More From Cairo

Two weeks ago Catherine, Alexa and I hung out with Mina and his friend Peter. They took us to Nile Bowling, one of the few places in Cairo where one can play the sport. We were going to have dinner there, but because of Ramadan they were not serving food. Instead we played a game of bowling. It turns out that Mina and Peter had never bowled before so we taught them how to play. Bowling was, and to some extent still, such a big part of the American pass time when I was a kid that knowing someone who had never bowled before was a little shocking. I like to think that because ofAlexa , Catherine and me, they were given a reason to try it. We had so much fun. I bowled the best game of my life with strikes and spares, but still managed a score around 80haha . I\'m pretty sure the bowling alley was Brunswick, but a very old Brunswick. It definitely brought me back to the days of parties at the bowling alley when I was in elementary school.

Later that night we went to Elwy Street in Tahrir Square. The entire street is filled with tables and chairs where people drink tea and smoke sheesha. We had a little bit of both. It was so relaxing because it provided a haven away from the hustle and bustle of the city at night. For the first time I saw a woman eat fire. This poor woman working to make pound put on a short show comprised of her swallowing fire and then blowing it back out. Mina told me she did this by swallowing gasoline. It was impressive.

A couple days later, a group of us met up with Mina and Marco to see the Citadel. Previously, Kathryn and I had tried to go, but the language barrier prevented it. The taxi man ended up taking us to a mosque close to Khan al Khalili. I don\'t know if it was because it was Friday, the holy day here, but he let us pay him whatever we wanted. This never happens. Usually you end up arguing over the price before getting in the cab. Kathryn and I, in our naivety of where the Citadel is located, assumed that that must\'ve been it. So we tried to figure out how to get in and decided our best option would be to walk down an alley that went in between the mosque. We were the only foreigners in the alley so I felt like I was experiencing \"real Cairo\"; I wasn\'t at the Khan al Khalili bazaar getting harassed by shop keepers to buy their goods. I saw some amazing things, like a old deteriorating minaret being held up by plywood. I wish I could\'ve taken pictures, but that would not have been appropriate. It is never a good idea to take pictures of people\'s poverty when they are watching you. Eventually we realized that we were in the wrong area, but we still had a great experience.

At the citadel we went into the Muhammed Ali mosque. It is amazing to walk into a place that you have only seen pictures of and to think of the history that passed around this splendid monument. The citadel has been around for centuries to protect Cairo and prohibit foreign invasion. Excitement filled my body as I took off my shoes to enter the courtyard in front of the mosque. You step inside and white marble surrounds you, even in the direct sunlight it was cool beneath my feet. In the mosque it was dark, the only light coming from outside. Every aspect of what I had learned about theMuhammed Ali mosque in my Islamic Art class last year jumped out. The minbar, where the imam rises above the crowd to preach, the mihrab facing Mecca and the domes painted with non human designs. You will see what I am taking about in my pictures. It turns out that the view from the Citadel provides the best view of the city. You can see the pyramids, they look like tiny triangles.

From the Citadel we went to \"Garbage City\" to see the monastery carved out of the side of the mountain in Cairo. Honestly, the mountain isn\'t a mountain, more like a big rock. But also my idea of a mountain means it has snow on top :) But the monastery was beautiful even though it was set in such a dirty area; the diamond in the rough ;p The smell of garbage never goes away and with the heat I can only imagine how horrid it must smell when there are hundreds of people sitting in the seats. It is actually a relatively new religious building, with presidentMubarak\'s name carved into one of the rocks.

Coptic Cairo and Iskanderia

I visited Coptic Cairo the other day. My friends Mina and Marco took Kathryn and I to see famous churches in Cairo. To get there we took the metro, which was my first ride on the train. It was similar to the El in Chicago, except the lack of air conditioning. It only costs a pound to ride, that’s less than fifty cents!

We saw one church dedicated to St. George. I couldn’t figure out if it was called St. George, but there were statues, murals and paintings of him everywhere. I took a picture of the instruments used to torture him. We also went into the chapel where people were praying; I had to take off my shoes before entering. It’s interesting because there really is no set way to pray. One guy was singing, others whisper. The shackles that held St. George hung in the room and if you touch them they are supposed to expel evil spirits from your body.

Another church was famous for the way it was built. It’s a hanging church; there are places in the floor where you can see the ground meters below you. The church was built for the Virgin Mary. I think in the first church the blessed couple lived in the bottom of the church to escape threats on the baby Jesus’ life.

