ICEMAN!

completely non-Egypt related. but I'm obsessed with this guy.

sad

This really depresses me, that some chubby little 11 year old kid can kill this huge hunk of boar. that thing is terrifying, its unreal and it's dead because of some stupid kid. He'll be even chubbier after he eats all that sausage.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/402926,CST-NWS-pig27.article

a tale of two cities

So there are many different Cairos. It's such a huge city, that the different neighborhoods have vastly different characters. On friday, we went shopping, a day Kathryn appropriately entitled a tale of two cities. We met at 2 (ish- meaning around 230) at Hussein mosque, outside of Khan al-Khalili, the old, very touristy bazaar in old cairo, where all of the vendors will "Kill my wife for you!" unless they are "already married, just want your money." But Khan al-Khalili was not our destination, instead we went to Ruba Bekya market, ie the Friday markey next to the City of the Dead. (city number one).
Ok sidenote- ruba bekya= the cry of junk collectors that roam the Cairo streets. apparently it is an ancient Italian art of trash collection ( i think in italian its veccia or something with a v that got lost in arabic) that is very prevalent in cairo today.The bekya men are a mild obsession of a lot of the people I know, probably because of the crazy calls they've developed.
Back to the Friday market. so basically it's just a big market, it wasn't what i expected. people said "you won't feel comfortable if you don't cover your hear and go with an Egyptian" but i didn't feel like that was necessarily true. Though the little place we stopped for a soda apparently we were the first westerners to have been there, which I guess is why they made the guy sleeping on the bench move so that we could sit. But basically you can buy anything there, socks, sunglasses, faucets ice creams, doorknockers, broken toys, broken everything, sheets, old magazines,live desert foxes (endangered), you know, the usual. So whatever, seeing the foxes was a bit strange, right next to cages filled with lizards piled on each other. Afterwards we wandered a bit in the city of the dead, a huge graveyard of mausoleums where a lot of poor cairenes live. It was strange seeing a school in a graveyard. I mean there are sort if like street and everything, because of the way the graveyard is organized. It always feels a bit strange, though, going to look at places where people live like that, people are living there because they can't afford to live other places, it's not like tlc look how i turned this barn into a house, but well i don't know, i guess most people didn't seem too bothered. We took a bus back downtown, mohamed taught me some arabish: deletaha= i deleted it, finidishtaha= i finished it
ok 2 hours later-ish we met back at tahrir again to go to city stars ie city #itneen. ie 2.
citystars is the fanciest mall in egypt, probably the fanciest mall everrrrrr. A steep 20 pound cab ride from downtown, it is definitely worth it to trek out there every once in a while to people-watch and windowshop at all the fancy stores (where, unlike clothing stores downtown, there is a very unegyptian lack of extra glitter, sparkles, goldspangliness on the clothes)--or go see a censored movie or eat at Egypt's Mexican restaurant. Its amazing how many people are shopping on any given night. I went to the mall around midnight one night and it was packed. So that's basically all there is to the tale. I was going to buy some clothes, but the guy at vero moda who told me he would give me his employee discount wasn't there. So I bought a book in arabic that hopefully one day I will be able to read...

juice

All I did today was drink juice. well, not all, but I just figured I'd make people who really like juice jealous. juice jealous. ok that wasn't necessary. Actually, today I woke up at 4 to write a paper about ceiling decorations... I'm not a huge architecture fan I decided, but I do like the decoration bits. The amazing thing is, I can visit a lot of the places we study. Like Mashatta, this 8th century Umayyad Palace in Jordan, we went there. On our way to the Amman airport, with an insane Palestinian cab driver who told us all about immigrating to Jordan and his opinions on Iraqis and "ninjas," women in nikhab, whom he refuses to pick up, because men dress as women and rob cab drivers...
Ok but that's not the point. I don't know if there is a point. Oh, Juice. After "finishing" said paper, I went to St. Andrews where I "volunteer" ie hang out with a class of realllllly cute kids for two hours and write check pluses and "supers"on their work, or try in vain to figure out how to get them to figure out the right answer instead of telling them. Like I told Essa "puuuuuppy," but instead of figuring out it's spelled with a "u," he just changed P-O-O-P-Y to P-U-O-O-P-Y. oh well.
so after that, classes blablabla. juice number one for lunch: fresh grapefruit. it was pulpy and good. mmmm. Then arabic class, after which I needed a second juice, peach. Then to arabic class number two. after that, I went to the buSSy project play. It's a bit like the vagina monologues, but written by AUC students, and with an Egyptian twist. My friend Reem was in it, she was really good. Afterwards, Kameliya and I took a cab home, then stopped at the juice stand. I got mowz bifrowla, ie. strawberry banana, that has some crazy other name like akhakhfiya or i dunno... juice here is so good. I also bought a bottle of peach juice. Usually I ONLY get aseer asb, sugar cane juice. It's so refreshing and they have these cool machines that they run the sugar cane through and mmmm. So then I came home and wrote this and now I will pass out, because i woke up at 4 to write about vine motifs and stucco decorations.

