From Columbia to Cairo

six days, six airports

2010-05-12T14:51:00.007+03:00

So, the week before last, I went to America and back, by way of an impromptu overnight stay in Europe. I've been asked a million times since by my friends here in Cairo what it was like to be back in the States, and I always answer (truthfully) that I almost wish I hadn't gone, because it makes it so hard to be back here. Don't get me wrong; I have loved my experience here and will be especially sad to say goodbye to all my friends at the end of this month. But being in America and seeing my family was amazing, and as I battled my way through four different airports on the way back to Cairo, all I wanted was to go home to Atlanta. This wasn't helped by the fact that I borrowed my Canadian friend's copy of Gone with the Wind to read on the plane. I get something new out of that book every time I read it (I've been rereading it pretty frequently since second grade), but this is the first time it's ever made me homesick. After the close quarters and desert landscape of Egypt, I can't think of anything more beautiful than the red hills and magnolias of Georgia.

I left Egypt early on a Wednesday morning and connected through JFK in New York on my way to Reagan in D.C. There really is no better feeling than stepping off the plane into your home country! The airport was pretty deserted, since it was about 7 am, and the customs guy was really sweet (although his Knight Rider jokes about my last name were a little dated). To breathe clean air, be surrounded by diversity, and see actual traffic lights outside the airport windows was better than I can describe. I actually made a list of the places I wanted to make sure to eat and things I wanted to make sure to buy, so that I could get the most out of my four days stateside. I had my first Diet Cokes on the Delta flight I took out of Cairo; I think the flight attendant was a little shocked at how much I could drink in one sitting. Clearly, he didn't understand what it's like for a Diet Coke addict to go four months without a taste. Starbucks in JFK was next (we have Starbucks in Cairo, but it's just not the same). I spent my first afternoon in D.C. studying in a Panera Bread, which I've missed so much. Panera has been a staple for me ever since it was my friends' main bus-stop hangout in seventh grade, and it's been really hard to go without it for so long. Of course, some of the places I miss the most are unique to Atlanta and South Carolina: Taco Mac, Fox Brothers, Figo, Los Loros, Willy's, Tsunami, and, of course, Groucho's! I'll have to wait until June to get my fix of those. (Something I also miss and which most of my friends in Egypt have never heard of: Publix. And I won't have it this summer in D.C. either :( )

When I arrived at my hotel, the Westin in Arlington, the power was out, so I wasn't able to check in for over an hour. After 16+ hours of flying and waiting around, I was pretty out of it; all I wanted to do was pass out. I proceeded to do that in the amazing bed in my room (Westin beds are probably the most comfortable), although anything probably would have felt amazing compared to the mattress pad and wooden slats I sleep on in Cairo. I woke up to find that my interview program had accidentally assigned me a male roommate. Awkward! He said that this happens to him a lot, since his Polish first name apparently sounds feminine to many people. They quickly fixed the mistake, but he was really cool and I'm glad I got to meet him anyway. My dad's family is Polish, but he was the first person I've ever met who was fluent in the language.

Just walking around the Ballston area made for a great deal of culture shock. Somehow, I wasn't prepared to see anyone wearing shorts or tank tops; on the other hand, it was really comforting to hear everyone around me speaking English, and to not be the only blonde person in the vicinity. I was also excited to get to familiarize myself with D.C. in preparation for this summer. I rode the Washington Metro at least four or five times while I was there. It might be ten times more expensive than the Cairo underground, but it's worth it for the air conditioning, plentiful seats, electronic notification of train arrival times, and lack of molestation. Once my parents made it to Arlington on Thursday morning, we started exploring the city. I've been to D.C. twice or three times before, but it's mostly been in the context of college visits, so there wasn't much opportunity for me to see the sights. I feel like I could fill up all of my free time this summer just visiting the museums!

With my mom at the Washington Monument!

After my interview on Friday (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to write about here), my parents and I went to dinner at an amazing tapas place called Jaleo in downtown D.C. I was really excited to get to see my uncle Carl, who is finishing up his residency in Baltimore and just got back from working in an eye clinic in India last month! Also joining us was my aunt Liza, whom I'll be staying with this summer in D.C.

I spent my last afternoon in America making sure I had gotten all of the necessaries I had promised to bring back for my friends in Cairo. People had requested everything from eye drops to organic hair gel, and I successfully filled all of their orders! I was lucky to be able to eat my last meal before heading to the airport at my cousins Katie and Jerry's house in Oakton, Virginia. It was also my great-aunt and -uncle Olga and Doug's 55th wedding anniversary! Sadly, everything went downhill from there: a new plume of ash from the volcano in Iceland delayed my flight to Paris, meaning that I missed my connection to Cairo the next day. I was first given a new connection to Cairo through Frankfurt, but when I tried to board that flight five hours later, Air France officials told me I couldn't because, since it had also been delayed, I might again miss my connection. So I ended up staying overnight in Paris, but had to be back at Charles de Gaulle early enough that I wasn't even able to sightsee. My new connection in Prague was successful, and I finally got to Cairo two and a half days after I left D.C.

Since returning, I've been busy with two unpleasant activities: finals and saying goodbye. There are a lot of study abroad students who have already flown back to the U.S., finishing their finals early, and many more will be leaving this coming weekend, after finals are finished. (My last one is on Thursday!) There are a brave few of us who scheduled our flights for May 29 and 30, a good nine days after the end of school. I had planned to travel during that time, but it looks like I'll be staying in Cairo instead. I still have to do most of my souvenir shopping, so if you have any special requests, let me know!

supplemental reading!

2010-04-29T02:18:00.002+02:00

Also, if anyone is interested in learning more about sexual harassment in the Middle East (in Egypt in particular) and how it relates to veiling and the hijab tradition, this is an extremely interesting and (in my experience) accurate article. It's from August 2008, but in the last two years, the trend toward increasing conservativism in the Middle East has only accelerated, especially in Egypt. Naively, I thought I understood the gender dynamic in the Muslim world before visiting simply because I had studied it and had Muslim friends. But there's nothing like riding the gender-segregated subway deep into Cairo to make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew about the way that men and women interact here (and consequently, the way women interact with each other). The article is here: In Egypt, Some Women Say That Veils Increase Harassment (Washington Post).

Some of you might also be interested to know that Cairo is planning to introduce pink taxis driven by women, for women in the coming months. I was excited to hear about that at first; friends of mine have been harassed and even molested by cab drivers here, and the few times that I've had to ride in a taxi by myself, I've felt uncomfortable. But introducing women-only taxis to complement the women-only subway cars is just treating the symptoms of the wild inequalities and injustices in this society. I would much prefer to see the city's authorities working to make public transportation safe for all people, regardless of gender.

did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded?

2010-04-28T14:50:00.008+02:00

I think I can safely say that all of the trials and tribulations I've experienced in Egypt are completely validated by the sheer beauty of the night sky in the desert. I know I already gushed about it after I camped in the Sahara, but climbing Mount Sinai this past weekend was both just as amazing and somehow better. We were not only stargazing, but climbing ever higher up an ancient mountain, into those stars. It was pitch-dark, but for a few bobbing flashlights from hikers outside our group; we felt our way along the path, concentrating on putting one foot in front of another, until we emerged out onto a ledge about two hours up the mountain. There it was: the Milky Way. The light pollution is so bad at home (and, of course, in Cairo) that I can't remember if I've ever even seen it naturally in the U.S. But it was unmistakable here, a smoky ribbon of nebula twisting across the sky. Everything on the mountain-- us, the camels, the myriad other hikers all vying to reach the summit before sunrise-- was dark and faceless in the light of the brilliant stars and the waxing moon. Sinai wasn't easy, but it was absolutely worth it.

My traveling companions (three Matts, Zak, Laura, and Ryan) and I weren't in the best shape to be climbing a mountain that night. We had taken an overnight bus to Dahab, a little backpacker-friendly town on the Sinai peninsula in the Red Sea, on Thursday night (this was a quasi-five-day weekend because Sunday, April 25, was Sinai Liberation Day, the anniversary of Israel's return of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982), and had only gotten a few hours of napping in that day before striking out for the mountain. Dahab was too amazing for us to stay asleep all day. Let me say that if Sharm el-Sheikh was exactly what an Egyptian beach town shouldn't be, Dahab is everything it should. It's small enough that we constantly saw all of our other friends from AUC who were visiting, but big enough to have lots of options for dining and having fun. It's all situated directly on the water; you can see Saudi Arabia right across the Sea!

View from the Corniche in Dahab!

So, we spent the day hanging out in the sun and playing with the precious family of kittens who lived at one of our favorite restaurants there. We had fun, but didn't exactly rest or warm up for the three-hour climb to come later. Our convoy left our hotel (Seven Heaven hostel-- it was really nice, considering it was only $8 USD/night, if you're planning a trip to Dahab soon!) around 11 pm, and when we got to the base of Mount Sinai (where St. Catherine monastery is located) at 1 am, it was very, very cold. I was excited to be able to use my Marmot parka again (second time all trip, haha). But not 20 minutes after we started climbing, we all started to shed layers.

Kitten family :)

The first two-thirds of the Sinai climb are relatively easy; the incline is gentle, but problems arise if (like us) you forgo flashlights to try to get an authentic experience of climbing under moonlight. The paths are so loose and rocky that you are liable to fall or trip often if you can't see what you're doing. I advise you to bring a flashlight if you climb it, and a walking stick if you have any joint issues (even feet or ankles). Our guide wasn't too helpful; I hear that many other people's guides weren't either. However, he did alert us when we reached the most difficult part of the climb: you spend the last 30 minutes or so on a very rocky, very dangerous Lord of the Rings-style "stairway" (I use that term loosely, as it was more like a jagged, life-threatening pile of boulders). Thankfully, we couldn't see quite how vicious the "stairs" were, so we hoofed our way up and made it to the summit about 45 minutes before sunrise.

The stairs (from below in the morning, after our descent)

Laura and me at the summit at sunrise!

