home

just an update - i'm back in america! it's definitely nice to be home. i've been watching a lot of tv and just hanging out. off to camp on friday!

update

hey

so nothing too exciting to report. school is getting a little more serious so that's no fun. but i'm down to my last month in egypt. pretty crazy.

there are 2 probably cases of swine flu at gw, so i'm glad i'm not there right now. kind of scary. they've slaughtered 300,000 pigs here in egypt. which was surprising in that i didn't know there were 300,000 pigs here. the one place that i know that serves pork products is a pizza place and i'm not a big bacon pizza fan so i have not indulged in that. i think i'll just wait until i get home. i'm really looking forward to a good breakfast sandwich with bacon and lots of cheese and what not. the place here where i get breakfast sandwiches sometimes puts one measly slice of cheese on it which is not enough. the food is one of the main things i miss about america (outside of family and friends obviously).

anyway i'll be home in 28 days. get excited.

also, as it is past midnight in egypt my birthday is officially in 2 weeks. wowzers. i'm almost 21

Spring Break

So Spring Break was really fun. Through out the course of the 11 days I swam in three different seas- the Red, the Dead, and the Mediterranean. It was really cool floating in the Dead Sea. All three of the seas are significantly prettier and warmer than the Atlantic, at least the part of the Atlantic that I generally go in.

Anyway, the flight to Amman was only around an hour and the hotel sent a BMW to pick us up! We napped then explored the city. We went to the Citadel which had a lot of old Roman ruins and a cool museum. Then we went to the Roman Theater and wandered around the city. At lunch we talked to some other Americans who walked in (it's gotten pretty easy to tell which of the white tourists are Americans and which are Europeans, even before hearing them speak). One of the kids in the group had been at AUC last semester. Small world. We stopped at a pastry shop and had kunafa and baklava. So delicious. The next day we went to Madaba where there was a really old mosaic, then Mt. Nebo where Moses did something (I forget quite what. Saw the Promised Land?) and finally to the Dead Sea. On the way to the Dead Sea we could see Jericho in the distance. It was weird being able to see Israel/Palestine. It was really close across the water. As in a good swimmer could probably have made it across the way. Pretty crazy. Floating was really cool as I mentioned.

On Sunday we headed to Syria. We took a cab because we needed to wait at the border to get visas. We had heard it could take 8 or 9 hours and then we might not even get them, but it took us less than 3 hours which was pretty painless. We read, played some backgammon, ate lunch and then our visas were done. We met an American guy who had been traveling for the past 15 months and in that time had been to 41 countries. Crazy. In Damascus we stayed in an apt this random Syrian guy rents out to travelers. Through out the 4 days we were there we ate lots of shawerma (way better than the shawerma in Cairo), kunafa (a delicious dessert of cheese and honey. i'm not really sure how to describe it), and took lots of naps. We went to the huge souq (marketplace) that we read about in Arabic class almost every day and I got some souvenirs for people :) One of the days we went to the huge mosque where we had to wear cloaks because we had the audacity to wear pants that day (don't worry I have a picture of us in the cloaks) and another day we went to a bathhouse for massages. That was an interesting experience. Overall Damascus was really beautiful. Oh and we ran into 3 different groups of AUC kids while we were in Damascus. Some of the kids were even on our flight. Oh and we spoke a lot more Arabic while in Amman and Damascus than in Cairo. The Arabic there is a lot closer to what we've learned in school and in some places people knew less English. People were generally surprised to hear us speak Arabic. Oh and most people guessed that we were Russian, not American. I guess because we're both tall.

