Weekend Shenanigans pt. 1

Hello!!! I haven't updated in a while (ok so it was only a week but still!), and I wanted to tell you about last weekend before I get to THIS weekend. Last weekend a group of people went to Siwa (this desert oasis way out by the border with Libya), but I opted to stay in Alexandria and hope to go the weekend after to Siwa with my friends. Speaking of friends, it was one of their birthdays, so the weekend turned into basically a huge celebration. Thursday we went to a salon (ok, this was not part of the celebration since the birthday friend was a boy, but we wanted to be fancy!), where one of my friends got her hair cut and the rest of us got blowouts or manicures. Her haircut looked amazing! Seriously, she came out of the back room looking like a movie star. It's nice to know that there is a good hair place around here, just in case.

Later that night we went out to a bar (there are multiple bars here but we've only ever gone to one) for some celebration, and our Egyptian guy friends met us there. It was a pretty good time, and we managed to play a decent game of King's Cup, despite being crowded around a big long table and having to shout over extremely loud music. After the bar some of us decided to stroll along the Corniche a bit and basically act like hooligans. We ate cotton candy! It was a tasty night.

The next morning we all ate breakfast (Note: Friday morning breakfast is extremely tasty, it is the only time they cool fuul and falafel for us! Ironically it is also the breakfast that all of us are most likely to miss), and then met our Egyptian friends to head out to the beach. We didn't go back to the same beach house we went to last time, since it was being used, but one of their friends said we could use his parents' beach house (or rather, the yard). After the obligatory waiting around in the parking lot of Carrefour (a shopping mall), we headed out. The beach was nice, but a little dirtier than the last one, and there was an unnecessary amount of gross seaweed/plastic bags in the sea. Oh well. We brought snacks, buried a few people in the sand, etc. Good times.

After that, we all went back to the house to clean up, since we weren't returning to Alexandria before our night activities. The girls ended up taking a massive group shower (the 'shower' was just a shower head in a small bathroom, so the entire little room was our shower). We were all wearing bathing suits, but decided to not make that clear to the guys outside. I don't think they really knew what to make of all this. Then the people who owned the house made us this nice big meal, and we hung out in the yard until dark. Then it was off to the next adventure....

We crammed about 7 people in each car and made the 45 minute (something like that) drive back to Alexandria to drop someone off, hung around at Carrefour some more, then turned around and drove for a similar amount of time (now only 5 people per car) to Agami, which is like a suburb area of Alexandria. We got there at like 1:30 or later, then went into this club called Tiajuana. The entry was 100LE (around $20?), and it was totally mostly worth it, just for the experience. Everyone was dressed super scandalously, everyone was dancing, it was outside, there was like pyrotechnics or something. The music wasn't that great, but it was danceable. It wasn't that crowded, either, and it really wasn't the sort of place where creepers come up and try to dance with you. So, we just danced around until it closed at 4am, then made it back to the cars in time to hear the 4:30 call to prayer. (Hearing the morning call to prayer on your way home=the sign of a good night).

We got back to our dorm some time later, to find the doors locked. This was not a surprise, since they lock the doors after 11 or midnight or something, but it was annoying. If we go out late, we have to let them know when we'll be back. This is apparently so they can open the door for us, but even if we tell them, we always still have to wait a while for them to come open the door. This time, we hadn't told anyone when we'd be back (since we hadn't been at the dorm since earlier that day), although we did try to call, only to find that the person we were supposed to call wasn't with her phone. Oh well! We waited for something like 30 minutes, maybe more, I'm not sure. The guard outside gave us a number to call, and we kept calling and calling and finally they woke up I guess and came down to let us in. It was light out by the time we were in bed. Good times.