It was very nice, if a little surreal; the peak was packed, and many of the people were singing Romanian hymns as the sun rose. I felt a little sad because I was too cold and tired (going on 48 hours without legitimate sleep) to really enjoy the sunrise. We rented blankets and mattresses, which were worth the $6 USD or so we each spent, because it was once again freezing cold at the summit. We picked our way back down the stairs of doom in the sunlight, then skidded back down the main, gravelly trail. Within the next few hours, we were on our way back to Dahab to enjoy the rest of our Saturday!

Beautiful views of the surrounding mountains from the Elijah Plateau at the base of the stairs.

My climbing group went back to Cairo on Saturday night, but I decided to get a single at our hostel and stay another night so that I could spend some time with my other friends from AUC who were in Dahab for the weekend. I felt like so far, all I had done was be tired and hike; I expect a little more than that out of a vacation! (Matt from Baylor also said I was a high-maintenance traveler because I brought a neck pillow. No, that's called being pragmatic and ergonomic. And I was sleeping more comfortably on the nine-hour bus rides back and forth to Cairo. So there.) I had an amazing time eating out and just having fun with the other study abroad kids, and I continue to marvel at my ability to stay in hostels by myself and actually be independent. Since the Zamalek dorms are as strict and overprotective as my sorority house was at USC, I'm always surprised by the level of freedom I can have when I just step outside those walls.

I'm back at school for the next week, but I only have six short days until I leave for D.C.! Those will, of course, be filled with presentations (one today, one tomorrow), papers, and quizzes, but that's life at AUC. We joke that every single exam that's not actually a final is considered a midterm. There's also a very strange policy here: namely, if a professor misses class for personal reasons (i.e. sickness or family needs), the students are expected to make it up. One of my professors has been in Europe for the past three weeks, so I'm going to be spending a lot of extra time at school. It will definitely be nice to step out of my routine here for five days or so as I visit America next week!

making plans to change the world while the world is changing us...

2010-04-21T14:35:00.006+02:00

It seems impossible to me that I'll be home in Atlanta five weeks from Sunday. It's not that the trip has gone by so quickly; things I did in the first month here, like visiting Alexandria, seem like years ago. Rather, it's that I had been planning on and looking forward to this semester for a long time-- at least three years-- and it's so strange that it's almost over. In a lot of ways, I think I have kind of been subconsciously dividing my life plans into a "before Egypt" section and "after Egypt" section. Before Egypt, I was just a college junior, looking ahead to the next few years but not really reaping any of the benefits of my work yet. I'd only left the continent once, and had never gone more than two months or so without seeing my parents. After Egypt comes the future: senior year, the GRE, graduate school, fellowships, (probably) moving to Washington, D.C., and a whole lot of goodbyes.

Well, since spring break, After Egypt has been approaching at a faster and scarier rate than I could ever have imagined. A lot of it is great stuff. I will be interning on Capitol Hill this summer in the office of my hometown (Decatur, Georgia) Representative, Hank Johnson, on behalf of J Street, a pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby for which I worked on a few projects while interning at the Carter Center Human Rights program last summer (more on J Street here). Especially as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict comes more and more to the forefront of international politics with the Obama administration's increased emphasis on the settlement issue, I am incredibly excited to be right in the middle of everything for the whole summer! But this also marks another two months I'll be spending away from Atlanta, my oldest friends, and my family, and my first experience living alone. I've felt so ready for this experience (living in D.C.) for so long that thinking it's happening in six weeks feels totally surreal.

Two weeks ago, I was also told that I'm being flown to D.C. on May 5 for four days to interview for a huge graduate fellowship program. I don't want to say too much about it for fear of jinxing myself, but if you're a friend or family member, please feel free to ask . If I thought I was nervous about moving to D.C. in June, it doesn't even compare to how excited and anxious I am about this opportunity. It was also great to hear that I get to take a little jaunt back to the U.S. (free of charge-- the best part!), a month earlier than I thought I would be returning. My parents are going to be able to come up and see me while I'm there, which is even better, and I have other family members in the area who I'm excited to spend time with. But it's just another future destination rushing up to meet me-- so much faster than I expected it would.

I can't even begin to cover here all of the preparations I've been having to make for my senior year at USC while I'm abroad. From running for executive board positions in organizations to planning Homecoming for my sorority to finding a director for my senior thesis, I sometimes feel like I never left Columbia at all! I hear that from a lot of the other study abroad students here, as well. I think studying abroad in my parents' era must have been a very different experience; with email, Facebook, Skype, and international cell phones, I always have one foot back in South Carolina, even if the rest of me is here in Egypt.

I've been thinking lately about something I heard at the study abroad orientation session I attended last semester at USC. The speaker said that, while it's hard to actively feel yourself changing, everyone comes back from a study abroad experience irrevocably changed. It's kind of the point, right? And considering how much I think I've changed from semester to semester even without leaving the Southeast, it scares me a little how different I may be the time I move back to Columbia for sorority rush in the fall. Will I even fit there anymore? Even with 25,000 students, is USC going to be too small for me now?

I really don't know. I miss USC, Columbia, Atlanta, all of my friends, and most of all, my family more than I can say, and that's not even mentioning all of the tiny little things about America I never appreciated before leaving: courtesy and Southern hospitality; animal shelters; effective social services; my own cell phone, and being able to call anyone whenever I want; a non-twin-sized bed; pork (which I never really even eat at home); traffic control of any kind; weirdly, American-style Chinese food; and MARTA trains where everyone feels safe to ride together, as opposed to a gender-segregated subway. (Did I really just say I missed MARTA? Seriously?) But maybe there will be a dozen other things I actually miss about Egypt when I get back (other than the exchange rate, that is). Maybe I'll be addicted to getting new stamps in my passport, and staying in one country for the rest of the year will be torture. I don't know, so there's nothing to be done except to look forward to the bright, bright future of After Egypt, and enjoy the time I have left here as best I can.

I started on that latter task this weekend by going to Dahab, a resort town on the Red Sea, with a lot of my closest friends from AUC! The post directly after this one will have pictures and some stories, mainly about my climb of Mount Sinai. I hope y'all are still reading!

spring break part two: jordan and sharm

2010-04-18T14:07:00.009+02:00

Looking back on the trip, my friends and I (and most of the other AUC students who visited) agree that Lebanon was the best stop on our journey. Jordan definitely had its charms, but there were many downsides as well-- the worst being the exchange rate. The Jordanian dinar is about as strong as the British pound, making the exchange rate 0.7 dollars to the dinar. Although it wasn't necessarily an expensive country, for a place much more like Egypt than it was like Europe, things weren't cheap.

I will say that Jordan was significantly cleaner than Egypt (though you could say that's damning with faint praise), and maybe even cleaner and better-organized than Lebanon. Our hotel, the Cameo in northern Amman, was very, very nice for what we paid, and the managers were so helpful with our questions and assisting us in traveling the country. Jordan was the first place I've seen in the Middle East with actual traffic control, from speed bumps to cops with radar guns to parking tickets. That could be a result of the difference between Lebanon's government (still in relative upheaval) and Jordan's strict monarchy. Unlike Egypt and Lebanon, Jordan is actually the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. However, while posters and reproduced paintings of King Abdullah II (husband of American-educated Queen Rania) are literally everywhere, the Jordanian attitude is more liberal than, say, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This could be because of the country's focus on tourism; there are so many designated sites to visit in Jordan that one group of AUC students spent their entire 12-day break there.

We stayed in Amman for two nights, but for a large, wealthy capital city, there really just isn't much to do there. We wandered the downtown area on our first day there , and while we ate some delicious mansaf (the Jordanian national food; a large piece of chicken or lamb [simply called "meat" here, which I find hilarious] over rice, with a cheesy broth/dip on the side), the sidewalk souqs (markets) were a pale and pricey comparison to the enormous Khan el-Khalili in Cairo. We went to visit the "Roman ruins"-- one of only two historical/educational attractions Amman seems to have-- and it was just a few columns right in the middle of town, its marble all weedy and the chain-link fence rickety. Our hotel was out in the suburbs (most of Amman is suburban, and all the buildings are built in the same square, flat-roofed, white style due to the heat), so there wasn't much within walking distance. However, we did go to the mall (not quite as crazy as the City Stars mall in Cairo, but close), AND (I was really excited) we saw a person with a Clemson sticker on their car! That will probably be the only time I'm excited to see a Clemson fan. (Just kidding... kind of.)

After the relaxation of the first day, we took our second day in Amman to visit the Dead Sea. Because of the aforementioned exchange rate and the relatively large size of Jordan geographically, it was too expensive for us to drive to multiple places in one day, so we missed out on seeing places like Mount Nebo (where Moses is buried), Jerash (the impressive ruins of a Roman city), and Wadi Rum (a desert with beautiful natural formations, much like the Black and White Deserts I visited in March). But the Dead Sea was definitely our top priority! We descended about 1800 m in elevation over an hourlong trip, from the high hills of Amman (1400 m above sea level) to the depths of the Dead Sea, the lowest land area on Earth (-422 m below sea level). Our first words upon getting out of the car were "Oh my gosh, that's Israel!" Since the Arab-Israeli conflict has been the focus of my studies for the past three years, to actually see Israel for the first time was amazing. It looks pretty much the same as the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, but the lack of visible resorts and hotels on the Israeli side (most of the Israeli shore of the Dead Sea is located in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank-- i.e., the West Bank of the Jordan/Dead Sea) and constant drone of military planes overhead added gravity to the otherwise idyllic atmosphere.

The Dead Sea, as you may know, is named for its hypersalinity: because the lake's water is 33.7% salt, making it more than eight times saltier than ocean water, no life can survive in it. However, this unique environment also means that human bodies are less dense than the water, and naturally float rather than sinking, as they would in a normal lake. The thick, black mud on the lake floor is also prized for its exfoliating qualities and sold in spas around the world. These aspects of the Sea made it fun to play in for several hours, although John did accidentally put his face and eyes into the water. Don't do that if you ever visit the Dead Sea (there is a sign outside that warns you not to, but clearly it's easy to ignore). We laid out by the pool at the resort for the rest of the afternoon. This was the first place I visited in the Middle East where I saw people (mostly Europeans and Americans, of course) wearing Western swimsuits, and they made an odd contrast with the Jordanian and Saudi men sitting poolside in their keffiyehs and galabeyas (traditional scarf headdresses and loose robes).