We got back to Cairo Thursday night and took the bus to Alexandria Friday afternoon. We had really delicious seafood for dinner. Grilled fish and shrimp and some fried fish in addition to pita and lots of dips for the bread; it was more food than the three of us could eat (we had dinner with one of Alix's friends. I took some pictures of our spread). And it only cost us around $10 a person. We went to the beach the next day. Long story short, but we were not only the only white people on the beach (and we went to a nice private one) we were the only females in bathing suits. So we got stared at a lot. Some guys took pictures of us. The brave ones came up and asked if they could have their picture taken with us. The water was really pretty there too and it was really nice to lie on the beach. The second day we hung out with a guy who works at the hotel who Alix befriended. Another relaxing day before going back to Cairo.

Yesterday was our last day of break, and we went to Ain el-Sokhna with some of our Egyptian friends. Ain el-Sokhna is a beach about an hour and half away from Cairo, on the Red Sea. It was a lot more crowded than Dahab but the water was just as nice. Swimming in clear water is much nicer than the mostly opaque Atlantic. After hanging out on the beach, we went to someone's beach house for dinner and then went to a cafe on the beach to hang out in the evening. I made friends with a guy who plays for Egypt's best pro soccer team (Ahly) and is also on the Egyptian National Team so that's pretty cool.

Luckily I only had one class today because I was not looking forward to going back to school. I'll be home in around 5 weeks. Pretty crazy!

back from break

hey!

i'm back from Syria and Jordan. it was awesome and i'll give a full update later, but i wanted to let everyone know that we made it home safely. i think we're going to spend the weekend in alexandria which should be fun. i'll post photos and everything once i'm back for good.

Spring Break

Tomorrow at 8 AM I will be flying to Jordan and then a few days after that we'll be heading to Damascus (don't worry, Syria really is not as scary as the American media makes it out to be). I'll be back in Cairo the night of the 16th and then hopefully going to Alexandria or Luxor. But I probably won't be online much, if at all, in that time. Try not to miss me too much. I'll post pics as soon as I get back!

It's been a while...

My b. The past month has been a combo of not doing anything too exciting and midterms and then being lazy about writing about the things I did that were exciting.

A few weeks ago I went to the U.S. embassy for tour and information session that one of my friends here arranged (he interned for State last summer so he had a hookup). We had to turn in our phones and passports to get in and then had to go through security in groups of 3. The embassy is an enormous complex. We went to the State Dept part and sat down with the Deputy Chief of Missions (he's a big deal) and six other staffers who told us what it's like to work in the embassy in Cairo/embassies in general. Hearing what they had to say definitely makes me want to join the Foreign Service. Then we got a tour of some of the offices. They have a ton of cool pictures of U.S. Presidents and the pyramids and various Middle Eastern leaders. We got to go in the Ambassador's office, which was probably as big as the 2nd floor of my house. It was huge. You could see the Citadel and the Pyramids from her view. All the people we talked to were super nice too.

And after seeing fliers when we were there during the day, that night we went back to the embassy for their St. Patrick's day party. This was in the Marines' section of the embassy though. Little bit different. It was really fun. I really felt like I was in America. They even had American beer, which was a nice change from crappy Egyptian stuff (though since the embassy is on U.S. soil I'm pretty sure I was supposed to be 21 to drink...). They had air hockey and pool tables and played all American music. I had a great time.

The day after that Alix and I went out in the desert with some of our Egyptian friends. We were supposed to sandboard and stuff but it was too windy for that so we just hung out for a bit, driving over the dunes and what not, and then came home. We had a dog with us in the car on the way there and it was really cute until it threw up twice. Not so cute anymore. It was relegated to the back of the pick up truck after that. I have some pictures of the dog and his owner riding in the back if you look at my pics site.

I've gone to a bunch of mosques for my architecture class, and pictures from them are online too. A lot of them have captions that pertain to the architectural features that I didn't want to forget, but if you're really curious I can explain what squinches and pendentives and such are. There are some cool pictures because some of the mosques are really beautiful.