Later that day (so this is Saturday, now), I neglected my responsibilities and headed out to the movies with the Egyptian guys. We saw Teer Anta (طير أنت), which was a sort of ghost-helping-people-so-he-can-go-to-heaven type thing. It was really good! Really hilarious. The basic plot: There is this main guy, and he is super nerdy and dorky in a 70s glasses, sweater vest kind of way. He's a vet, and a clutz, and has no skills with girls, etc. He sees this girl come out of the vet clinic, and falls in love with her, and gives her his card (and makes a fool of himself). Then he goes out to a bar with his friends, is sad because it's his birthday and he has no women skills, and goes home alone. He lives alone, and starts talking to a photo of his dad (who died long ago). Then, while he is singing himself happy bithday, a creepy voice starts also singing! And there is creepy light, which is coming from a super creepy mysterious birthday cake!!! And then! A ghost!!!! They have a hilarious conversation about who the ghost is and what he wants, and the general outcome is that the ghost is like in ghost school or something, and needs to help people to graduate, or something along those lines. The guy talks about how he loves this girl, and the ghost says he gets 7 tries to be happy (sort of like 7 wishes), but the ghost makes it clear that he can't do anything about love or death.

The first wish turns the guy into this ridiculous blond, muscular, silly exercise instructor guy. He's all getting manicures and dancing to techno music and acting kind of prissy and into himself and like those guys from Night at the Roxbury, you know. He meets the girl, invites her to a party, but fails when bandits come try and rob them on the beach at night and he wusses out. He goes back to the ghost, laments his failure, and says how the girl complained. Each wish he bases off of whatever the girl's complaint was the last time, so for his second one he wants to be more manly or something. He turns into 'El Kabeer' (literally: The Big One), and is this silly mustachioed horseback Arab bandit guy, galloping around with guns stealing cows and being mafia-like. This too fails, because he is too domineering and evil and the girl leads a revolt against him. Then he tries to be sensitive (makeup, super done hair, very emotional, having emotions all over everything, making super emotional movies), then a leader (total failure of being a soccer coach), and a rich person (obnoxious pot-bellied slightly italian seeming guy). There might have been more, but the last one was the most hilarious. It was this indian movie thing, with singing and dancing and fake language. The guy and the girl are dancing together, but then (and he has a super bushy mustache) bandits come take the girl and stab the guy through with a spear. He dies, but then is not dead! He comes busting into the warehouse where the girl is, with the spear still in him, and hilariously kills every person and refuses to die himself. Then he frees the girl, and they are all in love, but THEN an old man appears and tells them it can never be because they are actually brother and sister. They are all, "nooooooooo", and the guy goes back to the ghost, defeated.

The ghost is sad, but it is all sweet, because the guy's like, no, you did good, go on and go to heaven or whatever. Then he's really sad, but the ghost tells him to just be himself and be the person he is on the inside, and not care about the outside. And THEN! One night, he's all alone doodling and writing poetry or whatever, and suddenly the girl's dog gets sick (she has a dog). She's freaking out but finds the card the guy gave her, calls him, and goes to his 'clinic' (his house). He is sweet, doesn't act like too much of a dork (he's sort of resigned to his fate), but she sees his poetry and all his pictures on his walls, and they totally fall in love. Then they hang out together and act like huge dorks together and then they get married!!! The end.

I'm sorry, that was rather epic, but I wanted to share. THE NEXT day, Sunday, WE GOT TO SEE HARRY POTTER!!!! It was the best thing. Ever. Despite the loud kids, and the people answering their phones in the theater, and the obnoxious kids talking super inappropriately loud behind us (much worse than they ever do in the US). Such a good movie. I can't wait to see it again.

Ok, ok, I guess that wraps up this segment of 'what I did recently'. Maybe later today I'll tell you more about this past weekend (in which I had desert adventures!!!), and hopefully my pictures will be loaded by then.

And It Makes Me Feel So Fine

Hello! So, this past weekend I had? It was pretty awesome! I will tell you about it! Right now!!!