approximately what my life in cairo is like

i have lots more to say, and will do so when my JP is finished-ish. For now, I found this video... These are basically the kinds of peeps i hang out with

link didn't work?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/world/middleeast/01cairo.html?ex=1330491600&en=c45627804669ee3d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

so for some reason that didn't work before. Saturday I went on a camel ride at the pyramids. I love camels, especially their feet. yalla yalla ya gamal. That is what I had to say to it, to make it go. but it still didn't go.
So I feel like I'm failing at giving any sort of multiple perspectives on being here. I guess it's harder to write about certain things, I'm not so sure about all of this internet opentotheworld ness.
Anyways, what else. Friday, I went with my friends Kathryn, Maddie and Ona to Ismailiya, a smaller city (well ok any city will be smaller than cairo) on the Suez canal. It was a really nice trip, getting out of Cairo for the day, and seeing another part of Egypt where we were the only foreigners around. We arrived right smackin the middle of noon prayers, so had a funny journey from bus station,where we were the complete focus of attention, with numerous young boys yelling numerous lewd things to downtown, where there was no one at all anywhere. We did find a restaurant that was open though, and had some beetza, v. egyptian, i know.
By the way a note on Cab drivers in Ismailiya, they are sooo nice. No marriage proposals, no attempts to overcharge foreigners, in fact TWO out of the three cabs we had while we were there didn't want to let us pay at all. Which was... not quite how things are here.
So Ismailiya is where the Suez Canal authority is located. It was laid out by the british, and if full of large fancy houses related to the administration of the canal. We went to the Ismailiya museum, which is completely unrelated to the canal. My favorite things were the tiny heart shaped amulets (like real heart-shaped), and the mosaic which told the story of Phedra and Hippolyte- I guess she tried to send him a love letter, and he wasn't having it, so she tried to have him killed... a little fuzzy on my mythology, but there were frolicking centaurs so i liked it. Oh I also liked the spones and pines (spoons and pins... tehee).
Ismailiya was a really good place to develop a happier, more wholesome image of egyptian families. There were families sitting in the park, kids playing soccer (and field hockey... ?), picknicking on the beach (of lake timsah). Basically the things that are hard to see in the city, unless you go to the suburbs, which I don't. there's a lot more I have to say about kids, and pollution and taxis and everything, but I'm going to go get some free food instead.

today

I'm sick in the eyes.
I ate a french fry sandwich for breakfast/lunch.
I feel like I can understand 50% of what is going on around me most of the time. mostly because people say the same things a lot, but still...
I saw the eclipse too, one night.

getting closer to libya

This is an article that gives a good idea of what kind of city Cairo is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/01/world/middleeast/01cairo.html?ex=1330491600&en=c45627804669ee3d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

So after a moment of panic, when I realized that I had been in Cairo a month, and hadn't done anything I got the chance to leave cairo. we went to the white desert, which is pretty much the most absurd place I've ever been. The landscape is so strange, these weird chalky formations that they call mushrooms. Riding around the desert and looking out looked to me the same as looking out the window of a plane at the clouds when you are right in the middle of them, like if you could just sit in the middle of clouds and look out at the tops of them. I stole some pics from Camille, and will steal more from Meredith when I get the chance. breakfast
Alex
Camille
me, Alex, Camille, Meredith