I'll be in Jordan this time next week! We're going to spend a few days in Jordan then inshallah go to Syria. I say inshallah (god willing) because it's hard for Americans to get visas into Syria and we have to do it at the border since the Syrian Embassy in Egypt doesn't give visas to non-Egyptians and I can't really go to the embassy in DC. Hopefully we'll get in because Syria is supposed to be way cooler than Jordan. And our flight coming home is out of Damascus, so that's kind of important too. We'll have a few days of Spring Break left after we get back so I think Alix and I might go to Alexandria or the North Coast and relax on the Mediterranean.

For a while I thought I'd never want to leave Egypt, but I think I'll be ready to come home by the end of May. It'll be nice to have fast internet and paper towels and no ridiculous traffic. And the combination of terrible pollution and smoking sheesha (hookah) has wreaked havoc on my lungs. So it will be nice to be breathing clean air when I get home. But despite those things I'm still having a really good time.

Oh, and I have post cards written and addressed, I just need to mail them so if you gave me your address or I like you enough to sleuth it out you should be getting a post card (relatively) soon!

Seeing the beach and snow on the same day...

Now that I spent most the day sleeping I'm ready to write about Dahab.

We left around midnight on Thursday and arrived in Dahab 8 hours later. Our rooms weren't ready right away so we ate breakfast at the hotel. They had an outdoor eating area right on the water. It was a really clear day so we could see Saudi Arabia across the water. I didn't realize how close Saudi was (and I'm glad it was clear the first day because the other days it was too cloudy to see). We rode horses on the beach for like an hour then spent the rest of the day hanging out by the beach. We snorkeled a little. I saw coral for the first time! Then we took a long nap before dinner because we were leaving around midnight to drive to Mount Sinai. I had the catch of the day, red snapper, for dinner. It was delicious. I've been a little hesitant to eat seafood in Cairo so it was nice to have good fish.

It took around 2 hours to get to Mount Sinai, and it was freezing when we got there. We started climbing a little before 3 am, and it took around 3 hours to get to the top. We took a lot of breaks, but it was still super hard, especially since we hadn't really slept the night before. And I kept vacillating between being hot from climbing to cold when we took breaks. Hiking up the mountain in the pitch black was interesting as well. We made it to the top just in time for the sun to rise which was really cool. I took a bunch of pictures, so check those out (though for some reason they're out of order). There was even snow on top of the mountain (probably the only snow I will see while in Egypt) so I saw the beach and snow in the same day. The walk down was much better than the way up. That took a little less than 2 hours and we could talk and relax a lot more. Then we went inside St. Catherine's monastery, saw the Burning Bush, and went home. I slept for about 5 hours after that, which felt great. Then I went to a bar with some kids from AUC who were also in Dahab for the weekend and eventually got dinner. I had barracuda! The food overall was kind of expensive throughout the weekend, but it was really good.

On Sunday, we had a nice breakfast again on the water (all of the restaurants are on a strip right on the beach). I had a banana milkshake that was one of the best things I've ever eaten. Then we piled into a jeep and drove to Blue Hole to snorkel in the Red Sea. The snorkeling was even better than when we had done it the day before. There were so many cool, brightly colored fish that weren't phased at all by people swimming around. The coral was really pretty, and the water was so blue. Coming back in the jeep we chatted with some Danish guys and the driver took a picture of Olinda and I while driving the car (kind of scary...) After showering we got ice cream and hookah then ate dinner and packed up. We took the bus home with some other AUC kids to save money. I tried to sleep but was generally unsuccessful. We got home around 6:30, and I slept for a long time...

I have some nice tans lines, since I was able to wear a bikini on the beach (the first time my shoulders saw the light of day since going to Egypt). Overall the weekend was really relaxing. Dahab is beautiful and it was nice to get away from Cairo for a few days.

Now I have to get back into school mode after having a 4 day weekend. Luckily I only have one class tomorrow. And I might be skipping my classes on Thursday because a friend here arranged for a bunch of us to get a tour of the American Embassy and talk to people who work there and I figure that's worth missing 2 classes. So I might have a 2 day week. Pretty nice.

