Beaches!!!

Oh man all ze beaches!!! I'm going to write some words soon, but also here are some pictures of the crazy awesome beach I went to last weekend:

OH also

.....and there is also this:

Weekend in Cairo

(click on the thing to go to photo album!)

Cairo pictures!!!! (This picassa thing is kind of cool, I may use it more!)

Horsing

So, hello! I've had a moderately fulfilling and productive weekend? I think? Let me start with Thursday (which is my Friday): I watched a disney movie in Arabic, and it was less fun than I hoped. I wanted to be drinking some chocolate milk, and couldn't find any at the store, and was hot and tired, etc. Then, I thought that there were plans to go out to eat at a fish restaurant. There were, but it turns out that no one cared enough to let me know the details (I'm being dramatic, it wasn't such a big deal). I went to dinner at the dorm (dinner is always literally like bread and jam), hoping to see someone I knew who was going out. I didn't, but I ended up sitting and having a good time and getting invited along for other plans. So!

Thursday night I went out with Maryland people (as opposed to Texas people) to a bar, under the guise of 'watching the game' (some football nonsense). We went to a bar that I didn't want to go to, since Texas people were elsewhere. Well, it turned out for the best, since pretty much everyone in our program (including Americans from our dorm not in our program!) showed up at this bar, and we turned the entire upper floor into a massive dance party. It was pretty sweet, not gonna lie. Dancing! We had so much fun. Texas people showed up, hung out a bit, and then left. Oh well! I had a very good time, and went to bed quite late.

Friday morning I got up (late) and rushed to go meet people and go to the beach! I was going with the same people I went out with the night before, and it turned out to be another awesome time. We went with this group of Egyptian guys who all know each other through Rotaract? Rotary? Something like that. They were all just this big group of jokesters, and one of them had a beach house at some private beach thing (like a little village of beach houses, they are pretty typical resort villages but Egypt-style). We got to hang in the house and swim in the amazing sea and lay on the beach, it was so lovely. The water was the most beautiful blue! And there were so many waves, it was like being in a water park wave pool. It was a long day (of course we didn't actually leave Alexandria until like 2 hours after our given departure time...and didn't arrive at the beach for another long chunk of time...), but very relaxing. I felt a little weird since I didn't know any of the guys and since I'm already socially awkward having to do everything in Arabic just makes things even more awkward (if that is even a possible thing). But, oh well. It was a good experience to have.

That night the guys invited us to a private party at some amazing club, and I almost went but decided at the last minute to stay home and sleep. Which, while a good decision, probably wasn't the best (I heard the party was ridiculously awesome). Oh well, next time! I hope there'll be a next time!

Saturday I felt quite social (since I had hung out with the same new group for two days), and wanted to go out somewhere but ended up staying in and 'doing homework' (haha oh I'm so bad at school and caring). I did laundry, read a lot (not for school), had an epic nap, ate lots, took a walk, and even hung out and watched TV with two of the Egyptian girls on my floor (they are both like RA type people, one is like the head RA for the dorm) and some Americans. It was fun.

Oh! There are new people here! A whole shipment of new Americans just arrived, I think they are from Georgetown! Oh no!!! Well, it remains to be seen exactly how that has affected their personalities, and I have decided to give some of them a chance. Anyway.

In OTHER news, today I finally went to this shopping district called Ibrahamiyya. Everyone else seems to have been there a million times (and everywhere else, too). Seriously, it's getting pretty ridiculous. People are always talking like we've been here forever, which I guess it has been a few weeks but still. Whatever. It was alright, I didn't buy anything but I scoped out the area and found a supermarket that is not a taxi ride away! Points for me.

So, this has been kind of fragmented and scattered and really long, so I think I'll go. I've got homework, a little, and some chocolate milk. I also am downloading the first episode of True Blood (I heard it was good), and I rented Ghostbusters from iTunes. Both are taking forever to download, but we'll see. Ok, pictures soon, love and kisses!!!

Dance Party!!!

So I went to an awesome concert last night! It was outside the Library of Alexandria, a.k.a a totally amazing building by the Mediterranean, and we all had tickets from our program. There turned out to be two bands playing, but the first was the only one we knew about. They were called 'Wust el Balad' which means 'downtown' in Arabic. They were awesome! There was much dancing. I've put a brief sample video at the bottom of the post for your listening delight!

