Advertisement
Published: January 27th 2008
Ahlan wa Sahlan!
I have officially been in Cairo now three and a half days. For anyone who doesn't know or has forgotten, I'm studying this semester at the American University in Cairo, taking Arabic and hopefully getting much more proficient with it, as well as other classes in Anthropology and History.
The flight here was about 14 hours with a 4 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport. I was a little worried about finding my connecting flight's gate, but managed fine and actually ran into three other incoming AUC students. We milled around for a few hours and actually managed to get a real German beer at about 6 in the morning. The connecting flight was smooth and we landed in Cairo at about 3:30 local time. The time difference from here to Detroit area is 7 hours so that was about 6:30 am Jan. 24th at home. I didn't really sleep much on the plane so needless to say I was exhausted, but finally being in Cairo was so exciting I forgot how tired I really was. Surprisingly enough about 30 AUC kids arrived on our flight or another at about the same time, and we all piled into vans to take us to our "homes". I am living in an apartment in an area close to downtown Cairo called Garden City which is provided as overflow for the dorms. The building is real funny, its not so good looking when you first walk in, but there are a few security guards at a front desk keeping things in line. The 4 girls I arrived with in the van all live in apartments around me, but none were my roomates. We live on the 10th floor, making the elevator an necessity with all our luggage. Only 2 of us could pile in at a time and one of the guards pressed all the buttons for us (numerous times, since once never seems to make the thing work) and as we started going we realized there really was no door and the wall was just flying by us. There are no stops between floor 5 and 9, the spots where the doors should be are bricked over, so thats weird. Anyway, there is also a guard on our floor at all times who is really friendly and helpful. My apartment is huge, and houses 6 girls; 4 in my room (although #4 has yet to show up) and 2 in the other room. We have wireless which is great and the apartment is completely furnished including all bedding, towels, and dishes. The view is amazing, we can see a lot from the 10th floor, including the Nile, which is only a couple blocks away. The AUC campus is also a few blocks away, right across from Hardees, McDonalds and Pizza Hut! There are some really cool great cafes right near there also that AREN'T American chains. Our location is very convenient. The people have been really great and welcoming, I haven't really been harassed much like I'd been told I would be by Egyptian men, although there have been a lot of whistles and a couple funny self-esteem boosting greetings: "i have neeevverrr seen a girrrl like yoouuu befooorrree (insert arabic accent)".
The language barrier only shows me how poor my arabic is and how much I hope to improve while here. I have been able to do a little bit with it, get a cab, say thank you, yadda stuff like that. A lot of people do speak english although most are extremely hard to understand anyways.
Back to the living situation, sorry, I want to add that all my roommates are American, although I hoped they would be more international. However, they are all great and I'm confident we will all get along great through the semester. There are also about 5 other apartments on this floor with about 4-8 girls in each, also all American :/. But, friends are friends and we are all having a great time getting to know each other as well as the area together. Oh! I also wanted to add that we can clearly hear the call the prayer while laying in bed at 4 in the morning every morning, which although it disturbs sleep (that im not really getting anyway) is really cool!
Anyways, more exploring to be done tomorrow, perhaps the Egypt museum, which I am really excited for! I will get better at these blog things don't worry, but as it is about 2 am here right now (thats 7pm for MI) and I've had quite a day I am off to bed. Soon I will post more interesting stories of the past couple days and those to come :D.
Massalama!
Kellie
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.008s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0374s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ken
non-member comment
the word "Massalama" :)
Because this is a travel blog, I think that my comment will be most appropriate. I knew the word "Massalama" when I read it, and I knew what it meant, too. Know why? It is one of the words that is included on the signs at the end of "Small World" in Disney World. Is that a great travel comment, or what? :) :) Peace... Ken