On a un-Dahab related note, as of this morning I'm officially returning to Sandy Hill for the summer. I didn't feel like having to find and apply for an internship while 7 hours ahead of the East Coast, and it's my last summer for graduating (and this way I won't be pasty white at Douglas's wedding!). But I'm not working for as many weeks as I usually do, so all of you who miss me terribly while I'm in Africa, don't fear- I will be home plenty!

Ok, homework time!

Back from Dahab

Dahab was amazing. I'll write all about it soon, but for now I'm going to go to sleep since I just spent 8 hours on a bus.

Dahab for the weekend!

Hi,

I haven't written in a while because I haven't done anything too exciting, just hanging out in Cairo and going to classes. But this Monday we have off because it's the Prophet's Birthday and one of my classes on Sunday is canceled so I'm going to Dahab in Sinai for the weekend. It's on the Red Sea and is supposed to be really nice, so I'll take lots of pictures. I'm excited to go to the beach, and just get out of Cairo in general.

Alix and I are teaching English to Egyptian college kids once a week. We've only taught one class but it was pretty fun. The kids seem nice. They told us that they learned to read and write English in school, but they didn't get the opportunity to speak much. Most of them had never heard an American accent in real life before.

We made friends with a kid who has a house in Alexandria so hopefully we'll go up there some weekend soon. It's starting to get pretty warm. It's 7 pm and still 80 degrees. It feels great now, but I'm not looking forward to 90 degree weather when I still have to wear long sleeves and pants.

The internet has been really slow lately which is driving me crazy. I bought season 4 of The Office on itunes because I have a lot of free time and it is taking forever to load. Very sad. I know I have a hard life...

Bombing in Cairo

So there was a bombing today in the market I went to a few weeks ago which is pretty scary, but I and everyone I know are okay.

I just wanted to provide an update in case anyone was concerned.

Felucca Ride, the Zoo, and another field trip.

Shawn's birthday was Sunday so we went out on a felucca with a bunch of people. It was really fun. There were ipod speakers so we could listen to music. All of the buildings along the Nile looked pretty cool at night. I didn't bring my camera, but when people put pictures up on facebook I'll steal some of them.

Yesterday Shawn and I went to the Zoo. That was definitely an experience. It only costs a pound to get in (roughly 18 cents) so there were tons of people just hanging out. I think most families were there more to have a picnic than so see the animals. Which makes sense, since the animals weren't that impressive. The cages were pretty small and there were a lot of deer like animals and birds and not a lot of the "cool" animals. But from talking to people who had gone to the zoo before us, we knew that if we paid the handler we could hold the baby lions. So for less than $3 Shawn and I got to hold a lion cub. I was dumb and let the zoo's photo guy take the pictures with my camera and he didn't do a very good job, but regardless, I have now held a lion.

Speaking of pictures, when Shawn and I were looking at the map a little girl came up and tapped me and said something in Arabic, but all I caught of it was "I want" so I didn't do anything, but she tapped me again and said the same thing and her mom made the camera motion. I thought she wanted me to take a picture of her, since kids do that sometimes so I took her picture but then I figured out she wanted a picture with me. So I crouched down and she put her arm around me and then a couple of other kids came over too. Shawn took a couple of pictures and all the parents pulled out their phones and took pictures. I'm thinking this happened because I was the only white person in the entire zoo (Shawn's Indian). No hyperbole, I didn't see another white person, making me more of an exotic creature than the zebras or elephants. haha.

It's interesting standing out so much, since at GW and especially Great Valley I did not stand out at all. A lot of preteen girls at the zoo came up to me asked where I was from and what my name was. On the street people just look at me a lot. I was talking to one of my Egyptian friends about it and he said that would happen since I had blonde hair and white skin. To which I was said "I don't have blonde hair" and he told me it was blonde relative to what most people have here. I've been here for 4 weeks now and overall the harassment on the street is not that bad. Maybe because people warned me a lot or because I spend most of my time in a pretty nice part of Cairo, but it's mostly pretty harmless stuff.