Even BETTER was the next group that played. Me and some others (including our resident director, Robyn, who is awesome) were not with the main group (I'm not sure if the group even stayed together), and after the first band ended we decided to stay for the second. It was the best decision! They were all kind of french looking, vaguely, like maybe they could be Moroccan or something, kind of, and they were all wearing Arab-ish or oriental type dress (galibiyya, linen pants, etc). They looked like awesome desert people. And the music was like amazing desert exotic dance party ska type Arabic stuff. It was so cool. There was a guy in a galibeyya (man dress, basically) and a saudi type headdress, and a saxaphone. It was all too cool. They all had little clappy hand cymbal things that they would all use for percussion, and there was awesome singing by everyone involved, and awesome drumming, and the various members would sometimes start dancing around (either just straightforward stepping side to side in rhythm or actually doing a jig). We made our way to the front of the crowd and danced like crazy, despite the crowds of Egyptians. Who, let's face it, were also dancing, some of them pretty crazily. We were having an unofficial dance-off with this group of hilarious boys next to us who were dancing in the most ridiculous fashion. I attempted to get this on video, but failed. Oh well. I have several videos, but since the internet is so iffy here uploading them is apparently going to be hard. I will keep trying, maybe get them on youtube or something and link to it.

Cairo Pictures!

Me and a camel!!!


The dude is twirling his skirt over our heads!!!


Sketch truck stop zoo thing, Egypt-style



...more to come soon!!!

Panic in the treetops

So! I've decided that I am going to go somewhere I have never been before this year ends. (This calendar year). I am going to go somewhere, a country, that I have not been to before, by the time 2009 ends. Furthermore, I have decided that I will go somewhere new each year. No word yet on whether this idea is unreasonable or not. Perhaps if it proves difficult to maintain, I can relax the restrictions to include states or territories I have not visited, and to relax them even further maybe I can just say I will visit another country in a given year. But! For now! Youth and enthusiasm abound! A new foreign country by the end of the year! Which one shall I pick?!?! (There's so many!!!)

SUGGESTIONS?!?!?!
(My thoughts/possibilities as of now: Cyprus, Lebanon, Morocco/Tunisia, somewhere else in Africa....)

I am so awesome, I don't even know what to do with myself

So, there's no dryer in my building (or probably in the whole of Alexandria), and most people just hang clothes outside their windows but we all have air conditioning units outside ours. There are places in the dorm to hang clothes, but they are usually full of other people's stuff. In addition, this is a very humid, damp place, and things don't dry quickly. So, hanging in a breeze is the best place for damp things. Today I went shopping. Drying racks were too expensive, so I bought a length of plastic rope.

Look what I made!


How awesome!!!

More Photos!

Hello! I've got more pictures to share, because pictures are pretty, and also because I am simultaneously lazy and have so much homework (not really but sort of). Anyway. We went to a beach/garden yesterday, which sounded awesome and turned out to be the opposite. It was really sketchy and dirty and totally not the tourist oasis I imagined. It was basically an Egyptian beach, gross falling apart bathrooms, trash in the water (not a lot, but it was there), huge band of tables and chairs and umbrellas between the beach and the water (so we couldn't really do anything anywhere without every single person staring at us and taking pictures). In the water, there wasn't really any empty space to swim, it was all occupied by mostly males of varying ages who would either stare, mutter things, try to talk to us, harass us, or do all of this and either edge closer or actually swim after us. AND all the people from my program who were in the water started playing some tossing a ball around game, which I do not enjoy, since then I had to watch out for creep ass men AND balls hitting me in the head. So, it was hard to relax. I finally gave in and joined the game once they started just playing keep away (they were playing some volleyball style thing that was just unwieldy and seemed dangerous to me). So, I had fun doing that. Then there was some mild social weirdness later at dinner, but I think my night ended up good since I left with three other girls and got dessert and chatted.

AND I booked a flight home for summer break! (I have no class from August 6th to September 26th). I fly home on August 7th, flying Egyptair to London but then United home, and I return on the 22nd with an 8 HOUR LAYOVER IN LONDON! I am thinking about that way more than I am thinking about coming back here in the fall. It's going to be amazing. Anyway, pictures! (My internet is bad, so I can only do a few, but that is more than none!)

The Tram (like a rickety old train thing that is super cheap and slow)



Beach...




Montaza Gardens...


