is, "DLINKWIRELESS" only has three bars in the living room, and worse, one bar in the kitchen (on good days). So, facebook, wikipedia, and skype are all limited to the living room.

Last night Erin squealed "duuuuuude, how are you?" I looked up from my Modern History of the Middle East and turned to her.
"Ummm, fine I guess?" She continued.
"Oh, I'm great. AUC is finally settling down, and classes are good. When are you going to come visit? Please say thanksgiving??" I returned to my reading, slightly miffed and embarrassed her question hadn't been directed at me.

Today I was skyping with me mom. My poor roomies ate breakfast to "I said FA-LA-FAL not AW-FUL! Yes, like the food! Please speak up! Stop moving around. Here, does it sound better if I move over here?"

Fortunately, no one has subjected us to significant other overshare. The thought of doing homework to "no, you hang up first! No baby. I'm sowwy. I wove u mowe" would be a true test of endurance.

turista

I haven't really gotten sick. I've eaten a few sketchy things, where afterwards I felt crappy and expected grossness to descend, but after a few hours of complaining about my stomach ache it cleared up on its own. So maybe I'll start being more adventurous. I'm also sick of buying bottled water, but literally no one drinks tap water here, so I don't think I'll start. We also stay away from lettuce, which is getting annoying. Today I bought an expensive (4 dollars!) salad at a nice restaurant. I'll slowly ease myself into cheaper and cheaper salads.

I miss / I like

I miss...
-fast internet
-running outside
-tank tops and shorts
-hollywood express
-good chocolate. If you visit, you'll only be allowed to stay if you bring me some good chocolate. seriously.

I like...
-traveling
-cheap good food: koshari tahrir, filfila,
-skype
-"the harem"--the apartment and my five awesome roomies
-nice people, like Ala, who offered to tutor me for free today
-small classes

bawwabs and drinkies

Ramadan starts Wednesday or Thursday (depends on the moon...)!

In Egypt you can get anything delivered. For example: my roomie had her ADHD ritolin-esque drugs delivered here, without a prescription. (although they were over $100 a month, because of the lack of health insurance...) Also, stimulants are banned here, so ritolin is definitely not allowed.

They also deliver alcohol here, from a place called "Drinkies." Because Drinkies has to close during Ramadan this was a very busy week for them. When our friends down the hall called Drinkies yesterday (their last day of delivery) and were on hold for almost fifteen minutes. My favorite part is their name.

I've heard that all the guys who work at Drinkies are Coptic, because it is against Islam to sell alcohol. I'll research this.

Bawwabs (doormen) in Egypt are considered to be responsible for the "reputation" of their building, so if they think something is going on that might look scandalous, they are allowed to refuse people entry into their building.

campus

AUC is a closed campus, so to enter you need to show your ID and go through a metal detector. When I reach the front of the pack, I whip my id out of my pack pocket... ooops, not that pocket. I check the other pocket. Sorry! Not that one either! I must have left it in my wallet. I open my backpack. The crowd behind me starts to push forward. I sift through Arabic worksheets, fishing for my wallet. Not in my wallet?! This is embarrassing. I desperately open every little pocket in my backpack, and find it in the outer pouch. Outer pouch? Who would put it there? Tricky...

AUC is downtown, and all the dorms and apartments are scattered in various neighborhoods around the city with shuttle bus access to the school every half hour. The shuttle is 5-25 min. depending on traffic. I have to leave on the 7:30 shuttle every day, because I have Arabic at 8am. Because the school doesn't have enough space (they're moving out to the desert next year), they have classes starting early (8am) and ending late (like 8pm) to fully utilize the classrooms. The campus is small next to Stanford. I suppose that's why they're moving.

At first I thought the commuter thing would be annoying and hard on the social life, but there are tons of nice coffee shops near the school, and the library is fine, so most people come to school early, and leave late, and spend their day socializing, doing work, etc. The campus has hundreds of wicker chairs in all the courtyards. You just drag them into clusters, and work with friends on homework, eat lunch, or shmoose. It's glorious.

You can also borrow really nice IBM laptops from the library for a few hours at a time. It's great--I can bring my arabic CDs, and work on my homework without lugging my laptop to school.

I also rented a locker at the gym, so I can go there between classes. Most of the girls in the locker room use it to pray. It's an amazing transformation when I walk down the little marble staircase and emerge in the basement locker room to find girls rolling up their prayer mats and reading the Qur'an.

so exciting, it's like lighting the oven with a lighter.

Our stove and oven are the kind you need to light every time you use them. Not so hard, but a bit of a challenge for a cooking novice like me. I'm accustomed to the difficulty in picking how long to set the microwave for.

During the week, we ran out of matches, so now we're using a lighter. This makes it more difficult, because rather than pinching the end of match and poking it towards the burner until it lights, I'm now forced to hold my hand by the burner and flicker with the lighter, trying not to let the gas run so long that the whole kitchen blazes. Also, without the smoking practice most Egyptian men have, I awkwardly fumble with the lighter, wishing it to light as the gas hisses aggressively.

Anywho, the stove is not so bad anymore :) The oven however, is a different animal. I need to lean into the stove, and reach my hand up to the upper back corner of the oven, turn on the gas, and pray I get the lighter lighted before the oven fills with gas and I burn my hair off. I can't do it without squealing, so here at "the harem" we've started to referring to exciting things as "like lighting the oven."

For example: "Anne in my Aa'miyya class told me about her trip to Mt. Sinai. It sounded incredible. Let's go next weekend!"

