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Falafel Master
This man was making amazing falafel (made from chickpeas) in the entrance of Felfela, a great veg restaurant in downtown Cairo. Location of AUC Hostel
K.J.H. Internet access, finally! So far, life in Egypt is loud, hectic and totally fun! I'll try to be as detailed as possible in my description of things, but it's hard, because there's so much color here - it's constant sensory overload!
We arrived in Cairo at 3 in the morning on Friday, June 1st. After we made it through customs and got our visas (a highly complicated process with no posted instructions - welcome to the Middle East), we went to our hotel. By the time we arrived, it was 5 a.m., so as a group we decided to stay up. We discovered a cute cafè nearby, which conveniently had wireless internet, hence my last posting.
Here, at the intersection of streets with such poetic names - Mar'ashli; Taha Husayn - the dorm is beautiful. The rooms are enormous, with 10-foot ceilings, huge closets and big windows.
On June 1st, we toured our neighborhood on the island of Zamalek (Zah-mal-eck), changed money, bought adapters, and so on. That evening, we took a ride on a falucca, which is a sailboat, on the Nile whilst the sun set, and had dinner at a great European-flavor restaurant called Labodega.
Falafel Wok
Mmmm and 100% fat-free (hehe, yeah right). We discovered while paying the bill, alcohol is nearly as expensive as food.
The Egyptian pound (LE) is 5.7 to the dollar, which is great. We're given 600LE a week for food, which is quite a lot, since most meals cost anywhere from 5LE to 20LE. I've also discovered this lemonade-esque drink called Limon (Lee-mon), which is amazing. Fresh lemon, with sugar, etc. It's so good. As Turkish coffee, though, alas, American coffee will never be quite the same in the waking-one-up department.
After that, we went to the bar in the basement of our hotel, but only had one beer (of the most popular brand - Stella), because the establishment wouldn't let the boys, Chase and Braulio, in. Lame. Marium suggested we go find a shisha (or hookah - like the catepillar in "Alice in Wonderland") bar, which we did. Apple is quite the flavor of the season, evidently.
Somehow, I'll never know how exactly, we all stayed out until 2 a.m. I guess all journalists hold the motto: "I'll sleep when I'm dead." Some people still went back to the cafè to check email, but I hit the sack.
Yesterday (geez, was it so
short a time ago?!), we woke up and moved out of the hotel. We came over the hostel (read: dorm), where we will live for the duration of the program. I have been assigned to live with Aisha, who is not here yet due to passport issues. I hope she's nice! Moving into the room was a bit of a fiasco, though. We arrived when many of the regular AUC students were moving out, so I got to my room and found two Egyptian girls in it, and they hadn't even begun packing. While the others in my group moved in and got settled, I hung out and waited for 6 hours to move in. Ah, well. At least there is a housekeeping service that changes and washes sheets and towels.
At 6 p.m., our group walked over to the apartment building where our prof is living, a block away. We had our first of what will be weekly meetings there, and were given our cell phones for the trip. If you want the number, you can call me to chat, and it's not very expensive for you to call. Let me know! Just be advised of the 9
hour time difference (that's for Mountain time).
We went from the flat to 5 Bells, a chic restaurant on Zamalek, where we stayed for the next 4 hours, having a lovely, leisurely dinner. I had the Shish Taouk, which is kind of like Shish Kabob. It was tasty! That restaurant is known for its meat.
Today, we got up and had our Arabic placement tests. Mine consisted of: "I know no Arabic," so it was easy! We begin our class tomorrow and I am SUPER excited. From there, we went to the Egyptian museum, where we saw the riches of King Tut's tomb, as well as a bunch of things I've seen in my art history text books. *Nerdy shivers* Just like it Greece, it's so cool to see something you've read about and seen pictures of in person.
Post-museum, we went to a FABULOUS restaurant called Felfela, where we had amazing-this-will-change-your-life falafel. The establishment was beautiful inside, with stained glass walls, ceilings and chandeliers and gorgeous patterned stone floors. At the entrance of the restaurant, a older man was making the falafel when we walked by. Being famished, the smell of the falafel was mouth-watering.
Room 622 1
The bed on the left will be my roommate's. As if this day wasn't full enough, our group went next to the main campus of the AUC, where we poked around the campus and book store. Later, 5 of us went back to watch some documentaries AUC students of journalism have made about people and places around and in Cairo. Very interesting! The topics ranged from foot ironers (an ancient practice of manipulating the iron with one's foot), which is dying out, to a falucca operator on the Nile, to a displaced Iraqi woman and her two children.
And here we are, in the present! Whew! I'm exhausted too! I don't think most of my entries will be this epic since we're starting a routine tomorrow, though our trips to Alexandria, Luxor and the Sinai may produce long entries. I hope I didn't leave anything out. We've been so busy and tired from adjusting time zones, it's a bit whirl-wind!
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