I had my second field trip this morning. We visited 2 mosques and 2 gates from a big wall that used to surround the royal city that existed about a thousand years ago. I took a ton of pictures and I'm putting them up online right now. The first mosque was really pretty. It had marble flooring and cool hanging lights. The stone engraving on all the buildings is amazing.

Also, the weather is beautiful here. Even when it's a little chillier (like 60 degrees) it's still sunny and clear skies every day. There have maybe been 2 overcast days in the 4 weeks I've been here, and one of those was a day last week where we had a mini-sandstorm (later in the semester we'll have a whole week of sandstorms...). It's a nice change from rainy and cold DC.

Ok now I need to do some homework!

A mosque and a museum

So I've been going out more now that we've made some Egyptian/non-GW friends, which is why I haven't been writing as much. Plus classes aren't that exciting to write about (though one of my professors who is super strict about attendance told us he was ok with us using wikipedia as a reference in our term paper).

This morning I had a field trip for my art and architecture class. We went to the Nilometer, this really old structure that was used to measure the height of the Nile. Then we went to the Ibn Tulun Mosque, the oldest still existing mosque in Cairo. It was really cool. We got to go to the top of the minaret. I took a ton of pictures. I'm putting them up on my website right now. I figured out how to record voice tags to pictures I take, which is pretty cool. I can record what my professor says about different structures and whatnot.

Then I met up with Alix and we went to the Egyptian Antiquities Museum. It costs 30 LE for students to get in which isn't bad. But it's only 1 LE for Egyptian students. The actual museum was pretty cool. We saw a lot of mummies and jewelry and cool things. Sadly, you aren't allowed to take pictures there. We didn't stay for too long because we were hungry and tired and we figured we could go again later. The most notable thing was probably the slutty clothes some girls were wearing. Clearly they didn't realize they were in Egypt. Mini skirts and tank tops and cleavage everywhere. It was pretty ridiculous. I get tons of looks and comments when I wear a turtleneck around, let alone tiny little clothes. Some people...

I'm talking to Douglas and Noelle on Skype right now. Douglas wants a shout out because he's an egomaniac. haha. I don't know how I'd keep in touch with everyone without skype. It's so nice to be able to see and talk to people from home for free. Though Douglas just informed me about his bowel movements. Lovely

Lots of adventures

So we were planning on going to the pyramids nice and early until I read in one of the guide books that the pyramids are often shrouded in mist until around 10. So we left a little later. We didn't know exactly where in the city the pyramids were, but luckily we were able to tell the cabbie that we wanted to go to the pyramids and he took us there. After about 20-30 minutes, the biggest pyramid just appeared out of nowhere. We were all pretty excited. Then we got out of the cab, paid the 30 LE for students to get into the area and were immediately approached by a guy saying that he worked for the Egyptian government and he would show us around. Shawn complained to Alix and I about what we "whities" had gotten him into. Once we said we wanted to ride camels, the guy found someone with 3 camels and we debated about the price. We still paid a lot, but we figured it was probably the only time we would be doing this. And it was worth it. We rode the camels around all three of the big pyramids and the Sphinx. We stopped to take pictures at each of them (including pictures on the camel). At one point I got to like gallop on the camel across part of the desert, which was cool, but the bouncing up and down hurt a little. It's definitely different than riding a horse, and I'm pretty sore today. In the end our guide wanted us to give him a lot of money, but at the beginning he had told us we could give him whatever we wanted, so we gave him what we thought he deserved (about half of what he had asked). Yesterday was a perfect day for going there. It was warm, but not too hot. I had heard that the people are really pushy about selling things, but it really wasn't bad. Every once in a while a kid would come up to us, but they left one we said "la la" (meaning no no in Arabic). After taking tons of pictures, we left the area and took a taxi home. Then we had a delicious lunch at Pizza Hut, which as I said last time is a sit down restaurant with waiters and what not. Then I uploaded my pictures and took an awesome nap.