yo quiero taco bell

Last night we went to Libya for a party. Ok, we didn't actually go to Libya. I'm a terrible liar, but Alex (my roommate) likes to call it that, the neighborhood of the Villa of her friend Mostafa (aka T-fa, Big John). The point is that it is far, and took a long time to get to, even longer considering that we were caravanning(in the desert, how appropriate!) with two other cars, and got lost at various times driving through the strange collection of cement factories, farms and fancy villa compounds that constitute the area outside of Cairo. This is where (wealthy) Cairenes go to get some fresh air, to get away from the grime. I found it really funny driving out there, because it felt to me just like driving out to damascus or some other DC suburb, until you saw the palm trees, or the truck covered in neon lights, or the men in galabbayas walking down the road.
The house was very nice, a pool in the back, candles on every surface, as Alex predicted, a DJ and a copy of the Kama Sutra... held by a little bust type thing of a black woman with some sort of instrument...? Ok that was really strange. The party was fun, despite some sort of obnoxious fellows who were persistent. Highlights of the night (besides the 1.5 hour drive there):
1) The Chips. They were SO good, "exotic BBQ" flavor
2 The conversation I had with Camille about English grammar, which scared the annoying fellows away-- "We're talking about grammar. We are very interesting girls!" (camille)
3) When the DJ stopped playing crappy house music and started playing hip-hop --"sounds like freedom!"- Meredith
4) My favorite EVER egyptian ladies. It's really funny how in Cairo, you can go from feeling completely indecent to very primly dressed in the course of a few hours. These two women, who were sitting on a couch when we arrived and stayed in the same spot, changing poses periodically, were really the best part of the party. They both had about the same smug, collageny pursed-lips expression on their face, like clearly they were the best looking things there. One, the lady in white, was wearing a cropped white sweater which exposed her belly completely, a white belt, low rise, tight white pants and of course, knee-high, furry white boots. And very long black hair. The second, standing right next to her was like her opposite-- she had bleached-blond hair, black pants, a trendily segmented black top with one long sleeve and one short, and some holes across the stomach --one of which left the bottom half of her breast hanging out--with the threat of showing the whole thing if she lifted her arm. And some pretty fabulously sparkly bling bling-- a necklace with huge letters on it that we thing said max, and one huge earring that was a K...? We were pretty sure they must be some sort of singing duo, or advertising campaign.

Ok, so that was the party. The drive back was uneventful, except for the huge taco bell craving that overtook us all. Our entire conversation on the way back was a listing of various taco bell menu items. When we got back, we ordered a "mexican" pizza, the closest thing to tacos we could get at 4 am in Cairo. There's still a lot of sweet corn left over on our living room floor.

I saw a lawn the other day...

ok. so I haven't written much about what it is like being here in cairo. and of course, the longer I am here, the more everything mixes together and becomes harder to single out interesting incidents to catalogue. Which makes it sound like I'm a museum. or something. but don't worry i didn't come to egypt to turn into a taxidermist. Alright enough nonsense. So where to begin. I'll start with classes, because that is freshest on my mind. My classes are:

• Intro to Sufism- j'aime the professor, but the class so far is really unstructured, she just sort of asks if anyone has questions on the readings and then she talks about random things
• Intro to Islamic Art & Architecture-yea it's cool. we haven't learned much, ummm squinches are my fave architechtural term thus far.
• Arabic Literature in Translation: Literature and History- same sort of deal, unstructured but the prof is good.
  
• colloquial arabic- my prof is silly. he makes fun of us, mostly.
  
• and finally modern standard arabic

khalas. so that's the classes. The American University in Cairo is in the middle of downtown Cairo. Cairo is a large city, well large doesn't do it justice, This is what people say: Cairo is busy, crowded, and polluted. This is true, but doesn't really tell you anything concrete about the city, as I discovered once I got here and actually realized how busy, crowded and polluted actually feels. I live in Zamalek, a neighborhood on Gezira island (on the nile duh) which is greener and more chi-chi than downtown. AUC is like a bubble of manicured lawns, expensive sweaters and un-egyptian male-female interactions within downtown, which has a little bit of everything, but is definitely not cosmopolitan. There's a mix right in the area, of really western style coffee chains and mcdonalds, with koshary and fatir hole in the wall type places around the corner. Foul sandwiches (ie bean sandwich) for 50 piasters, which is like 10 cents. Koshary = macaroni style noodles, spaghetti noodles, rice, lentils and chick peas with some tomato sauce, fried onions and lemon garlic sauce. One girl said that Koshary is a lot like cairo. I don't know how, but I believe her. Fatir is like pancake pizza things that can be desserty or pizza-y. So I didn't mean just to write about food... butimean... Mostly downtown just means lots of people. My favorite are the guys who ride around on bikes (which is insane in this city where 3 lanes = at least 5 cars across, i mean lanes? what?) balancing a large wooden plank of bread with one hand. And traffic here, it really is no joke. So these are sort of the things that everyonetalksabout because these are the first things you notice.
My favorite AUC thing is this Egyptian dude in my sufism class, who, when asked whether he had done the reading said "I don't read, I know." Not that that reflects the general attitude, because I haven't encountered enough AUC students to know... but I definitely don't think he's the only one. It's hard to get into school, but jooknow. Ok, i'm really not in the writin mood. Blergh...

glög,glugg,gloeg

if i didn't know what glög was, and had no clue that it was some sort of brownish scandinavian wintertime beverage, I would say that word perfectly describes right now. But since I do know what it is, I guess I don't have anything else to say.