On our last full day in Jordan, the Cameo arranged for our same driver from the day before to take us to Petra, about two hours south of Amman, wait for us while we toured, and then drive us another hour south to the coastal city of Aqaba. This was great, because it would have been hard for us to find a bus to Aqaba in Petra, and we wouldn't have been able to guarantee the security of our bags while we hiked around the ancient city. We were visiting on a very hot and sunny day, and also on the same one chosen by at least five or six other groups from AUC. While the city is beautiful and it's mind-boggling to think that these intricate buildings were carved out of solid rock and actually built into the mountains, I'm still not sure whether the visit was worth the $50 USD (33 dinar) and vicious sunburns. Petra is, however, one of those places in the Middle East that you absolutely have to visit, and is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, so I'm sure in hindsight I'll be glad I went.

I'm not kidding when I say it wasn't an easy trip, though. Petra, an ancient Nabatean city taken over by the Romans and differentiated from other cities of the time by the fact that its buildings are carved entirely into the mountains of Wadi Musa in southern Jordan, has been left unpaved, and walking through thick sand can make a leisurely stroll into a tough hike. It's also a real city, and of proportional size to a real city; you can spend up to three days just visiting its attractions. We wanted to be done in four hours, which required a lot of speedy walking and climbing. There are also locals constantly harassing you, asking if you would prefer to ride a donkey through the city; some of our friends did this, but we resisted. The Treasury at Petra (see picture) is by far the most impressive and recognizable sight in the whole city, and many of the other buildings can just seem like less-well-preserved renditions of the same architecture. But I am glad that I went, as rigorous a tour as it was. And anyone else who has the chance should go-- just come prepared!

The beautiful, ancient tectonic canyon that forms the path into Petra.

In front of the famous Treasury at Petra!

We drove into Aqaba, Jordan's only coastal city (at the juncture of the Red Sea, Israel, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia) that night, ready to celebrate Leo's 21st birthday and set sail for Egypt's Sinai the next day. I had several applications and emails to take care of, and internet had been so intermittent throughout the trip that I needed about three hours in our hotel's business center to get my life together. Aqaba seemed nice, but we didn't really have a chance to do any sightseeing, and it's not a historical attraction in the way that Byblos or Beirut are. Our hotels were also getting progressively nicer as our journey went on; the Days Inn in Aqaba was the first one to have a shower with a bathtub!

The ferry across the Red Sea from Aqaba to Nuweiba, Egypt was the only reasonable way for us to travel from Jordan to Egypt without paying for another flight (other AUC students took it, too), but it was honestly pretty awful. I don't have much ferry experience (the only one I've taken, I think, being that from the North Carolina mainland to Ocracoke Island), but even Staten Island native Leo was surprised that we weren't allowed to go outside at all for the entire four-hour ferry ride. The boat was very crowded (although being in second class rather than economy helped), but the worst part was that we sat in our seats for a full two hours after we reached Nuweiba. Why? Who knows. We were definitely back in Egypt. Also, John was told that his visa was invalid for reentry, and only after going to the bank at the dock, paying for a new visa, and taking it to the immigration office for approval was he told that his visa was actually valid and he'd done all that for nothing. We had expected to spend the whole day traveling, but hadn't realized just how annoying and taxing that travel would be. Haggling for a microbus to take the four of us and our luggage (plus our friends Emily and Amy, who we ran into at the dock) to Sharm el-Sheikh (a two-hour drive) was equally unpleasant, although we did eventually get the driver down to the price we had been told by Egyptian friends was reasonable to pay.

Haggling here is a complex art, and extremely common-- if something doesn't have a price tag on it, it is open for bidding. You're at a disadvantage if you don't have a clear idea of the item's value beforehand, and in the case of taxis, bus rides, and the like, it is always best to ask a friendly, trustworthy local (i.e. someone who has no monetary interest in ripping you off), or a travel official/tourist police officer what kind of price to expect. The driver/salesperson will always go into the sale asking for significantly more than the item's value, and you should ask for less than its value. Stand your ground, even when he starts yelling and cursing you, and eventually most salespeople of any kind will come down. Or, he'll drive away, and you'll bargain with the next one to come along. No problem (mafish mishkala).

The main issue we faced with bargaining in the Sinai was that there are very few Egyptian residents living there, and the swarms of Eastern European (and some Italian and British, but very few American) tourists buzzing about the beaches of Sharm meant that taxi drivers and other salespeople (restaurant managers, grocers, internet cafe owners, etc.) were accustomed to being easily able to rip people off, to the point where all prices were incredibly inflated. A taxi ride that would have cost perhaps 10 LE (Egyptian pounds; around $2 USD) in Cairo cost 40 LE ($8 USD) there. All food was both very mediocre and very expensive. I was aghast at the prices of things like pretzels in stores. I'm sure this is the same kind of exchange-rate shock I'll experience when I get home, but I feel the difference is that the expensive stuff in Sharm was still Egyptian expensive stuff (i.e. produced for, worth, and usually sold at a much, much lower price). Considering how poor we all were from the expenses of Lebanon and Jordan, we had been looking forward to getting back to the Egyptian exchange rate (5.5 LE to 1 USD), and the cost of Sharm put us in an unpleasant mood for the rest of the trip.

This isn't to say that Sharm el-Sheikh wasn't beautiful; it was. The Red Sea was gorgeous, and snorkeling to see the magnificent coral reefs and huge schools of fish was awesome. Our hotel was very nice, and thanks to John's hotel-booking skills (and maybe also the fact that we were sleeping five people in a two-person double room), relatively cheap. Thanks to a scheduling mix-up, our friend Rosie found herself with extra time during break, and hopped an overnight bus from Cairo to meet us at the beach (accounting for the fifth person in the room). It was so fun to have a fresh face in the group for the last few days of the trip! I think in the future, though, I will definitely be choosing Dahab, the cheaper, more student/backpacker-oriented Red Sea resort area, over Sharm. Speaking of the future, I'll actually be going to Dahab in four days, but more about that in my next post!

The main pool at our resort in Sharm.

The beautiful Red Sea-- there are huge coral reefs right along the shore!

The trip was worth every penny, and any small frustrations (or significant sunburns) we had were nothing compared to the daily frustrations of Cairo. The clean air in all three places we visited was reason enough to leave the Nile Delta, one of the most polluted regions in the world, for two weeks. I added several new stamps to my passport, and can now say I've visited four continents (Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America)! I got to know John, Leo, and Chelsea so much better, and really felt like a world traveler rather than just a student in Cairo. But in the end, I was happy to come "home," to my little dorm room on its leafy, familiar street in Zamalek, the other AUC friends I'd missed, free internet, and, of course, that good old Egyptian exchange rate.

life is beautiful around the world! spring break: lebanon

2010-04-14T15:35:00.014+02:00

Not that I haven't developed a complicated affection for this city, but I never expected to hear myself say the words "I can't wait to go back to Cairo." And as much as I was completely blown away by the places I visited on my spring break trip to Lebanon, Jordan and the Sinai, by the last leg of my 12-day trip, I was ready to go "home." Sure, Cairo may not have clean air, or my friends and family, or even Diet Coke, but my time away made me realize just how comfortable I feel here. I know where everything is, how much taxis should cost, and the local dialect (the huge changes in Arabic from country to country are ridiculous), and here in Zamalek I have free wireless (SO hard to come by, even at nice hotels), laundry facilities, a shower with a curtain, and my Cairo friends and family, who I really did miss while I was gone.

Sorry that I haven't been able to blog in a while. For the two weeks or so leading up to spring break, which began March 26, I was drowning in midterms, and wasn't able to leave Cairo for any fun weekend trips. There wasn't really much to write home about, haha. But now, I have finished my tests and gone on the trip of a lifetime, so I have a LOT to tell you about. I may split this up into two posts so it doesn't get too long.

I started planning my spring break trip back in February with three of my best friends at AUC, Chelsea, John, and Leo. Most of the AUC kids spend spring break traveling to multiple places within cheap flight or bus distance from Egypt: Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, and the European resort-style beaches on the coast of Egypt's Sinai Desert. After a lot of thought (and research about flights, bus routes, and ferries), we settled on visiting Lebanon for four days, Jordan for four days, and Sharm el-Sheikh in the Sinai for four days. We decided to fly from Beirut to Amman rather than crossing through Syria, since obtaining visas into Syria can take many hours due to the lack of diplomatic relations between that country and the U.S. I'm sad, though, that I wasn't able to visit Syria; all of my friends who went over break (and who have gone in the past) say it's beautiful and the people are extremely hospitable. Insha'Allah I will have another chance to go in the future!

We set out for the Cairo airport (those of you who may have traveled with me before will be shocked to know that my bag weighed the least of the four of ours, and that's with two boys in the group!), running into two other groups of AUC students before our flight even took off. As soon as we stepped off the plane in Beirut, we could feel a palpable change in the air, and it wasn't just the refreshing lack of pollution. The customs officers were largely female (because the Egyptian military/police operates on an all-male draft, this would never happen in Egypt), and they were all wearing perfectly tailored uniforms and high heels. The first woman I saw out of uniform was wearing a tight pencil skirt that hit above her knee! It was honestly like surfacing after having been underwater for two months.

I need to mention that the Lebanese people are gorgeous almost without fail. The women are beautiful, the men are handsome, and the babies are absolutely the most adorable babies I've ever seen. Plus, they're all very well-dressed, thanks to Beirut's substantiated reputation as the "Paris of the Middle East," and because there are no taxes on foreign cars here, you can't walk a block without seeing multiple Range Rovers and Maybachs. It's just an aesthetically pleasing place, and a nice change from the trash- and animal waste-filled streets of even the wealthiest parts of Cairo.