More Montaza


Delicious Town

Ya habibi

I had a really good night! A bunch of girls went out to the movies with our resident coordinator person (kind of like an RA, only for the whole dorm?) Iman (who is super super cool). We were going to see this random movie that everyone is all about right now, called Ibrahim al-Abiyad (White Abraham), but apparently the boys who were going with us couldn't go because one got sick. So, we instead, being a bunch of girls, saw this romantic comedy called Omar wa Selma 2 (it was a sequel). It turned out to be totally ridiculous. It was a story about this couple (I guess the first movie was their love story and getting married, etc), and how now they are married and have two kids and have marital drama. There was much yelling, singing, dancing, total ridiculousness. The actual storyline was quite disturbing to many of the Americans, because the girl just totally keeps letting the guy do all this bad stuff and he just gets away with it by singing to her and dancing a bit. But, it was fun? I had a good time.

Then we got out and Iman suggested dessert, so we went to this AMAZING place that was pretty much almost Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. It was beautiful and clean and classy, with many floors, and so much sweets. There was a chilled display of chocolate bars, bins of candy, displays of candy, middle eastern sweets, gateaux, gelato, soft serve, ice cream, etc, etc. Amazing. We all got super delicious things, but I'm kind of disappointed with my choice (a chocolate gateaux thing that was a bit bland). The chocolate mousse looked amazing, I need to try it again. I had some good conversations, and spend a while talking to this girl who I always thought was just okay but turned out to be really cool! She is Spanish, originally, although very American, and lived in London a bit when she was little. So, we talked about how awesome London is, and it was great. I feel good and kind of loopy (probably from being sick), and tired but not wanting to sleep. I should, though. Ok, ma'asalaama!

Photos Time!

ABBA=yes.

So, I'm currently listening to Abba. I feel like that is necessary for you to know. Oh, also? I'm in Egypt. Alexandria, to be specific. I've been here since...early on the 7th? I promised that I'm going to do sensible and clever blog posts, and I will, but I'm still working up to that. For now, I'm going to try and give a brief run down of things, what I've been doing, etc.

JUNE 3rd-7th
Orientation in Washington D.C! I got to see Emily Walsh, and see all the cool monuments lit up at night. It rained pretty non-stop the whole time I was there, which was not so great, and I got injured by my shoes both nights I was there. But, oh well! The orientation was alright, mostly boring but some useful stuff. Lots of people were there from different schools, so it was cool to see who I'm going to be spending the next year with. We flew to Frankfurt Friday night, and the flight was okay, I had to sit next to some random man who kept sleeping way too close to me, but other than that it was fine. I watched most of 'Bride Wars', which was unexpectedly sweet.
I hardly slept, so I thought I was in for trouble, since we had a 9 hour layover in Frankfurt. But, I felt quite alright, and we pulled ourselves together and ventured out to find some food. It was raining, of course. We finally ate at some vaguely Austrian place, I think, and I had really tasty beer (which immediately made me want to nap) and amazing potato soup. It was really nice being in Europe again, and the whole wandering around a strange city thing was very familiar to me. I loved having Euros, buying random strange food in shops, etc. We went back to the airport and actually ended up spending several hours waiting by the baggage storage place since we lost some members of our party (we all stored baggage together). It was a good time, though, being able to just sit and socialize with a small group. Then we found our gate, waited, got on the plane. Our teacher/chaperone told us we had to speak only Arabic once we got on the plane. I was getting less and less excited (if that is even possible).
Arrival in Alexandria was pretty much what I expected. It took forever, and I already found myself fed up with this country. Their precaution against swine flu: taking down our names, and taking the temperatures of a couple people. I don't even know. We got to the dorm, which is definitely not as nice as my dorm in Cairo. It's very...basic? All the Egyptian girls had waited up for us (I suspect they just stay up late every night anyway), and we all had to talk in Arabic and it was pretty exhausting. I just finally escaped and tried to set up my room. My roommate is a girl I hadn't met (in my program, though). Most everyone from UT ended up choosing other UT people to room with, which I didn't expect. So of course I imagine that they are all together in their rooms having fun, which may or may not be true, but whatever. I finally fell asleep at like 5am.