Last night I went to Drew's professor/bff's apartment for dessert with some of the Northeastern kids. The dessert was delicious. I was there for about 3.5 hours, and it was really cool.

Today Alix and I went to the City Stars mall, which is a huge, luxury mall in Cairo. Getting there was kind of a process. The cab driver didn't know where it was and we had to stop so he could ask. He then drove the wrong way down a one way street and got a ticket. He also stopped to get gas while we were in the car. Then we finally go to the right neighborhood and dropped us off at a mall. But not the right one. We went inside anyway since we wanted to get away from that guy. We were the only white people in the entire mall. Alix almost fell getting off the escalator because she was watching kids on the indoor ice skating rink and this guy at the top laughed because he saw too. We smiled and walked away and noticed that he was still standing there as we walked around. As we were leaving the mall he came up to me and told me his phone number and told me to call him tomorrow...

So then we left that mall and got in another cab that took us to the mall we wanted to go to. Walking inside felt like stepping into an American mall, and a nice mall at that. It's 7 stories. And has restaurants like Ruby Tuesday, Chillies, Johnny Rockets, and Macaroni Grill, among all the normal fast food chains. We went to the food court and got Asian food that could have easily come from a Chinese food place at the Exton mall. We went into H&M which was pretty pricey. Overall, the whole mall was pretty ritzy. Coming home took forever because none of the cabbies know the street we live on. Hopefully I'll get better at giving directions. Once we get to a certain spot I can direct him home, but tonight it took doing two loops around the island before we got to somewhere we recognized.

Now I have to do some homework since we have classes on Sunday here!

the pyramids!!

Well we went to the pyramids today! I'll write all about it later, but I'm tried now. But I wanted to let you know that I have my pyramid photos posted on my website.

Oh and the last picture in the pyramids album is of the pizza hut here- it is a sit down restaurant. pretty bizarre.

Also, Drew- 1) Now I have my own pyramid pictures. So there 2) I spent like 3.5 hours at Denis's apartment tonight. It was really cool. We had some delicious desserts. I'll tell you all about it later!

And for Kaitlin- I have no Twilight update because I haven't been able to acquire the 4th one yet. I'm working on it though.

Classes and an adventure

Over the weekend I went with some girls from Georgetown to Khan al-Khalili, this big bazaar/market thing in Islamic Cairo (one of the older parts, the bazaar was the oldest in Cairo I heard). There were a lot of cool things for sale like scarves, clothes, perfume, shoes, and all sorts of souvenir type things. I didn't buy anything but I took lots of pictures (they're up on my website). There were a lot of really cool old buildings. We went in a mosque that had a big opening in the ceiling so you could see the sky. We just wandered around for a while. We got lost but asked in Arabic how to get back and were able to successfully follow the Arabic instructions! Clearly Survival Arabic paid off. Getting lunch was an experience. There were probably 10 identical restaurants next to each other on this one street and each had a guy outside it trying to get you to come in. They would come up and thrust the menu in your face and try to get you to sit down. They would even come up while you were talking to a guy from a different restaurant. The one we picked was fine, nothing too exciting.

The funniest part about the bazaar was what all the men said. All three of us were dressed pretty conservatively but that didn't stop the vendors from saying all sorts of ridiculous things. I heard "Are you a movie star? Are you a movie star?" "Hello my future wife" "You're beautiful. Are you married?" along with a lot of "hi" and just staring. One guy said something about Obama and a bunch of guys started yelling "OBAMA!!" They love him over here apparently. One of the girls I was with is Puerto Rican and could pass for Egyptian so a lot people asked her what she was/if she was Egyptian. Oh, we got baklava and some Egyptian dessert from a street vendor that was soo good.