Our hotel had a view from the balcony of the Mediterranean, but that was where the amenities pretty much ended. The manager of the hotel was so rude to us that we just found it hilarious (he told us that other guests had complained because Chelsea took a shower at night, and it was "too loud"). Add to that the spider infestation, towels that smelled like a Cairo sewer, and a tiny TV nailed to the ceiling. Mumtaz (excellent). We were, however, getting the rooms for a very low price, and other AUC groups who passed through said they didn't mind the manager as much. It didn't matter to us in the end; Beirut was awesome, regardless of the hotel.

If you are at all interested in visiting the Middle East, Beirut (and the rest of Lebanon) should be a top priority. It's cheaper than Europe (not by much, but still), but very European in atmosphere; right on the Mediterranean, with beaches, etc.; great food, from sushi to hot dogs to amazing, traditional Lebanese; excellent shopping; and lots of sights to see. It's very sobering to drive through the city and see bullet holes and other damage left over from the Lebanese Civil War and the more recent conflict with Israel in 2006. As Chelsea said while we were there, "If you live here, what is there to fight about?" It's that beautiful.

I was lucky enough to have a contact in Beirut through my friend Karim, with whom I interned at the Carter Center last summer in Atlanta. He attended AUB prior to the 2006 war, and still has many friends in the area. One of them, Sarmad, hosted us for a night; he picked us up at our hotel, introduced us to his friends, and gave us a great tour of the famous Beirut nightlife! Because of him, we had such a unique and authentic experience. It was great. During the days we spent in the city, we visited the National Museum of Beirut and the newly-built Blue Mosque in downtown, some lovely churches (Lebanon is around 35% Christian-- another refreshing change!), and the breathtaking campus of the American University in Beirut. We AUC students were green with envy upon seeing the rolling hills, lush flora, and private beach that AUB boasts. It reminded me of the climate and look of Stanford.

The National Museum of Beirut!

"Sarcophagus of the Drunken Cupids." Haha.

The beautiful Blue Mosque.

We had to wear special robes and headscarves inside. This is not always the case with mosques, but if they do want you to cover your hair they usually provide a scarf.

The AUB campus football fields, sloping down to the Mediterranean.

On our days out of Beirut, we visited Jeita Grotto, a network of caves full of otherworldly stalactites and stalagmites, including the largest stalagmite in the world (8 meters long). The mountains that form the western coast of Lebanon (on the Mediterranean) make for a beautiful drive, and the Grotto was embedded in the mountain range. The top cave area is walkable, and guides drove us on motorboats through the lower area. It's considered one of the natural wonders of the world and is worth seeing for sure.

With Chelsea at Jeita Grotto. No pictures were allowed inside the caves :(

After Jeita Grotto, we went on to Byblos, one of the (if not the) longest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It's a coastal town with an ancient castle and excellent seafood. We only had a few hours there, but it was really fun-- I'd definitely go back. The next day, we made a lengthy expedition to Baalbek. Although this city is the site of the largest intact Roman temple remaining anywhere in the world, we had debated going there because it is located in the Bekaa Valley east of the aforementioned mountain range, also known as Hezbollah territory. We had heard from AUC friends, though, that it was very safe, so we took the plunge. We really didn't have much to worry about; short of a sudden prevalence of stores selling weapons and ammunition, campaign signs for the political party, and salesmen hawking bright yellow Hezbollah t-shirts to tourists, it was pretty similar to any other rural Middle Eastern area. The ruins of the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek were so, so worth it. As you can see from the pictures (although they don't even do it justice), it is massive, and it's mind-boggling to think that it was constructed in Greco-Roman times. It's also shocking to think about the distance between Baalbek and Rome. Even though I studied Latin for all of middle and high school, I think this was the first time I had actually grasped the sheer size and impressiveness of the Roman empire.

Byblos!

Huge remaining segment of columns from the inner room of the temple of Jupiter at Baalbek.

We flew out of Beirut the next day, and it was awesome for two reasons: first, Royal Jordanian Airlines is the best airline I have ever flown with (the flight attendant even handed me my muffin before John got his, saying "Ladies first!" I have never heard that phrase here and am rarely served first in Egypt if there's a man present). Second, the sky was clear and the flight brief, so I was able to watch the landscape below the whole time. The mountains we had driven through the day before were just as impressive from above, and I could even see the exact road we had taken most of the way to Baalbek. Syria looked just as beautiful. I think perhaps the most enlightening aspect of my trip so far has been the realization that the Middle East is geographically diverse to an extent we don't even see that often in the U.S. There's a Western perception (and I'm not saying I haven't been guilty of it) that the Middle East is all arid, unbearably hot desert, from Morocco to Iran. That couldn't be further from the truth. With beach resorts, snowy mountain skiing, wide agricultural plains, hilly seaside towns, and deserts, Lebanon is a perfect example of this.

I'll discuss the legs of our trip spent in Jordan and Sharm in my next post!

she needs wide open spaces

2010-03-08T13:20:00.015+02:00

I've never felt as small as I did two nights ago, standing alone with my bare feet in the white sand of the Sahara Desert and an infinite number of unadulterated stars above me. Having your own insignificance driven home to you somehow lifts many of life's small and petty burdens. Things that seemed urgent or devastating a few hours before are washed away. The stars and the desert were there before I or anyone I know were born, and they'll still be here long after we're gone. It was one of those moments when the future you've been anticipating crashes into your present. Am I really here? I thought. And how long can I hold on to this moment?

The Sahara was absolutely one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I wish a picture could do its otherworldly nighttime vistas justice, but I will have to make do with photos taken during the days I visited. I was there with seven of my friends from AUC visiting the Bahariya Oasis and the Black and White Deserts, sections of the Sahara that are, respectively, blackened with ancient volcanic ash and whipped into impossible shapes with bright white limestone. It's one of the most popular tourist areas in Egypt, although it's so huge that contact with other visitors is pretty minimal. It is breathtaking, and even more amazing when you think about the fact that this entire portion of the Sahara was once the floor of the ocean. Driving along the ancient ocean floor made me wonder what mysteries and wonders still lie at the depths of our modern seas, miles down, where we're still exploring and discovering new life forms.

The White Desert was the closest I'll (probably!) ever get to being on another planet.

The Black Desert, covered in volcanic ash.

We left by tour bus early on Friday morning and drove five hours through less interesting parts of the Sahara to reach Bahariya. Even in its most boring stretches of sand, though, it was still mind-boggling to me to sit back and think "I'm in the Sahara Desert!" Bahariya was a little less interesting; it's a small, dusty oasis town, with the main hotel (from which our tour into the desert departed) situated right next to a restaurant called "Popular Restaurant" that is one of the oasis' top eateries. We split into two groups of four (Rosie, Toby, Emily from Wheaton College in Massachusetts, and I in one group, Chelsea, John from UF, Amy from Wheaton, and Laura from Baylor in the other) to board the ramshackle 4-wheeling Land Cruisers we would take to the desert. Driven by our Bedouin tour guides (Ahmed, Ahmed, Ahmed, and Hamdi), these trucks were up for anything, from mountainous sand dunes to brittle limestone plateaus. It was pretty great to veer offroad for the first time, only to discover that my seat was only bolted down in one out of its four corners (obviously there were no seat belts-- who needs those?). We spent the rest of that adventure with Toby and Rosie holding my seat down so I wouldn't fly out of the car. Fun!

Bahariya Oasis (that's "Popular Restaurant" on the right)

One of our Land Cruisers!

Really, though, our time in the desert was amazing. We climbed a mountain in the Black Desert, played on Crystal Mountain (a hill-sized rock of quartz), explored the completely alien landscapes formed by limestone erosion in the White Desert (we remarked more than once that it looked like something out of Star Wars), and finally set up camp far off of the beaten path. Our guides built a pretty cushy sitting/sleeping area for us, then cooked a ridiculously good meal (chicken, rice, vegetables... the usual) over an open fire. Not looking to get caught in the desert without dessert, we brought marshmallows and roasted s'mores! I wandered away and got completely caught up in the sheer beauty of the desert stars. I just have never seen that many before; without mountains and trees to obscure the constellations, I felt like I was looking at the entire zodiac. We slept out in the open under them, cuddled up together for warmth (it gets very cold in the desert at night!). I was pretty excited to prove to everyone that yes, I actually can camp, and I enjoy the outdoors (they didn't believe me before the trip). Thanks to growing up in the South and attending a Montessori elementary school, I could cook everything from tofu to eggs to ground beef over an open fire, determine the time by the sun's height in the sky, and dig an eco-safe latrine in the woods (or, in this case, in the Sahara) by the time I was ten years old. Even though school keeps me pretty busy in Columbia, I camp for fun all the time at Red Top Mountain in Georgia. Few people who have met me here thought I would be one of the most experienced campers on this trip, but I was :)

Our whole group in the Aghrabat, an especially beautiful and alien part of the White Desert. (From left: Laura, John, Chelsea, Emily, me, Rosie, Amy, and Toby.)

Rosie and me in front of one of the crazily-shaped limestone formations!

The next morning, we packed up camp (after recovering the half of our group that had ventured out to see the sunrise and actually gotten lost in the Sahara-- pretty scary) and went sandboarding! We had heard so much about this from our friends who had already been to the desert, and were really excited to try it out. It's closest to snowboarding; the boards look similar, with little straps for feet. With some effort, the Ahmeds and Hamdi got us to the top of a pristine sand dune, where we could sail down with ease (the walking back up was the hard part). I was a little scared after watching my more intrepid friends wipe out in the sand, but I actually boarded the furthest out of anyone and came to a nice stop without falling. Success! We ended the trip with a visit to the cool springs between Bahariya and the deserts, which have been a source of water and life for the region for thousands of years. Since our shoes were completely full of sand at this point, it was the perfect final stop. Our five-hour trip back to Cairo was a little less fun, but we had some great discussions in the group (everything from women's rights in the Middle East to public education in the States). I should probably get used to lengthy bus rides, since they are the easiest, most affordable, and sometimes the only way to get from place to place here. (I'm already spending at least 3 hours on a bus every day to get to and from the AUC campus).