JUNE 7th
Orientation!!! Again! We had lunch at noon that day. Which, I guess it's nice of them to not make us wake up early on the day we arrive, but still. Could we not have just had the day to rest? Anyway, we had a meal, tons of talking to us about important things in Arabic, etc. Seriously, all these women kept standing up and saying (in Arabic) "now, this is really important, blah blah .....". I could barely understand anything, and the building was of course super loud with random noises everywhere. Kind of disheartening. And my Egyptian phone wasn't working. We then went to the campus, which again is nowhere near the AUC campus in Cairo. We have a whole floor in a small building for our program (noticeable because it is the only floor with AC units on each window). It's kind of nice, we've got a sort of common room (called the dar) with really nice sofas, a table and chairs, several computers, a TV (in Arabic of course), etc. There was more orientating in Arabic. We were informed we had oral placement interviews that same day. Then we just waited around forever because nothing is organized ever here. (Our directors tell us that Egypt is organized, the US is just MORE organized...)
My placement was fine, really short, and over an hour later than it should've been. After that I think we had dinner, and I walked along the Corniche (the busy road next to the Mediterranean).

JUNE 8th
Breakfast, disorganization, bus 'tour' of Alexandria. The bus was very run down, and very hot. We just drove down the Corniche a bit, went to a Citadel (kind of alright), got weird ice cream, saw a mosque. Then we had more placement tests. We also went to this shopping mall! There are actual malls here, except all the stores are super weird. Fashion in Egypt is very strange. But there is a big walmart type store called Carrefour (something like that), we went and got towels and toilet paper and such necessities. I would've liked more time there, and the only bad thing is that it is a taxi ride away (no walking). After that, I did have plans in the evening, but the girls who were supposed to call me never did, and I ended up taking a nap that turned into like a 3 hour sleep. It was kind of amazing.

JUNE 9th
Oh, scavenger hunts. We had a silly one, where we had a list of places (in Arabic) that we needed to find and photograph ourselves with. The idea was for us to talk to people in the streets and get a sense of the city, but with a lot of groups I think it didn't work out that way. In my group, there were two South Asian guys (and so more readily accepted as Egyptian) who are kind of cocky, and they just did all the talking to people and decision-making. So it was basically us running around following them and really not getting a sense for where we were at all. After lunch we had a 'tour' of the Alexandria Library, which was not really satisfying at all. I'm kind of bitter at that place, too, because of my misadventures during spring break last year. Anyway, I ended up making plans to go to a restaurant with some people for dinner, and I can't remember what else I did. The restaurant turned out to actually be super delicious! Our group got split up because half went to one location of the restaurant and half to the other, but oh well. The meat was amazingly good, and it was just a nice time. Socializing has been weird, like it always is at the beginning of things. People form little groups based on connections they already have, and plans get made in these small groups that sometimes exclude others (usually not on purpose, though). It's kind of exhausting, I feel like I constantly have to work to put myself in the right situations so I can be invited to things and hear about stuff people are doing. I know I should try and be more of the type of person who makes plans myself, but oh well.

JUNE 10th
First day of class! I didn't have class until 11, so I slept in and missed breakfast. Class was alright, nothing groundbreaking. They pretty much grouped most of the people from the same school together (the other big group is from Maryland, and there are a few from Michigan schools), and with familiar teachers. The teachers in this program like to go to Flagship schools and work as TAs occasionally (which was the case with my two teachers this summer), so most of us just have teachers we already know. Which is nice, kind of, but also not nice. I want to experience new things! Meet new people! I guess I will during the regular year. Anyway, class was whatever, we had lunch, I felt like I was getting a cold. I've had a sore throat and been really congested, and I now think it is a combination cold+allergy to mold or something in my room. After more class, we had to go out to a bookstore to buy a novel we have to read this summer (an ARABIC novel...). This of course turned into a several-hour long saga, but on the upside I met a slightly awkward kid who studied at AUC! After the bookstore saga, I just attempted homework (unsuccesfully) and talked to my dad on Skype. Which, by the way, totally does not work well here. My internet connection is really bad, it cuts out very very frequently, so the audio that I hear on Skype calls is very poor quality. But it was nice to have contact with the US!

JUNE 11th
This is getting kind of epic, so I'll try and keep it brief and throw in some cultural observations and deep whatevers in the next post. Thursday we had more class, and I woke up feeling very crappy. I am now convinced that my whole room is mold-infested and gross. After class I attempted homework and took a decent nap, and also lysol-ed the crap out of part of my mattress. I also put gold bond foot powder on it, and covered it with an extra sheet. I think this will be my arrangement: mattress with two sheets and a blanket on top, and me sleeping on top using my silk sleep sack as a top sheet. It's working okay so far. The mattress is even a bit more comfortable (or should I say a bit less horrible) if I put my head at the other end. ANYWAY, we had dinner, and I got some allergy medicine AND found a cafe that may or may not serve movenpick icecream. After that, we had plans to meet our teacher at a cafe. I was really tired, but excited for cafe times. It didn't turn out to be that great, though...the place was really loud, and our group was too big. Big groups inevitably split into smaller groups, and all the louder kids (that all have been friends since before the trip) shuffled around until they were sitting together and then just effectively closed the rest of us out of the group. I found this really kind of rude, for many reasons, but also because our teacher invited us there and they really should've included him more. I was kind of in a daze of not being able to breathe through my nose, and while I felt able to participate in conversations I was completely lacking in any ability to start any. So, it was kind of really lame. I got really sick of the UT girls (a few of them). Hopefully things will change.