It seems so long ago

Alright, to be a little more comprehensive, since I started out with randomness. I am sitting on the floor of my room right now, getting ready (that should probably be in quotations) for my first day of classes. I arrived in Cairo on a Sunday night, on a flight with about 50 other AUC students, all coming in for the next day's orientation session. The flight was uneventful, besides the egyptian girl who sat in my seat but thought she hadn't and deprived me of the view of the pyramids on the way in. Mais ce n'est pas grand chose. Oh, but before all that little annoyance was ever on my mind, I was on a different plane, well to begin with I was in a different airport; let me rewind.
So, I arrived at Newark airport after a day of dragging Ina around with me on errands. Amina packed my bags for me too (didn't tell security that), then I said a squeal-y goodbye to Errks, and a normal goodbye to Sian and Susie, then set off on the train with stinkers. We said our farewells on the New Jersey Transit, and there I was at the Newark airport. Check in, security, whatever. The interesting part is when I was sitting, waiting for my flight, receiving periodic phone calls from various family members (mostly mom & dad) with last minute reminders: "don't forget, it's a different culture, you can't interact with men the way you do in the US, it's a muslim society" and then Amina's one priceless piece of advice "umm, don't get robbed and stuff." So, I was sitting there, when I saw James--a guy from Pton who I had in fact run into the previous night at Terrace. We randomly happened to be on the same flight. He spilled salad dressing in his bag, I got more phone calls, then we also randomly sat one row apart. weird. Once we arrived to London we took the subway together with our large bags. That was nice, to randomly talk to a Princeton person I didn't really know before.
Ok this is getting really long, and I don't know if people actually like to read this junk... hmmm. But so I followed Howard's instructions and got to his home without any problems. it was slightly early and rainy in London. His mom was sooo nice and gave me breakfast, lent me a map, and gave me suggestions of where to go in London. I ended up going to the Tate modern which i really liked. They had some Juan Munoz stuff, who I remember from the Hirschorn. but my fave was this artist who makes these little figures out of clay, then photographs them with these really human expressions, and really close up, so you can see his fingerprints in the wax. K, I just looked him up, it's Thomas Schütte, and the figures are all two bound together and it's called "United Enemies." My other favorite part was the Unilever series, basically a big slide that I felt slightly silly going down without anyone else to go before or after and meet at the bottom, but that I slid down nonetheless. Then I just wandered along the Thames basically, saw The Globe, Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Returned to have dinner with Howard's fam.
Ok, I'm rambling, so I will just list the rest of my UK trip. I had such a wonderful time in Oxford and wished I could have stayed longer. I hate to shortchange that part of my trip, but this is roughly the rest of my trip:
sleep
Watch Lizzie McGuire with Josephine
Wander around Soho
go to some square-- Leicester square I think, eat a sandwich
oxford tube to oxford (duh) my first time on a second deck!
meet Ells at St. Clements street
eat dinner with Ells
see Magdalen college (which I mistakenly pronounced Magdalen but which MUST be said "Maudlin" apparently)
champagne and chocolates at ellie's college- met a girl who knows people I do from UWC
finally found out why there are so many UWC ers at Princeton
Ellie's college bar
club with a funny name- oh yea filth. long line, house music
girl with pointy heel steps on my foot- I can still feel the bruise
sleep
meet Howard at Ellie's college--walk around Oxford abit
breakfast at Howard's college- St. Hughs- where you can walk on the lawns and see those birds... what are they called? I want to say magpies, but i would feel silly if that's wrong
go to meadowy peaceful place with lots of boats on the river and that flooded a bit beyond the river
wander around Oxford with Ells, see Christchurch, but not the Harry Potter cafeteria and eat yummy cookies- ginger chocolate chip mmmm
nap, hang out, dinner at place with random mannequin in a bath
meet Howard and Princeton people at this pub down a windy alleyway
drink wine, roast marshmallows, sit in the slightly cold, but it was super fun just chatting and such
St. Hugh's college bop- jungle fever theme.
creeeeeepy guys painted all black, i'm shocked
bed. wake up, brunch, bus to airport
wander around heathrow for an hour or so looking for the best way to spend my few remaining pounds (gummies and a magazine)

which brings us up to the beginning again. Which means I'm done, and you probably finished reading long ago. now I must get my laundry and get off to class.

It's raining in cairo, and i'm watching dr. phil

Yes. Don't judge. I was supposed to wake up at 6 am this morning, to go to giza, to see those pyramids. I set two alarm clocks, like I did for our on-campus orientation. I also slept through both alarm clocks, just like I did for that orientation--which ended up fine, I missed nothing, but this time i missed the pyramids... boo :( Sooo instead I have decided to spend the day communicating, watching bad american tv, hanging out with the roomies and applying for summer stuff. In not exactly that order but definitely summer stuff being at the bottom of that list seeing as I haven't taken a look at any of that nonsense yet. Which is actually really not nonsense, since I really need to get something together and figured out soon. classes start tomorrow. I'm not so happy... I am behind on stuff I should do, cranky and tired.