Thursday after class we got on a bus headed for Mt. Sinai. I expected the trip to take a while, and of course we left a little late, got stuck in traffic around Cairo, etc, etc.....so we rolled into our hotel by the mountain at like 1am, just in time for an hour nap before our 2am ascent of the mountain. Hooray! The bus ride was...okay. It was very hot for most of the time, until the sun went down. The seats definitely left something to be desired, although I luckily had two seats to myself so I could configure my sleeping position accordingly. We watched THREE movies! An Arabic drama I do not know the name of, Omar wa Selma PART ONE, and The Fast and the Furious. It was a good time. The first movie, the dramatic one, had this actor in it who played a character in the DVDs that came with our Arabic textbooks. So, naturally, we were all really into it. The storyline was weird, though; I didn't really catch a lot of it, besides drama and people yelling in literally every scene. There was this one girl who just kept pouring gasoline on herself and threatening to light herself on fire, and there was a LOT of violence against women. It was pretty ridiculous.

Anyway! We stayed that night at a hotel close by Mt. Sinai (not at the monastery, where I stayed last time). There were surprisingly few people on the trails, and the moon was ridiculously bright. We didn't even need flashlights, except when the moon was behind the mountain. It was pretty cool. I was kind of worried at first, since I was totally exhausted and really didn't sleep, but I pulled it together admirably in the end and made it to the top before pretty much everyone else. We got the same awesome spot as last time, then snuggled (some smart people brought blankets!) until sunrise. On the way back down I followed some people down the camel path instead of the Steps of Repentance, which I was a little disappointed about but was probably for the best, since I was completely exhausted.



Later in the day (after napping), we headed out to Sharm el-Sheikh, and of course we left late. The bus ride was terrible in many ways, but oh well. Finally we got to our hotel, which was nice of course. I was almost the last person to get a room key, and the saga to our room was totally ridiculous. We had a room in the 700s, so naturally looked for the 7th floor, which, there wasn't one, and the elevator gave us issues, etc, etc, FINALLY we get to the right floor but after walking and walking and not finding it we find a door leading outside....and up some stairs, we discover like a resort village thing, with sweet villas and pools and such. It was crazy. Then we had a showdown with this dude driving a golf cart thing that really wanted us to ride in it too. (picture is view from my awesome balcony)



After that, we rushed back out for a glass bottom boat trip!!! It was so cool! We got to see all sorts of stuff, and then when I looked outside the boat at the water I could see fish! I could actually see all the awesome fish just sitting there. The water was so clear. We got to all jump in and swim around, it was the coolest.



That night we ate at the hotel, which had an amazingly tasty buffet of awesome. The desert was very varied, but a bit disappointing. Food, though, is always good and appreciated. Then, we pretty much just wandered and marveled at how ridiculously touristy Sharm is. Seriously, it was like a totally different world. People were just dressed totally in a silly fashion, and it was basically like the most ridiculous tourists from every country (especially Europe) decided to all come hang out and wear their trashiest clothing and be so trashy. Ridiculous. I felt FAR too modest.

Also interesting: every time we spoke any Arabic at all, the Egyptians were all, "OH MY GOODNESS you speak ARABIC?!?!?!" ......even when all we would say was like, "how much" or "two" or "thank you" (in Arabic of course). Then they would be like, "you speak such good Arabic". Ridiculous. I got really sick of it after some dude got all excited about me and followed me around this store bothering me and trying to be my friend and took my stuff and cut in line for me to help me pay (earning me dirty looks from some trashy Europeans). He then followed me out like we were best friends, all "what are you doing now?!". Creepy.



The next day (Saturday) we got up early, had an awesome breakfast (unnecessary picture of the bread display above), and headed out for our trip to Ras Mohammed! Ras Mohammed is a really cool marine preserve, or something? Look it up, though; it is a cool thing and kind of unique, I think? Anyway. We had a really frustrating and confusing thing at some dive shop, of course, but then headed out on a boat and it was so sweet!



We got to chill out on the top of the boat in the sun, and the water was the most beautiful blue. We stopped at three different places, and I got to snorkel!!! Snorkeling is the coolest, you guys! I had no idea! I was really freaked out at first, because the flippers were all awkward, and the mask was even more awkward. Looking under the water the first time was so strange! I couldn't get used to the fact that I could breath and also have my head under water. Crazy! But man, it was SO COOL. Just being able to see stuff was amazing, and the water is so unbelievably clear that you can see to the bottom even when there isn't stuff to see.