Classes started on Sunday. They seem pretty good. All of them are a majority American though which is kind of a bummer. I'm only taking 4 classes which is nice, especially coming after a semester of 5 hard classes and working 13 hours a week. The bus schedule is a pain and I'm always stuck with an extra 40 min before or after each class but hopefully I'll just use that to get work done.

Alix and I are planning on going to the Pyramids on Friday because neither of us have been and we both want to go soon. I will take lots of pictures- especially if I ride a camel!!

Drew's professor Denis invited me over to his apartment for dessert on Friday so that will be nice to go to. Oh and the director of study abroad and the director of GW's Arabic program took all the GW kids out for dinner and coffee last night. It was really nice. The food was great. I had moulekhaya which is this slimy green stuff made of a root like spinach and other herbs that you put on rice and eat with meat (I had a choice of chicken, meatballs, or rabbit. I went with meatballs). It was really good. Both of the directors were really cool to talk to, especially the director of Arabic. I'm glad I met him because I might have him in class later on.

I have pretty much given up on trying to watch TV here because the internet is so slow and the sketchy sites don't work super well. I wish I could use all the legit ones but alas they don't work outside the US. I really want to watch the Office!! But I have a lot more free time because I'm not watching TV.

Okay I'm going to get back to doing some work! (Also I'm in the study room and a cat just walked by. Cats wander around the lobby of our dorm. They are everywhere on the street. Last night we saw a little kitten and it was sooo cute. But we can't pet them in case they have rabies. Speaking of that- Mom have I had a rabies shot?)

P.S. I miss talking to all of you so definitely skype, fb chat, im me!

First week in Cairo

So today was our last day of "Survival Arabic" and we met our teacher at the old campus downtown instead of at the new campus. I wish AUC were still there- it was pretty and only 15 minutes away (I just added pictures of both the old and new campuses. The new campus is the place with all the pristine buildings. The old campus is the one with grass). We got lunch with our teacher. I just had falafel and mango juice- The juices here are sooo good). Then we walked around the city and she pointed things out and we asked how to say a lot of different things. I took some pictures of the Nile during the day and the Cairo Opera House which is really pretty. Our teacher told us it would only take 10-20 minutes to walk home from where we were. It took an hour, but I guess that is just Egypt time.

I've definitely noticed a lot differences between the US and Egypt in the week that I've been here. It's really weird living on an all-girl floor, especially when boys aren't even allowed on the floor, let alone in our room. Whenever one of the maintenance or cleaning men is on the floor, one of the female cleaning persons will repeatedly yell "Man on the floor! Man on the floor!" I've been warned many a time about harassment on street and so far it really hasn't been that bad. I've had guys say things to me a couple of times, but it's mainly in Arabic so I don't understand what they're saying. Today when we were walking around a lot of guys said hi and "welcome" or "welcome to Egypt." It's definitely a different experience being in the minority.

A couple of other things I've noticed- there are never paper towels in bathrooms. ever. I bought a hand towel to bring with me because I got tired of wiping my hands on my pants. Having to buy lots of water is a pain too. It's super cheap but it's annoying to not be able to use any water fountains. People stay up really late here. We went to a bar on Wednesday night around 11 and people were there eating dinner! I can't imagine eating dinner that late. Also, everyone smokes here. And they do it everywhere. There is a sign in our dorm room saying that "Heavy Smoking" will set off the fire alarm- heavy being the key word there. I guess regular smoking is ok.

Classes start on Sunday and tomorrow is our first day where we have nothing required to do. I think I'm going to go to a big market with some people I've met here. I'll take lots of pictures!

A cruise on the Nile!

So last night we took a cruise on the Nile. It was pretty good. The food was good and we met some cool people. Taking pictures didn't work super well because it was dark but I have the ones I took up on my pic site. The entertainment was pretty good. There was a belly dancer, some guys dancing, and a singer who sang Baliemos (that Enrique Igelasias song)and some Arab songs.