Later we went to a grand park called Al-Azhar Park. It was gorgeous, a paradise in the congestion of the city. It was green, with sloping hills and water fountains. We played cards on the grass during which ants crawled over my feet, into my shoes and into my skirt. Not gonna lie, I was freaking out just a little bit. ☺

Alexandria 1

It took three hours to get to Alexandria by bus. We had to be at the buses at 8:30, I fortunately slept most of the way there. We had lunch at one of Alexandria’s touristy bazaars. They served us each half of a chicken. Delicious! After lunch we made it to the amphitheater, which was not as impressive as I thought it was going to be. The majority of it is in ruin. However, if you stand in a certain section of the theater and say something you can hear it echo, but no one else can. It’s cool and eerie. Finally we made it to our hotel. For the rest of the day we had free time so we went to the beach as the sun was setting and drank tea.


Alexandria Day 2

Today we went to the Quait Bay Citadel, Catacombs and a fish restaurant called Fish Market. The citadel was right on the ocean and it had a beautiful view. The oldest mosque in Alexandria resides within its walls. The catacombs were incredible. To me it seems mind boggling at the structures built underground. I can only imagine how one went about digging so deep into the ground and creating such grand rooms. The years and man power is beyond me. Lunch at the Fish Market was excellent, considering I’m not a huge fan of fish. The fish was completely whole on the plate: head and tail intact. Definitely fresh. After taking a nap, six of us went out to dinner to Elite, a nice American dinner type restaurant in down town Alexandria. My friend Mina met us there and then we went to Marmour, a new neighborhood in Alexandria. Marmour means to build from scratch. The neighborhood was built about five years ago. It is a bunch of nice condo high rises that people rent out for vacation. To get there we took our first “mega bus” ride. We meant Mina’s uncle, aunt and cousin in their apartment. They were very friendly and they gave us tea. Then we walked to the beach and four people decided to go back to the hotel. Kathryn and I stayed and ended up having hookah on the beach. We were so close to the water the waves were touching our feet. Mina’s sister and sister’s husband stopped by for a while. We had an interesting conversation on religion where Kathryn and I tried to explain Mormonism. The sound of the sea was so soothing. We got back to the hotel around 2:30 am. It was a fantastic evening.

Alexandria 3

The last day in Alexandria we left the hotel in the morning and visited the Alexandria Library. The structure is not much to look at from the outside, but inside is beautiful. The layout is angled so you can see the whole library from each floor. All the lighting is natural during the day. Jameela! The rest of the day was spent on the bus.

The trial and tribulations of new experiences

So a lot has happened since I my last blog. I moved into the Hotel of Engineering in Heliopolis. Its a military hotel in the middle of a military like compound. I wil be living here until the new campus housing is finished. AUC decided to put all the girls in one hotel and for our safety they constructed a wall around the staircase so that no one can go through that way. Fire hazard anyone? It is nice to have a fridge and TV in our room (Arab soap operas anyone?), but I have yet to have a warm shower. A couple days ago we had two power outages in one night. That was interesting.

I live in a suite with three other girls, Kathryn, Maggie and Fatma. Fatma is Egyptian and she invited us to her country house on the weekends. I\'m so excited. Kathryn has been my roommate from the beginning and she is the best. Maggie is a graduate student and she will be here for two years. I\'m so glad to have someone like her to spend the whole year with.

There are guards everywhere here. I feel like everywhere I\'ve lived guards are a part of the scenery. In Zamalek I lived next to embassies so of course there where guards milling around all day. I have yet to experience any sort of harrassement from them, but I guess at the hotel there have been some instances. Hence baracaded stairwell? I honestly don\'t see the point since the hotel has elevators. It is quite a popular hotel. Events have taken place everynight. I go to sleep to the sound of drums. I\'ve noticed that people here love sparkels and sequins. For special events all the ladies are dressed to the nines with shimmering tops and sequinced jackets.

Today we went to the Pryamids. It definitely a learning experince. We got sucked into a scam by this guy who showed us all the monuments, but at each one we had to tip another guy to let us take pictures in the tombs. Then he put us on horses and camel, which we also had pay more for. Overall, it was worthwile, just a little annoying to have to keep pulling out my wallet. (I feel like I have to tip everyone lol). Because I was on a horse, and then a camel, I got some amazing pictures. The pryamids are very humbling. To get inside you have go up and down little tunnels and the moment you step inside its a sauna. I\'ve never sweat so much in my life!

The grand openning for the AUC new campus was a couple days ago. They shuttled out all the international students and we had a large celebration. There was food, dancing and singing. I have noticed that at parties everyone is expected to dance. If you hestitate, someone will literally pull you onto the dance floor. Because everyone is dancing skills are not required and you end up having a blast. You usually end up following a leader and end up in a line dance. Also guys here love to dance and they have no problem dancing with each other. Its fun to see then do traditional dances to Arab pop music.