Me sandboarding! It was a lot more thrilling than it looks, haha.

The cool springs at Ain Della.

The little Bedouin house where we had lunch on Saturday (held up by palm tree trunks!).

Speaking of traveling the Middle East, I'll be doing just that over my 13-day spring break at the end of March. Those of my friends whose families aren't coming to visit over the break are almost all touring the nearby states of the Middle East, and of course I can't wait to do the same! My friends Leo, Chelsea, and John and I are going to be visiting Lebanon and Jordan, and ending our break with some decompression time on the European resort-style beaches of Sharm el-Sheikh. We've been planning this for several weeks, and finally bought our plane tickets to Beirut last night! For those of you concerned about my safety, let me assure you that I'm not going to Syria (which is between Lebanon and Jordan; however, the State Department did recently lift the tourism warning on Syria), the Palestinian territories, or the portions of Lebanon that remain under Hezbollah's control. And yes, we'll be careful!

I can't believe how fast my time here is passing. I've only got ten weeks left now. But I'm trying to make the most of it! I didn't travel the weekend before last (it's exhausting and a little costly to go somewhere every weekend), but I did visit the City Stars mall in the Heliopolis section of Cairo. This is seriously the biggest mall I've ever seen (granted, I've never been to the Mall of America, but still!). Someone could get lost in it so easily, and its eight-plus floors of shopping and food just go up and up and never seem to end. There are grocery stores, a movie theater, and (most importantly) a huge H&M, and it's all as clean and sparkling as anything you'd find in the West. I'm actually going back there tonight, for two reasons: it holds one of the main movie theaters in Cairo, and I want to see Alice in Wonderland; and the restaurants there are the only ones in the whole city (as far as I know) that serve fountain diet soda with free refills. Those of you who know me or have been reading this blog can guess how excited I am about this. Maybe it won't be so easy to quit Diet Coke after all.

Chelsea, John and I at City Stars! This is not even close to capturing how huge it is.

Outside of that, I've been having a great time with my friends, and getting closer to new people every day. This experience has shown me how important it is to be outgoing and friendly; even people who might not seem like they want to meet anyone new usually do, and someone who initially seems standoffish could be your new best friend. I know that sounds cheesy, but in a study abroad environment, especially when you arrive as the only person from your school and state (as I did), it pays to just put yourself out there, even when it seems like it might be weird. As my friend Sarah Hudson says (and she's right!), "It's only awkward if you make it awkward." There's not nearly enough Southern hospitality here, so I always try to bring more than my fair share to the table.

Class and school are kind of rough, not because the material is necessarily difficult, but because I have to wake up at 6 am, and there's always a good deal of homework (plus that awesome 1-2 hour bus ride). But I'm finding time to volunteer: yesterday, I taught my first English class at the Better World Foundation! It was an amazing experience and I can't wait for next week. I was a little afraid that I would ruin these poor students' education forever, but it was so much easier and more fun than I expected. I have about fifteen students, most of whom are twenty-somethings studying commerce at one of Cairo's largest universities (the largest, aptly named Cairo University, has 200,000 students. Yes, you read that right). They're pretty advanced English speakers, so most of our drills have to do with helping them practice and fixing small pronunciation or grammar issues. They seem to like me and Chelsea (my co-teacher!) so far, and we like them too. They were really encouraging of our somewhat shaky teaching skills.

Beautiful view from Chelsea's balcony! I live right next door and have no balcony :( As we say here, oh well, TIE (this is Egypt)!

This is super-long (I really need to post shorter entries more frequently-- sorry!). But I hope y'all are enjoying reading! I wish I was already on spring break like my friends at South Carolina, but I know the next two weeks will just fly by. The thing I'm actually looking forward to the most right now is that 50 CENT will be coming to Cairo next week! I can't wait! Cross your fingers that I can get a ticket :)

accomplishments & alexandria

2010-02-22T00:24:00.002+02:00

So I can't decide which of the milestones I reached this week was more important: the fact that I saw the Mediterranean Sea for the first time, or the fact that I have successfully quit Diet Coke (hopefully once and for all)? Hmm... probably the Mediterranean. But I'll explain the significance of the latter later in this post.

This weekend (Friday and Saturday), I and ten of my friends from AUC went to the beautiful and historic city of Alexandria (al-Iskendriyya in Arabic). This was my first trip outside of Cairo since arriving a month ago (can you believe it's already been a month? I definitely can't!), and most of theirs as well. It was absolutely amazing. By the time I got home on Saturday evening, I was exhausted, but in the best way possible. I'm planning to go back for another weekend soon, because I spent the entire time sightseeing, and not nearly enough time just soaking up the culture of the city! The train from Cairo to Alexandria takes about 3 hours and was extremely comfortable, considering we paid about 5 USD each for the trip there and 7 USD each for the trip back. Lots of leg room (something we don't have on the tour buses that take us to and from the AUC campus each day)! Upon arriving, the first thing I did was take a taxi straight to the shore. I couldn't wait to see the beautiful blue-green sea, and it did not disappoint.

First glimpse of the Mediterranean... I never want to leave!

Gorgeous view from my room at the New Capri Hotel!

First, we visited the Citadel of Qaitbay, a huge defensive fortress built by a sultan in the fifteenth century CE at the mouth of the Eastern Harbour on which Alexandria is situated. The fortress was built on the ruins of the spectacular Pharos Lighthouse, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and probably the world's tallest building when it existed. It was destroyed by several successive earthquakes from 1000-1400 CE, until the final remnants of the granite structure were used in the construction of the Citadel we visited. The views of the Mediterranean from the towers and walls of the fort were beautiful!

The 15th-century Citadel of Qaitbay that now stands in the Lighthouse's place.

These chunks of red granite are all that is left of the lighthouse.

With (left to right) Ben and Erin from Notre Dame and Matt from American University, on top of the wall of the fortress!

We had lunch and checked into our hotels (a passport mishap led to this being more complicated than necessary, but more about that soon), then visited the ruins of the Roman amphitheater in Alexandria. They were more than a little miscellaneous, but Ben is a Latin nerd like I am, and we had a great time exploring and reminiscing about our high school Latin studies.

Ruins of the Roman amphitheater, in relief against the modern buildings of central Alexandria.

We ended our sightseeing at the deservedly famous new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, possibly the nicest building in all of Egypt. Designed to commemorate the ancient Library of Alexandria, the most famous library of the ancient world, which was destroyed sometime between 48 BCE and around 700 CE, the Bibliotheca was completed in 2002. It's gorgeous inside and out, and a great departure from the historical sites we'd been visiting thus far.

The breathtaking reflecting pool outside the library.

The main facade of the library; it's designed to allow sunlight to hit every desk on the multiple levels inside.

Beautiful modern architecture inside the library!

Following the suggestion of our Lonely Planet guidebook, we ate dinner at Hood Gondol, a strangely-named but spectacular seafood restaurant. It wasn't much to look at, hidden away in an alley, but the huge amount and variety of seafood, rice, potatoes, tahini (a dip made from sesame seeds), and salad, plus drinks, that we got for about 6 USD were just ridiculous. There's no overrating the quality of the fresh seafood in Alexandria. It almost made me feel like I was at home, on the beaches of South Carolina! We ended the night by smoking shisha (water pipes) and playing backgammon, two old, old, Egyptian pasttimes, at a coffeehouse right on the Corniche (the road that follows the whole Eastern Harbour), and going to a bar called Spitfire that was filled with expats. Lots of other AUC students, including my roommate Lea (traveling with a group of her friends from Princeton), were in Alexandria this weekend, which made for lots of fun run-ins at the different tourist sites.

MASSIVE plate of seafood-- check out the eyes and legs still on the shrimp!

On Saturday, we visited the Catacombs of Kom el-Shaqafa, one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages, a vast underground necropolis, the architecture of which melds elements of Egyptian, Greek and Roman style. This is typical of Alexandria, capital of Egypt under the Greek Ptolemaic pharaohs (i.e. Cleopatra), who ruled over Egypt as a Greek culture and kingdom from about 300 to 30 BCE. We also saw Pompey's Pillar, a 99-foot-high red granite column built in 293 CE for the Roman emperor Diocletian atop the Alexandrian acropolis. It was very impressive, and my favorite part of the exhibit that accompanied the Pillar was finding out that a group of 33 people apparently once had a lunch party on its capital (the decorations near the top)! I'm not sure how that's possible, but it's still awesome.

Matt and I in front of (and far away from) the pillar. It's huge, we're tiny :)

This was such an incredible weekend. In addition to seeing so much, I got to know the friends I travelled with even better. One major piece of advice I'll give to anyone considering study abroad in the future (as I know those of you who have done so or are abroad currently must already know this): as much as possible, avoid traveling in large groups. This is tougher to do than one might think, because all of the people here are so great and most of the time, I really do want to just take about 50 of them with me somewhere, because I know we'd have an amazing time. (One instance in which you can do this is on a felucca ride; about 70 AUC students rented one on Thursday night, and we danced on the Nile all night long!) But when traveling and especially when sightseeing, less is more. Only five people can fit (and not comfortably) in Egyptian taxis, so more than that is cumbersome for getting around; and even when walking, a group of more than four or five is very hard to keep track of and direct through the crowded streets of Middle Eastern cities. The worst scenario is when the group is lost on the way to a destination; with no designated leader or tour guide, and ten or eleven different opinions on what to do, it's hard to just enjoy exploring an area.

Not sightseeing for once: Rosie, Toby and I on the AUC felucca on the Nile!

