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!