TODAY
I got up and had breakfast! It was super tasty, fuul and tamiyya and two hardboiled eggs! There was no one at breakfast except one Egyptian girl, so my roommate and I sat with her and I talked to her! I'm so proud of myself. It seems like everyone is making friends with the Egyptians and talking to them all the time and I feel very antisocial in Egyptian standards, so I'm glad I made the effort today. Then her friends arrived and I talked to them, too! I also talked to another American girl from my program a bit, and hopefully I'm going to the gym with her later. There is a 'stadium' with a track and swimming pool also, apparently, and our program has reserved parts of it at certain times on Fridays. So, hopefully lots of people will want to go. I really miss exercising. I know there are gyms here, but of course everything is super complicated and nothing can ever be simple. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually, but it would just be nice if there actually was an exercise room for girls in this building (with machines that worked). I miss treadmills, and places where it is okay to run outside (and cool enough to do so). There is a proper gym here, like a chain gym, but apparently it is some really outrageous amount of money per month. I don't know what I'm going to do yet, hopefully I'll figure it out as things become more settled and I get a routine going.

MAN that was a lot of writing! I'll try and be better and organize myself so I can write sensible, thoughtful posts. I need to sort out my journal situation, I haven't updated my journal in months and I kind of want it to be chronological, but we'll see. I need to find a place to just write what I do each day, so I can save the deep thinking for this blog. Oh, exciting news: we're going to Cairo next weekend! I'm pretty excited. We're going to Sharm al-Sheikh (fancy resort place on the Red Sea, much more touristy than Dahab) July 9th, some beach house place on July 24th, and tomorrow we're going to some gardens/beach I think.

In terms of contacting me, skype is so-so, (and I can't do any of those cool skype to-go things or anything, Egypt is lame), and I have my US phone and an Egyptian phone (on which receiving calls is cheap for me, I think?). I'll put some pictures up in a while, maybe I'll make a new post after this one for pictures. ANYWAY it has been intense (writing this, I mean), I should probably go pretend to think about doing my homework or something. Or do laundry. Did I mention there are no driers here? We're supposed to hang our stuff up to dry. In our rooms that already no doubt have mold problems. Anyway. (I'm trying really hard to not be too negative, at least out loud!)

Ok I'm done! I miss you all!

Oh no oh dear

So, I'm in Washington D.C. I've been here since Wednesday, and we're leaving tonight for Egypt. We fly to Frankfurt at 10pm tonight and get in at noon Frankfurt time, then have like 9 hours in Frankfurt and then leave that night for Alexandria. I am so not excited. Just doing this for 2 months is already bad enough. Like, it is exciting, in theory. I can understand the excitement. I think I'm just tired, and I guess that I am one of those people that needs a break from constant socialization. Like, with people I know well and am friends with, it is okay. But otherwise I don't know. It's like those quizzes that ask about your personality and whether you find being around mass groups of new people exhilarating or exhausting. I find it a little exhausting, particularly on low sleep and when it is raining and we have to sit through long hours of boring orientation on cultural differences and blah blah etc. I am being pretty boring right now, actually, and whiny too. I'm sorry.

On the plus side, I saw the White House! And the Washington Monument! And the Lincoln Memorial! Very cool. Even though it was raining the whole time pretty much, both times I saw it. I'm a little excited about the airport, I do love airports and the idea of being a traveler. In reality it is mostly often tiring and I just end up feeling dirty, but I like the idea. I'll do my best to update semi-frequently on more exciting stuff than my own complaining (my mum is actually offering to pay me to write intelligent, informative blog posts!), but we'll see. Maybe I'll even post some pictures!

I don't really have anything else constructive to say, other than talking nonsense about the various people going on this program with me (most are ok, some are cool, some are weird, several are super annoying, etc). We have to start loading stuff on buses and gathering and milling around in about 15 minutes, so I'm going to go get my stuff prepared. I will update upon my arrival! Kisses!