"Yes! It'll be like lighting the oven! I'll look into bus tickets if y'all look into hostels."

Erin cooked pancakes for brunch on Friday!

بار ٢٨

Last night was ladies night out. Five of us went out to the infamous Pub 28, a hole-in-the-wall favorite for locals and ex pats alike. You walk in through a hobbit door, and enter a wood-paneled dark cave with dim chandeliers, and Celine Dion crackling softly through crappy speakers. Clustered around tables were groups Egyptian men, and a few scattered European couples. We were the only group of girls, and didn't go unnoticed. The sangria pitchers were $8. Best sangria ever.

The 13 offices of registration

Step off plane. Meet guy holding AUC sign. He takes you to dorm. Stand in line at dorm for two hours (awkward orientation conversations begin).
"Hi, I'm Georgia."
"Isaac."
"Where you from?"
"Minnesota, but I go to school in Wisconsin."
"Oh. Well, I've been in the St. Paul airport of bunch of times. Do you go to the University of Wisconsin?"
"Yeah."
"Oh. Do you know Julia Randall?"
"Nah."
"I guess it's a big school."
"Yup."
"Where you from?"
"Boston."
"You here for Arabic?"
"Yeah, you?"
"Yeah."
Then I move on to the next person.

Fill out welcome card. Go to bed. Get up. Take shuttle to main campus. Wait in line. Fill out emergency card. Go back to hotel because they forgot to register my passport (your passport must be registered with the government whenever you stay more than 48 hours in a new place. so not cool). Go back to school. Go to accounting office to settle bill. Office mislabled. They direct me to the correct office. Take slip to bank. Go to International Student Services Office. Bring passport to housing guy. Talk to him about moving. Bring passport to Registrar. Go back to accounting office to get proof of payment. Bring proof of payment to registrar. Give them passport. Return in one week and bring passport to Visa office. Go wait in line to register for classes. Register. Get paperwork from gym. Bring paperwork to clinic. Get bloodpressure checked. They sign paper. Bring paperwork back to gym. They issue ID. Go to identification office. They take photo. Return in one week to pick up identification. Bring laptop to computer services office. They give me special password. Take special password to computer lab. They get my computer on the network. Return to that office if you want an email address. Return to ISSO office to drop/add classes. Unsuccessful. Return on Sunday. Meanwhile, go to History dept. to figure out the problem. Return to housing office to arrange bed delivery. Deliveryman a no-show. Return to housing office (x10).

*awkward conversations continue. Note: each office is accompanied by line-waiting. Usually more hectic than but not as long as the ISSO class registration line.

dinner cruise

After school, I returned to "the harem" (apartment...), and vegged until 10:30, when we met up with Ahmed. Ahmed has lots of connections, and his father is friends with the manager of a classy restaurant on a cruise boat on the Nile (read: free dinner). It was glorious. The boat looked like an old Mississippi steamer--it was wide and flat and went rather slowly (I have know idea how fast the steamers cruise...). The first course was a shrimpy thinggy, and for the second I had fish while the others got beef. We split a bottle of nice red wine (a nice break from Stella and Sakhara--cheap Egyptian beer).

(quick alcohol side note: drinking hard alcohol in Egypt is a bad idea. There have been multiple cases of people switching the real liquor for rubbing alcohol and ethanol, which can cause death or blindness. During our second day or orientation, the director was warning us against this, when a girl asked "how long does the blindness take to set in?" the director repeated her warnings regarding death. The pale girl asked again "yes, but HOW LONG?" Tomader (our director, aka "Tomb Raider") finally got what she was asking, and said "sit down, you're fine." The girl answered "ok, but my eyesight was blurry this morning.")

During dinner there was a belly dancer for entertainment. Belly dancers make me feel uncomfortable. Look! She's got huge knockers. Ooops, careful now! Don't want spillage! Oh, now she's quivering her arse in front of a pious, hijab-clad woman. Here's the move where she's imagining a guy on top of her. Ok, that would be the climax... awkward... Especially in a culture that forbids me to show my seductive shoulder, or provocative knee. True, western hip hop is just as sexual, but it isn't that out of the ordinary from what you might see on the street. Here, I get disapproving looks when I wear my low-cut jeans, yet belly dancers are extolled as talented, legitimate art (which they are).

Yesterday I was lounging in the apartment in a tank top and boxers, when I heard a knock at the door. So, I bounce off the couch, and open the door. It's the guy from the petrol company coming to fix our water heater. Yay! I pointed to the kitchen. He looked at me horrified, and the bawwab (our doorman) tells me to go get dressed. *ooops*


After dinner we went up to the deck. Most of the other passengers were Saudi or Jordanian--recognizable by their red and white checkered handkerchiefs on their heads (Palestinians wear the black and white) and their galabaya (long white tunic).

a dervish of a theory

Homosexuality is illegal in Egypt. But that doesn't mean men don't have the cultural freedom here to express physical affection and even try on skirts... maybe even more so than in the west. I love seeing men wander down the street arm-in-arm, because you don't usually see it in the states.

khan al khalili

"You have magic eyes--do you want an Egyptian husband?"
"This shop--everything free for you"

"Spice Women!"

"All I want is your money"

"I don't want to marry you, I only want your money."

"Shakira!"

for comparison's sake...

Rockin' the seventies... This was my room in Kanzy.

camels and da popo

pyrimids, part III

Notice our security detail. We had a police car and armored guard in each bus...



This is the oldest wall ever built of stone... I touched it. hehe.

more pyramids!! (there are 111 in total)

the pyramids!

the red sea!

The belly dancer...