I saw an Arabic movie the other night at the hotel\'s movie theater. Its a curious thing, every good hotel here has its own movie theater.

Today is the beginning of Ramadan, the entire month Muslims fast. They eat at four in the morning and then its a mad dash to get home before six for iftar, the breaking of the fast. During Ramadan, everything shuts down earlier.

Day Three

Today was my first class of survival Egyptian Arabic. It was intense but excellent. I learned so much, I can't imagine what tomorrow's class is going to be like. There are three other students in my class so it is very hands on and intimate. My professors name is Hannan and she is fantastic.

I went horse back riding tonight in the desert, close to the pyramids. Oh, and it was in the dark. It was awesome! My horse hated me though and rammed my knee into a concrete pillar, actually breaking the skin. But, it was still amazing. The pyramids are absolutely amazing, its surreal to see them. At night they are lit up by lights. The air was thick with dust and on the way back my horse took off so I was ahead of the group, all I could see behind me were black blobs. My horse was very determined to get back and obviously knew where it was going so I just went with the flow ( but it kept veering to the right and I kept having to avoid walls lol) The reason I hurt my knee was because I was in an alley on the way back and there was a group of horses coming at me with two camels (which by the way, are HUGE) and my horse wouldn't stop and the space kept getting smaller and smaller until my knee smashed into the concrete. Finally the horse stopped when it couldn't get passed the camels. When we got back we went to a bar and had Egyptian beer called Stella (not the kind found in the US). It was pretty good and the bottle was quite large :) Taller and wider than any bottle I have seen in the states.

Before the horse back riding we had a Bedouin dinner. There was traditional dancing and then the dancers took everyone in the group onto the dance floor and we all dances together. It was tons of fun! The food was delicious and they also gave us sheeha and I had my first shot of Turkish coffee. Its better than any coffee I have ever tasted.

Today I actually felt settled. Its an great feeling to not feel anxious all the time. Tomorrow we are going to have our first taxi trip. That should be interesting. I took some movies on my camera, one of them of how cars do NOT stay in the lines on the road. There will be a two lane road with three lanes of cars. Its crazy!

One thing I learned today was how to be aggressive. In Egypt there is no such thing as a line. You have to push your way to the front unless you want to wait 15 minutes. Even then there will always be someone else pushing you back. I had my first experience with this today at the felafel shop. Kathryn and I had to be aggressive to get our food. Its all chaos, but at the same time exhilarating, especially when the guy behind the counter chooses your ticket and makes your food!

Day Two

I'm sitting in the courtyard of the housing building right now at 12:30am and its probably in the upper 70s. Today was an interesting day of orientation and then going to the sook (market). That was definitely a big culture shock, my friends and I are slowly, but surely learning how to avoid being ripped off. The market was very crowded with lots of things to see and lots of people trying to lure you into buying things. We had the same guy come up to us at least four times trying to sell us silver jewelry. The guys say comments like howdy, Yankee doodle dandee and other things like that to get your attention. One guy was like you dropped something! And I was like looking around to see what it was and he said "you dropped my heart". I started cracking up! My roommate and I definitely plan on going back once we figure out what it is we want to buy. It can be very overwhelming. It has been surprisingly hard to find cheap food in our area. There is a felafel place but it closes at 9pm, usually before we have time to get there. Everything here is done later and slower.

At the sook, we were sitting down eating some food and this young girl came up and starting stroking the hair of my friend that has red hair. She was really cute and only spoke Arabic so it funny trying to communicate. I was with a group of guys and girls and she wanted to know who we were married to. I took some pictures of her with Maggie (the girl with red hair.)

Its very interesting to see the wealth gap in the area. You know who the elite are because they dress like Westerners, with skinny jeans and everything. The poorer they are the more traditional the clothing. Those that have money also are more likely to show PDA, one thing we were strongly advised against doing. I was surprised to see that between an Egyptian man and woman. My friend joked that money can buy you anything, even public displays of affection. :)

Feral cats are abundant. I thought it was going to be dogs with the big fuss the doctors made about rabies, but the only dog I have seen was on a leash. It is really sad though to see all these starving cats. We have one roaming around inside our housing that is obviously pregnant. It also doesn't help that they are adorable! It is very tempting to pick one up but they are covered in bacteria and parasites.

When we were eating dinner outside a little girl came up to us and started begging for money. This was the first time I have seen this in Cairo and it was extremely depressing.

So far I am taking it a day at a time. At times it is very overwhelming, especially with the language barrier. But every day I appreciate it more and more and I am enjoying my time here.