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.