Such a perfect day

I've been feeling sort of weird lately, a little tired, a little cranky, mostly just really whiny and unsatisfied with the way I'm performing here. So, today I tried to get work done, and then headed to a two-hour colloquial Arabic class. I was dreading it, but it actually turned out to be pretty enjoyable. I think the problem is that my regular Arabic class is really bad, and so anything that involves actual good teaching and actual speaking in Arabic counts as really good in my book! We even got snacks in class! And I drank some tea, which I think helped.

After class I decided to walk home, randomly. It's about an hours walk back from school to my dorm, and I have to cross a bridge over the Nile. It was almost 5pm, and then sun was at that lovely stage where it hasn't set yet, but it has definitely made up it's mind to start setting. Everything was sort of pinky gold, and everything was beautiful. There weren't even too many men leering on the bridge! The bad thing was that I knew there would be more and more loitering guys as the sun went down, and I know that if I look around too much I'll stand out as a foreigner, so I had to sort of just look down and keep walking, sneaking glances to the side every now and then at the prettiness around me. It's weird, here. There's trash EVERYWHERE, and things are generally pretty crappy, but at the same time they're really really beautiful. It reminds me a lot of the time of that movie adaptation of Great Expectations, you know, the one with Ethan Hawke? Places here remind me of the house that Estelle and her crazy Aunt or whatever live in. All painted, wrought-iron fences and huge barriers of exotic foliage, massive walls of magnolia trees, palms and delicate tropical flowers, dark spaces between neglected foliage running wild. I kind of love it.

I've got to go to an AIESEC meeting tonight, hooray! I sort of love AIESEC, too. I'm such a convert. I hope that all of your evenings go as nicely as mine has so far!

Kisses!