The past couple of days I've just been going out the new campus for "Survival Arabic" and some orientation stuff. I've met kids from all around the US. Talking to them has made me appreciate GW's Arabic program a lot more. We've learned a lot more than most kids who have taken the same amount of semesters as we have. My roommmate said her Arabic class had 70 kids in it. That's crazy. The new campus is really pretty (I'll take pics soon) but it's like an hour and fifteen minutes away and riding the bus 2.5 hours every day is no fun. The past 2 days I've fallen asleep on the way home because I've been so tired.

The food has been good so far. I haven't gone to any of the super American places (like the 2 McDonald's on campus). Tonight I got really good ravioli from an Italian place a few blocks from the dorm (Drew- La Trattoria. did you ever go there?) We're all gradually getting more accustomed to life here. From word of mouth I found out about a convenience/grocery/department store (it had a ton of random things) so I was able to buy a shower caddy, notebooks, pens, granola bars, and a few other things I needed.

I've posted some more pictures, some of the city I took while on the bus and some from the cruise. I thought I had done it last night but I hadn't set the album to public.

p.s. for Kaitlin again (though Noelle, you know what we're talking about too)- one of my friends doubted me but the AUC bookstore had the 2nd and 3rd Twilight books. So I bought them. They don't have the 4th in paperback yet, but I still have some time. The 2nd one is really good so far. I feel nerdy, but Twilight was so good.

First few days!

So I've spent 2 full days in Cairo and it's been pretty good so far.

Quickly about London. After dropping off our extra bags, buying international calling cards, and getting some English pounds (which was tragic) we got on the underground and headed into London. We got off the underground right at the Palace of Westminster where Big Ben is. It was beautiful. We also saw the London Eye, which was really cool to see in person and not just in pictures. Then we got lunch at a cute little pub, and of course we each got a pint of beer. It was weird be able to be served alcohol in a restaurant. And by the time I come back to the states I'll be legal there. Weird. Anyway then we saw Buckingham Palace and got back on the underground to go back to Heathrow.

The flight to Cairo was fine. We landed at night, so we couldn't really see the city which was sad. But I'm leaving during the day in May so I'll get to see it then. We didn't get into the city until pretty late and then we just got our room assignments and went to bed. Yesterday I didn't do too much except get my phone and walk around a bit. Today we had our first day of "Survival Arabic" where we're learning colloquial Egyptian which is pretty different than what I've been learning at GW. Tonight I went to dinner with Alix and we got falafel (called something different in Egyptian) which cost about 50 American cents. It's really nice getting 5.5 Egyptian Pounds for each American dollar.

Tomorrow we start real orientation things. And classes start a week from today.

Also here are some pictures of my room. I'll take a better picture of the courtyard when it's light out!

P.S. for Kaitlin- As embarrassing as it is to say, Twilight is actually awesome. I'm about halfway done it because I stayed up way too late reading last night. I'll have to see if I can find the rest of them over here...

My pictures!

Here's the link to where I'll be putting my pictures. So far it's just the ones from London. The address is also under "about me" on the side. I'm not tech savy enough to make either a link, but if you know how, let me know!

http://picasaweb.google.com/lmcconnell516

Layover in London!

So I wrote a big long post in Word and when I try to paste it in here it doesn't work. Which is annoying. I'll take the time to rewrite it later, but for now I just wanted to say that I am in my dorm in Cairo! Our day in London was super fun. I took a bunch of pictures. We came in late last night and got our room assignments and basically passed out. This morning we went out and got cell phones and lunch (I ordered in Arabic!). Now I'm going to continue to unpack and probably take a nap. I'll write all about England later.

Hi!

Well I'm still in DC right now, but in 12 hours I will be on my way to London. In 36 hours I will almost be in Cairo. Pretty crazy. I still need to finish up my packing!

I'll miss all of you guys but keep touch through email/facebook/skype!