So, taking our own advice (except when we all met up for dinner), we split into two groups for manageability's sake. I traveled with my friends Ben and Erin from Notre Dame, Matt from American, and Patrick from GW. It was a pretty perfect group! I really feel like I'm getting to know everyone so much better in recent days; these friendships are becoming real and deep. Dealing with the inevitable curves traveling abroad throws at us on a daily basis has helped us to bond. On Friday, we realized that only about four or five of the eleven in our group had brought their passports (or copies of their passports) with them to Alexandria, and thus couldn't stay in the same hotel we had originally planned upon. So, travelers: bring your passport whenever you travel in a foreign country. Especially for those of us still waiting for our student visas to be processed, passports are an absolute necessity because they are your only legitimate form of ID as far as hotels, police, and international bodies are concerned. I almost forgot mine, but brought it at the last minute.

On to the real news of this post: those of you who know my habits in the States know that I've been known to drink three to five cans of Diet Coke a day. I usually try to quit about once or twice a year, but fail because I'm addicted to the caffeine (with my pathetic sleep schedule, it's not optional) and I crave the taste. But living in Egypt has done the impossible: not only have I quit Diet Coke without even really trying, I don't think I've even gone through the usual withdrawal period. It's a combination of two things: obviously, this is the desert, and mostly all I ever actively want to drink is a giant bottle of cold mineral water (this doesn't usually cost more than 50 US cents, either!). When you're dehydrated all the time, soda's usually the last thing you want to order with a meal or pick up at the grocery store. But part of the problem is also, counter-intuitively, my devotion to Diet Coke and Diet Coke in particular: it's not available here. We've got all the regular Coke, Coke Zero, and Coke Light you could want, but Coke Light is not the same. Who knows if this will stick once I come home? But right now, I'm pretty proud of myself.

This weekend, I'm planning to travel to the Black and White Deserts and the Bahariya Oasis, about 300 km west of Cairo, with a large group (broken down, of course, into smaller groups!). I can't wait, since my first experience with traveling around Egypt was so successful! My weekdays are getting less eventful with the advent of weekend trips, since we all want to rest and get work done while we can. However, on Monday nights (since we have Tuesdays off), Tuesdays, and Thursday nights, I still make sure to hit the town, enjoy Cairo, and spend time with all of my different groups of friends!

I've opened up comments to allow anyone to be able to comment, so please, please let me know your thoughts! I wanted to share a few things with y'all, too. First, the February issue (the 15th anniversary issue, actually!) of the University of South Carolina Garnet & Black magazine is out online and in print (definitely pick up a print copy if you are in Columbia). I'm the features editor of the magazine and we worked very hard on this issue-- editing with a 7-hour time-zone difference is not easy. Take a look! And for those of you who are cat people (Dad, I'm looking at you), my friend Jonathan from Notre Dame has put together a lovely photo album entitled "The Stray Cats of Cairo." Since he braved potentially contracting rabies from getting so close to these feral cats, you should check out what he has to show for it! Thanks for reading!

excuse me, are you a movie star? julia roberts? shakira?

2010-02-14T01:18:00.000+02:00

Contrary to my expectations, the comments Egyptian men make are quickly becoming one of the funniest parts of this experience. More often than not, they are completely ridiculous, rather than being creepy or offensive. They range from simple and sweet ("beautiful," or gameela in colloquial Egyptian Arabic) to outrageous (you can be called any Western celebrity, regardless of what you actually look like, from Michelle Obama to Catherine Zeta-Jones; I get Shakira a lot, for some reason). My favorite example so far has been finding myself walking with a guy friend in Islamic Cairo or the bazaar area called Khan el-Khalili. At least three times now, my friends have been approached and asked loudly for how many camels they will sell me (this happens to all of the women in our study abroad program on a pretty regular basis). I merited an offer of 500 camels on Tuesday, which I thought was pretty fair; I've heard camels can cost or be worth up to $1,000 here, so that's a decent dowry, so to speak. I was a little insulted yesterday, though, when my friend Nick was offered 11 camels for all four of his "wives" (myself and my friends Toby, Laura and Rosie). The worst part was that the vendor who was making the offer from across the bazaar then held up a stuffed camel; he didn't even mean real camels? Seriously, eleven stuffed camels? Thankfully, Nick turned him down, saying we were worth a little more than that.

I'm still having an amazing time here, although now that the second week of school is over, the routine is beginning to erode the sense of wonderment that I felt for my first three weeks here. I'm planning to make a separate post about Arabic in general; since I get a lot of questions about the language and my study of it, I'm assuming some people reading this may be interested. But for now, I'll say that my Arabic journey has been a little rocky, and it's been tough to figure out which class I belonged in here. I'm excited that I have finally found an Arabic course where I feel (semi-) competent, and I really like the professor; she strikes a great balance between being kind and demanding. But more about that later. The only downside to this class is that it is accelerated, which means we meet for between two and three hours a day, four days a week, at 8:30 am. With Zamalek being about 45 minutes to an hour away from the AUC campus in New Cairo, I now find myself having to wake up at 6 am every morning-- earlier than I had to wake up even in high school. Those of you who know my sleeping habits may correctly guess that this hasn't made me any more likely to go to bed on time (it's 1:33 am here, and yes, I do have class tomorrow). I feel okay about it, honestly; Cairo is a nighttime city, where nothing really opens in the morning, and everything stays open until at least 2 am. I'm pretty at home here, at least in that sense!

While I've had to nap a lot this week to do so, I still managed to go all over the city and visit several attractions I've been wanting to see. Sunday night was the Super Bowl; after a full day of classes, my friends Chelsea, Gordon, Matt and Rosie helped me pull what was essentially an all-nighter at the Cairo Marriott to watch the game at 1:30 am our time. The viewing room was gorgeous (picture below) and the food was great, but that didn't change the fact that I was exhausted and had class at 8:30. So, Rosie and I left at halftime.

The beautiful chandelier in the TV room at the Marriott! Definitely the most upscale Super Bowl viewing party I've ever been to.

Since we have Tuesdays off here, Monday nights are like a little weekend night in the middle of the week. I actually really like that; it makes it easier to keep from getting overwhelmed. On Monday night, a huge group of AUC people all sort of ran into each other at Deals, which is the closest thing to a "real" bar I've been to here (as in, it's possible to order drinks other than the Egyptian beers Stella and Sakara). Apparently, you can also order a banana split, as my friend John from the University of Florida did immediately upon sitting down with us.

We had an awesome time, but it was a little tough to get up early the next day to go sightseeing in Islamic Cairo. That was probably the most authentically "Cairene" experience I've had since arriving here; a group of nine of us took the Metro (only 1 Egyptian pound/about 20 cents for a ticket!) into Islamic Cairo, where the streets are very narrow, most of the women are veiled, and carts drawn by donkeys are more prevalent than cars. We walked for about thirty minutes deep into the area. There are so many mosques and historic buildings in Islamic Cairo that our Lonely Planet guide (the definitive guide, apparently, since everyone in this program seems to have bought the same one as me!) says it will take a full six days straight to see everything it has to offer. We decided to only try to tackle one major sight: the Mosque of Ibn Tulun.

The mosque was built about twelve hundred years ago (completed in 879 CE) and is considered both the largest mosque in Cairo by square land area and the oldest surviving mosque here. It underwent a major restoration in the early 2000s by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (funny story: Rosie, Nick, Toby and I stumbled upon the actual headquarters of this council in a tiny back alley in Khan el-Khalili). It's also the first example of the use of a pointed arch in architecture anywhere.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, and so calm and quiet compared to the hustle and bustle of the outer city. The huge inner courtyard just spoke so deeply to me of the religious and contemplative purpose of the building. Hopefully you'll be able to glean some of the same sense from my pictures. The most amazing part, however, was getting to climb the minarets of the mosque and a second mosque next door; the views were unbelievable! As seen in the picture below, you can see the Great Pyramid from the minaret at Ibn Tulun, and that's all the way on the other side of this enormous city.

The central dome in the courtyard at Ibn Tulun.

The gorgeous courtyard!

Kelsey and I outside the mosque; you can see behind us the minaret we had just climbed!

On Tuesday night, I went to a restaurant called Crave with Nick and Toby. I had read in the guidebook that the burgers at this place were the best in Egypt, but I didn't know if I believed it; there's some amazing food on the island of Zamalek (I'm going to be mentioning it quite a few times in this post alone), but in all of Egypt? Really? After all, there is a Fuddruckers in the big mall in Cairo. And a Hardee's down the street from the dorm. But this burger was absolutely one of the best I have ever eaten. Nick and Toby were very jealous just because of the expressions on my face while I was shoveling it into my mouth. I don't know what exactly was on it, so don't ask me; just promise that the next time you're in the neighborhood, you will order the Zombie Burger at Crave (yes, that's really what it's called).

Wednesday was another busy day of classes; on Sundays and Wednesdays I have three hours of Arabic, followed by Comparative Middle East Politics and Self and Society, an ethics course. I went to bed early, too-- not too exciting. But on Thursday, I had what might be my best day here yet: I finally, finally got to go to Sequoia! I've been so excited about this restaurant ever since the New York Times reviewed it in early January (see earlier post all about it). And it absolutely did not disappoint. It was gorgeous, to begin with; it's situated on the point of the island, right on the Nile, and is basically a huge white tent filled with beautiful lanterns and soft couches. You can order all kinds of food, and we did have Egyptian mezze (small plates, like hummus or baba ghanoush), but then I had to have the sushi I had been so excited about! Definitely almost as good as Tsunami in Columbia, SC-- but not quite :)

DELICIOUS Mori sushi tuna roll at Sequoia. Every bit as good as it looks!

Amazing design with the lights of downtown Cairo outside the tent!

I'm actually a little disappointed at how little Egyptian food I eat while at home on Zamalek. There are definitely Egyptian places, but far more prevalent on the island are Asian restaurants (in the last four days, I've eaten Japanese at Sequoia, Chinese at Peking, Thai at Thai Elephant, and Asian fusion at a place called, strangely, "Ethnic Cafe"), Italian places, and those that serve a miscellany of Western food. We've also got Hardee's, McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, and a Chili's that my guidebook, confusingly, lists under recommended dining while on Zamalek. I try to save money on food, because it's possible to eat a very filling meal of traditional Egyptian foul (beans), falafel, koushary (noodles, rice, fried onions, tomato sauce, chickpeas, and lentils), or shwarma tagen (pasta with shwarma meat) for about 1 USD. But Zamalek really does have a lot of legitimately great restaurants, like Sequoia and Crave, where you will spend about what you would to eat out at an average-priced restaurant in the U.S., but get so much more food and a great upscale experience for it. It's hard to resist! And there's still so many more I want to try, so it's a good thing I've still got three-and-a-half months here.