And then! We got to see THINGS! Under the water! Coral and fish and fish and coral! The coral wasn't quite such a color explosion as I was expecting (I really had no idea what to think), but it was pretty cool. And fish! We saw so many fish! A lot of the time, there would be a school of fish just hanging out, by the surface, just inches away. I kept thinking I would hit one, or that I could grab one. I never did. But they would just be right there, they weren't avoiding us at all. We saw tons of cool blue fish, some big dark colored fish with little spots, big flat fish of different kinds (angel fish and other variations on that kind of thing), big round fish, stripy fish, some long skinny pipe-cleaner fish, some really big rainbow fish....we saw a barracuda, and a manta ray! It was just cruising by, down by the bottom. There were some big fish with big eyes and kind of bulldog jaws, and man it was just SO. COOL. I loved it. By the third snorkel expedition, I finally got my nerve up and dove down deeper. Loads of people were doing it, but I was nervous. It was actually pretty easy, with the flippers and all. It was a little tough to manage the snorkel, but I did okay.

It was just the best day. We hung out on a boat, they fed us, we even hooked up an ipod to the speakers. I got a little sea sick at one point, but not too bad. We jumped off the top of the boat!!! It was awesome! And really high! Our director lady, Robyn (who is unquestionably awesome), DOVE off the top of the boat, because that is how she rolls.

Lots of people got pretty sunburnt on their backs, because of the snorkeling. I made out okay, and actually got a lot less sun than I thought, I guess on account of the sunblock I kept reapplying. Yay? Some people did scuba diving, which must have been awesome, and it was cool to see them down there. I dove sort of deep (but not as much as many people) with my snorkel, and kept trying to follow fish. I spent a lot of time in the water at the third stop, and we kept having to avoid these glass bottomed boats or weird 'submarine' things that kept going back and forth over our area. At one point we were just hanging out in the midst of hundreds of different fish, just chillin. I tried so hard to catch one, but the closest I got was feeling the rush of water against my hand as it jetted away from me.

As if the day wasn't already awesome enough, after we got back to the hotel I ate some Movenpick icecream. It was the best thing. I got chocolate and blackberry, and oh my goodness the deliciousness. And later that night? After dinner? I got creme brulee and lemon sorbet. So freaking good. We wanted to go out and go dancing or do some kind of fun thing at night, but we were all pretty exhausted and no one had any definite ideas (and no one wanted to be the one to make decisions), so me and a few people just bought beer and hung out on our awesome balcony.

The next day I really wanted to get up and go to the pool or beach, but I slept in a little too long (because, the bed was AMAZING compared to my bed at the dorm). And then, of course, we had to take our luggage to the lobby at 10:30...and check out at 11...and we were 'supposed' to leave at 11:30....and the freaking bus didn't show up until like 2pm......so I was very frustrated. I really hate feeling like I waste time in a place, particularly time I could be spending doing things specific to a place. Like being immodest and splashing around in an awesome sea. Oh well. I got over it. The bus ride was fine, I guess, if a little (ok a lot) frustrating and uncomfortable. I ate sushi for dinner? We got home at like 2:30am. I just want to turn around and go straight back!

I'm sorry, I feel like that was slightly rambling. The internet in my dorm as just continued to get worse and worse, so I am doing this in the Dar (our common room thing on our floor at the university). I have laundry I should be going home and getting, but I'd rather just get this done. People are talking and playing Arabic scrabble, so I'm not concentrating 100%. We apparently have internet on all floors of the dorm, but I guess it doesn't really work on most floors. On my floor it used to (just really spottily), and the network still shows up, but there is now a password that nobody knows. Very mysterious. The only good internet now is on the 6th floor, and there is basically always tons of Americans up there using it. Very irritating, particularly when I want to be concentrating on something. The girls are always all from the new batch of people that showed up recently, and I don't like to judge prematurely (except how I sometimes do), but they are a bit weird. I don't know about them. But, anyway. Time to go! Oh, and I updated Picassa with pictures and videos, so check it out!

Kisses!!!