On Friday, I went to Khan el-Khalili, the major bazaar in Cairo, for the first time. It's a huge, sprawling, ever-changing district of alleys upon alleys of vendors selling everything from fresh produce to copies of the Qur'an to comforters and lingerie. We wandered for about three hours, and while I saw lots of stuff I wanted to buy, I was trying to be careful and not touristy. I did buy a scarf and earrings, and bargained appropriately for them; the vendors will try to charge western-looking people much more for the items than they are worth. The Khan was complete sensory overload, too; a constant crush of people, huge carts and trays of baklava and bread coming through the streets, salesmen shoving their wares in your face, and constant sales pitches and (as I discussed earlier) marriage offers being yelled your way. It reinforced the decision I've made that the pedestrian right-of-way is not just given to you in Cairo; rather, you have to take it by force, and earn it by being completely fearless as you dodge donkey carts and speeding taxis. The Khan was a great experience, though, and I'm sure I'll return soon; I want one of the beautiful hand-quilted tapestries they make on-site in the little shops to put on my wall, and some of the comforters are actually beautiful. And everything's very, very cheap if you know how to bargain (I'm learning)!

Crazy street scene in Khan el-Khalili!

After all that, I wound up my week today with a pretty relaxing afternoon. I ran errands and avoided doing homework (the usual, haha) and some of my friends and I had a Valentine's Day gift exchange (how did we all know to give each other food? It was perfect). Valentine's Day is a huge deal in Egypt; apparently they actually celebrate it twice (again in October). And Facebook takes forever to upload pictures here, so I've spent the last three days or so uploading my first album of pictures from Egypt, but it's finally done as of tonight! So, if you're my friend on Facebook, definitely check it out-- there's way more pictures than I could ever put on the blog. There's more to come, and hopefully I'll be able to post more frequently soon so that these won't be so long! I'm sad to have missed out on the snow days this week in Atlanta and Columbia, but you know what? The sunshine and 70-degree weather here isn't so bad, either :) I miss all of you at home! Thanks for reading!

my face hurts from smiling so much.

2010-02-06T22:29:00.000+02:00

I'm not kidding-- I have been laughing and smiling pretty much non-stop since arriving here. It's a combination of how amazing, smart and hilarious my friends are and the constant humor that Cairo provides. Around every corner is something exciting, ridiculous or endearing. Maybe the novelty will wear off eventually, but I think I'm still in the "honeymoon" period of my stay here.

For example: My friend Chelsea, who is from New Jersey and goes to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and I went to dinner at an awesome restaurant called Euro Deli last night. (I actually ended up going again with a different group of people tonight-- it's close to the dorm in Zamalek and has a huge variety of food, so we love it). Euro Deli advertises its European-ness by boasting of the cities that influenced its cuisine: Montreal, Beirut, Tokyo... none of which are in Europe. Go figure. (This is just one instance of the general attitude I feel like Egyptians have; everything is in Allah's hands, so it doesn't really matter if those cities are actually in Europe, or if you show up for class on time, or if you even bothered to bring a pen or notebook to class, or if the internet crashes, or if the change you get at a store is correct... you get the point. Insha' Allah is one of the most frequently used phrases here: if Allah wills it.)

Anyway, so Chelsea and I were walking home from Euro Deli when an adorable kitten ran up to us and started following us. Chelsea loved him and named him Fred. Look how precious he was.

So cute that she didn't care that he might have rabies.

Then, all of a sudden, a man came up behind us and picked up Fred by the head-- he literally just grabbed this little kitten's head-- and walked away with him. Chelsea and I were just staring at each other, and then we burst out laughing. Where was he going with this kitten?? Who knows?? Only in Cairo, right?

Every time I have a meal with any of my friends or just have a conversation with them, we have so many new stories of the general novelty and hilarity of this city to tell each other. I really wish I could just write them all down to share with anyone reading my blog, but there are far too many. For example, my friends Toby and Nick, who go to Washington University in St. Louis, went on an AUC-sponsored trip to Alexandria this weekend. Alexandria is about two hours away and definitely a must-see while I'm in Egypt; I and some other friends are planning to go when it's a little warmer. For some reason, while in this beautiful historic city, the trip organizers decided to make the dinner event for their one night in Cairo be a trip to an American-style mall. In the mall, there was an H&M, and there was an actual DJ playing extremely loud music in the store-- so loud that there was no way anyone could actually talk in the store. You might think he would play cool Middle Eastern music; there are so many popular music stars in Egypt and their music is really fun to listen to. But no, he was playing the Akon song "Sexy Chick" (that's the censored title) OVER AND OVER again. Why?? Who knows. It's Egypt.

This was just a great weekend in general. After my first full week of classes, which was pretty stressful (I changed my schedule about 5 times, and was so tired on Wednesday after having four classes in a row and an hour-and-a-half commute that I passed out at 7:00 pm), it was great to just hang out with my friends and enjoy Cairo. On Thursday night (that's like Friday night here, since Fridays are holidays), my friend Rosie, who goes to Bowdoin in Maine, invited me on a cruise party on the Nile with her British friends who also live in Zamalek. I didn't think my time in Cairo would include a boat party surrounded by British people, but I am so glad that it did! In fact, I don't think I've ever been around so many Brits at one time. Rosie and I were definitely the most conservatively dressed people at the party-- we were wearing dresses with leggings and tights, as well as long-sleeved sweaters, which is considered appropriate attire in most of Cairo-- and most of the British girls were wearing clothes that you might see at a club in the U.S. I guess it's a testament to how well I'm acclimating to the Egyptian culture that I was shocked to see their outfits. I have the same reaction now to seeing people holding hands or, heaven forbid, kissing in public. It was definitely nice to take a night off from that, and I had such a great time and met a ton of interesting people-- Oxford graduates, that kind of thing. Two guys were stopping through Cairo on a trip from Istanbul all the way south through Africa to be in South Africa in time for the football World Cup in June. (Speaking of football-- the American kind-- I'm planning to stay up until 3 am on Sunday night to watch the Super Bowl here!)

Rosie and I with the beautiful lights of the Nile behind us!

Last night, there was a huge party in a nice part of Cairo called Maadi, hosted by some other AUC study abroad students to help everyone get to know each other better. Even though the cab ride was about 40 minutes (and with 5 people squished in a small taxi together to get there, it was not super enjoyable), it was so worth it! I already feel like I know everyone so well, and it's a great feeling to look around at a party like that and already feel that I am surrounded by friends.

As much fun as I'm having (and I really am having so much fun), it's not all play and no work-- today has been pretty filled with homework, although I had time for lunch with my friends Ben (from Notre Dame) and Patrick (from George Washington) and dinner with my roommate Lea and Rosie, Nick, Toby, and some of our other friends. I love being in such a pedestrian-oriented city; while we were at Euro Deli, my friend Frank, another AUC student, who goes to American University in D.C., wandered by and decided to join us! That would never happen in Columbia or Atlanta, since no one walks anywhere.

But I don't want to give anyone the impression that Cairo is perfect. It's definitely dirty, although Zamalek is pretty clean, and poverty is present here in a way I've never experienced before or in the U.S. And although I am very understanding and respectful of the conservative culture, it is inconvenient, to say the least. First, I am a very independent person and I'm accustomed to being able to go where I want when I want to go there. This is not possible in Cairo, because I'm a young woman (especially because I'm an obviously American woman). The only places it's really safe for me to go alone are those that are within walking distance in Zamalek, and when I'm alone I feel very uncomfortable because of the looks and catcalls I get. I even feel weird walking to and from class alone at AUC, because I am so obviously out of place. It's really unpleasant. I definitely can't take a taxi anywhere by myself, so anywhere off the island of Zamalek is out of the question unless I have a male escort or a big group of girls. Thankfully, the guys in my study abroad program are very sweet and understanding, and will offer to walk girls places or accompany us anywhere if we need to go. But I can't help being jealous of them.

Second, I'm still trying to figure out all the subtleties of the protocol for women's clothing here. Dark, opaque tights under a skirt can apparently "give people the wrong impression" (this from another AUC student who is from Tunisia) even though there is no skin showing. Short sleeves are taboo as well for women; my roommate was actually scoffed at in the supermarket for wearing a t-shirt. I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when it gets hot here (highs have been around 60 degrees since I arrived). But I'm trying to learn, and trying to be respectful; that's what living in a new culture is all about!

I'll end this post with a few more pictures-- uploading to Facebook takes forever here, so I'm sorry I haven't been able to put up a Facebook album yet. I also want to encourage people to comment; I was so excited to hear from so many people that they had read my blog! Please let me know what you think, and it's just great to hear from my friends and family at all. I miss you all so much and your support through this experience is really meaningful to me!

Toby, Rosie and I at a Thai restaurant (it was delicious, actually!)... with a giant sparkly light-up snowman?? Who knows. It's Egypt.

A beautiful street in Zamalek! This is right near my dorm. It's so leafy and green.

A house and garden in Zamalek. (I take pictures all the time on the street here and I don't care about looking like a tourist-- it's gorgeous here!)

Me and my friend Kelsey from UVA at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. This is a huge center of activity. You can see the Egyptian Museum across the square behind us!

ana mish khoaga (i am not a foreigner)

2010-02-02T20:04:00.004+02:00

(Edited on 2/6/2010 to add more photos!)

So it's been nine days since I arrived in Cairo, and one minute I feel like I've been here a lifetime; the next I feel like I just stepped off the plane. Every day the city becomes more detailed and deeper to me, and I'm learning so many new things with every passing hour that it would be a monumental task to report them all here. In fact, the idea of summarizing my experience in Egypt so far has been so daunting that I have dreaded making this blog post. Suffice to say that living here is indescribable.

I feel constantly pulled in several directions. There's school (my purpose for coming here); the American University in Cairo is the most prestigious university in Egypt and the study abroad kids agree that it makes us feel like first-week freshmen at an extremely snobby and wealthy high school. With over 6,000 students, it's sizable, but nowhere near USC's 17,000; the campus is a luxurious $400 million modern-Arabic work of art in the middle of nowhere. It's located about 45 minutes (or up to two hours, depending on traffic-- more on that later) from Zamalek, where I live, in the heart of New Cairo. New Cairo reminds me of developments like Atlantic Station in Atlanta; there are huge, opulent homes and shopping centers going up everywhere you look, and everything seems to be perpetually under construction. It's the polar opposite of the crowded, dilapidated high-rises that make up the majority of Cairo itself.

AUC's student body represents the wealthiest elite of Egypt, and it shows in the gorgeous campus (I'll put up pictures) and in the students' imported designer handbags, eyewear, boots, leggings, and Longchamps (some things don't change between Columbia and Cairo!). The campus is a long thoroughfare of quadrangles, flanked by the classroom and administration buildings and linked by archways. One of the most crowded of these is called "Gucci Alley" because of the way the students use it as a place for one and one's outfit to see and be seen. Needless to say, I don't really fit in-- everything from my hair to my croakies and Sperrys screams American. But I'm dealing with this by thinking of myself as a kind of cultural ambassador for South Carolina and Georgia. As much as I want to learn from Egypt and its people, I hope that maybe they can learn something about where I come from as well.

School is much more than just fashion; I have been to four classes at this point, but I'm still putting together my schedule (advisement and registration is here is SO much more complicated than anything I've ever dealt with at USC), so I'm going to two new ones tomorrow, in addition to Arabic and my Self and Society philosophy class. We get Tuesdays off here, but Sunday is a school day, since the whole country takes Fridays off (Friday is the Muslim holy day). Weekends are going to be spent traveling around Egypt and nearby places in the Middle East!

In addition to class and adjusting to AUC, I spend a good amount of time trying to set up times to Skype with my parents and friends; since Egypt is seven hours ahead of the U.S., this can be really difficult, and I haven't been successful yet. I'm jealous of my roommate, Lea, whose parents live in Germany and are thus only an hour behind us. Even though I'm free of extracurricular responsibilities (at least until the next Garnet & Black Magazine issue comes around!), there's still plenty of work to be done!

The hardest aspect of life here to balance with school and staying in touch is, of course, this amazing city and the equally amazing people I've met here so far. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every single day I go somewhere new, experience something I never have before, learn more about the Egyptian culture, and make new friends. Last week, among many other milestones, I visited the Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza (and went inside a pyramid!), rode a horse for the first time in at least ten years (around the Pyramids, no less!), took a cruise on the Nile (the water is filthy, but so beautiful at night with all the bright lights of downtown and Zamalek reflected in its surface), and witnessed Egypt beat Algeria and then Ghana as the Egyptian football team won the Africa Cup of Nations.

My view from the base of the Great Pyramid at Giza, built by Cheops (Egyptian name: Khufu) and completed around 2551 BCE.

Guards napping at the Great Pyramid-- don't worry, the oldest of the Seven Wonders of the World is in great hands.

I look like I was photoshopped into this, but I am actually standing in front of the Sphinx!

Yesterday alone, I visited Harea for the first time (please see the picture below; it has to be seen to be believed), and went to a restaurant called Felfela where Jimmy Carter has also eaten (!!) and ate grilled pigeon (!!!). It's only 8:30 pm here, and already today I have seen the ENTIRE Egyptian Museum (which my guidebook swore could not be toured in a day alone), gotten a marriage proposal, eaten lunch and dinner combined for the Egyptian equivalent of two U.S. dollars, and ridden the Cairo Metro for the first time (it's cleaner than any city street here-- go figure).

Outside the Egyptian Museum! (No pictures allowed inside, sadly-- the mummies are amazing to see and definitely worth the extra fee!)

Harea, the most ridiculous bar I have ever seen. Check out that table chilling in the broken window.

PIGEON! And Egyptian beer-- there are three kinds here, and Sakara is the nicest. That means it costs about 19 pounds (4.00 USD) instead of 9 pounds ($2.00).

This definitely made me miss The Carter Center, but how cool is it to find connections to home so far away from Atlanta?!

Most remarkably, I have managed NOT to die in the traffic here. Please trust me when I say there are absolutely no rules to driving in Cairo. I can't imagine what it takes to receive a driver's license here, besides creativity and a death wish. There are no traffic lanes, no traffic signals, no stoplights, no stop signs, and there's definitely no such thing as yielding to pedestrians. Sitting in the passenger seat of a taxi or bus is enough to make you cry from terror. Let me leave you with this one story to back up these statements, because I'll keep writing all night otherwise: On Sunday night, my friends and I boarded the 5:00 shuttle home from classes at AUC, hoping to get into Cairo in time to watch the Africa Cup of Nations final football game at 6:30. The traffic, as you can imagine, was even more horrendous than usual, and after trying several shortcuts, our bus driver-- a contracted, professional driver, piloting a bus of at least 100 students and professors-- decided to drive in the WRONG DIRECTION, into oncoming traffic on a FOUR-LANE HIGHWAY. Ignoring all of the cars honking at him (honking is just a normal traffic action here; pay no attention), he drove about a mile into a roundabout, where he proceeded to merge into the traffic going the right direction, hitting several other cars in the process. To solve this issue, he exited the bus, as did the drivers of the other cars, and argued with them in the street until they decided the game was more important, and returned to their vehicles. Please see the picture below. I don't think I've ever had a near-death experience until now; this is just one of the wonderful things about Cairo.

The scene outside our bus. Notice how the cars are definitely not going in the same direction that we are.

a new world, a new life

2010-01-24T21:30:00.000+02:00

So I am officially living in Cairo, Egypt! After a two-day journey through the airports of Atlanta, Amsterdam, and, finally, Cairo, I have arrived at my dormitory in Zamalek, an island in the middle of the Nile right in the center of Cairo. This is the old campus of the American University in Cairo; there are no classes taught here, now that the new campus building has been built about 45 minutes away in New Cairo, but most of the study abroad students have chosen to live here, since it is the best way to get an immersive "city" experience during our stay. There are about 300 international students at AUC this semester, and I feel like I must have met at least 100 today.

My journey here was hard, mostly because I was traveling completely alone and there were 12-15 hour stretches where I wouldn't have a conversation with anyone. For anyone who knows me and knows how talkative and extroverted I am, you understand why that was tough. Starting on my plane to Cairo, though, that changed; I think everyone must be right about how friendly the Egyptians are, because I met several people just on the plane who wanted to tell me all the places I should visit and how much I would love it here. It was cloudy (and snowing!) in Amsterdam, but the clouds cleared out over the Mediterranean, and as we flew in over Cairo, the city was spread out below me like a glittering treasure chest. All of the streets here use these diffuse, round lights, and they are so soft that from above they make it seem as though you're looking down into the sky, at dense galaxies of orange and blue stars.

Thankfully, in the airport I met Mekal, a really friendly and outgoing girl from upstate New York who heard me speaking English and asked if I was going to AUC, too. Along with Phil, who is from Minnesota and had never set foot on a plane before his trip to Cairo, we took the AUC taxi into the city (only about fifteen minutes from the airport). The dorm was quiet, since it was 4:30 am by the time we arrived, but there was plenty of security, and we each got a little briefcase filled with AUC orientation materials. The dorm is beautiful, traditional Islamic arches and glass doorways hollowed out around courtyard filled with lush palm trees and greenery. And my room is huge-- twice as big as the one I lived in at USC! I felt so bad for my roommate, Lea, since I was moving in to the room at 5:00 am. But she's awesome, so she wasn't upset at all.

This is the gorgeous courtyard in my dormitory!

Last night, I went to bed feeling so lucky and excited to be here safely and already meeting amazing people. I fell asleep at dawn to the sound of the Zamalek muezzin calling the city to prayer.

it must be fate

2010-01-07T23:45:00.000+02:00

As the clock on my Delta itinerary page ticks down day-by-day (only 15 to go!), my attitude about the next semester seems to change hourly. One minute I can't be more thankful to be taking a break from USC this semester and I'm picking up my Egypt travel guide to read it over for the hundredth time; the next, I'm scared out of my mind and all I want to do is cling to Atlanta and my friends here and never let go. The fact that I'm currently having to make appointments for rabies shots (seriously??) doesn't help the latter. So imagine my excitement when I opened the New York Times Travel section this past Sunday to find a full above-the-fold spread on my destination city: Cairo.

(all photos courtesy of the New York Times)

Well, that doesn't look too bad at all, does it? Author Jennifer Conlin visited during Ramadan in the fall of 2009, so she experienced a somewhat different Cairo than I will-- during that holy month, the city is quiet during the day as the 90% Muslim population fasts; after sundown, the streets erupt in parties, celebration and lots of eating. My favorite anecdote of Conlin's was this:

"One drawback of visiting Egypt at this time of year is that regulations against alcohol consumption are more stringent. As a result, nearly every restaurant and cafe becomes temporarily dry. When I stopped by the Sequoia restaurant to make a reservation for iftar, the headwaiter interrupted me before I could even give my name. “Are you aware, madame, that no alcohol is served during this period?” he asked, looking nearly as forlorn to deliver the news as I was to receive it."

This is the best part: the restaurant Conlin mentions, Sequoia, is the famed Egyptian sushi hot spot I've heard so much about. Located on the same island in the middle of the Nile, Zamalek, as my dormitory on the old AUC campus, Conlin calls Sequoia "a place to visit as much for the people-watching as for the view of the Nile." And it looks amazing!

In conclusion... I fly to Cairo in 15 days, and I couldn't be more excited!