Much Delayed Welcome to Egypt

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So after being in Cairo for a week now, I figured I should start this blog.

It started off a little bit frustrating. I got into Heathrow from Chicago 45 minutes late and had under an hour to get to my gate and get my boarding pass. I was told to go from Terminal 4 to Terminal 3 from where Egyptair flies out. When I finally get through security, there is no one at the Egyptair desk and the woman who was at Gulf Air told me I needed to calm down b/c my flight doesn't leave until 4PM pointing to the arrival time in Cairo. So after I explained an itinerary to her and showed her my flight number, she told me I had to go to Terminal 1. So I hop on the world's 2nd slowest bus (the 1st being the bus to Terminal 3) to Terminal 1. The lady at the BMI desk calls to have them hold the plane, but they refuse and said if I get there before the gate closes then I can board and that was that. So I sprinted to my gate only to arrive and see the gate staff farting around doing nothing at the gate so I didn't really need to rush.

Finally, I arrive in Egypt and meet the AUC airport pick up guy who magically gets another girl and me through customs and passport control quickly. As bags start disappearing from the belt, I realized, just as I feared while running around Heathrow, that my bags didn't make my connection so after all my travel docs are taken and copied or not returned, they hand me a sheet with my reference number, a website that tracks my luggage and 3 phones (2 of which don't work I later found out). Since Cairo is a sea of cars and constantly has traffic, it takes us almost 2 hours to get to the AUC dorm.

After roaming the neighborhood a bit and buying some water, I go back to Zamalek (the dorm) and grab something from the cafeteria and meet a few girls down there whom I'd end up hanging out with the rest of the week.

All this past week, we've had orientation and welcome to AUC/Egypt stuff, which was helpful but overwhelming. One of the welcome week outings was to a club called La Piste where we were finally able to act like our normal selves on the dance floor, which was fun. We continued the night of dancing at the club at the Nile Hilton called Latex. (As gross as the club's title sounds, the other good club here is called Thrust so it is no worse than DC's Spank and Fur) It was hip hop night so I was having a blast dancing and singing along.

The welcome party at the end of the week was at this amazingly beautiful palace with a huge garden that had some of the largest/coolest trees I've seen. There was traditional dancing and performances by some AUC students along with delicious food. Afterwards, we went to this bar where they serve 8 pound Stellas. Stella is an Egyptian beer that is about equal to 1.5 beers in the US in size and 8 pounds is equal to about $1.50 so it was a good cheap night of drinking. The atmosphere of this place is what makes it even better. Its packed with about 95-98% men and there are two guys who run the show walking through the chairs and tables passing out more beers. After finding a table or some chairs, these two guys basically rush around grabbing chairs out of the woodwork for you and if you don't watch out, you'll get a chair in the head. Whenever they have new beers in hand, they hit them w/ their bottle openers to let people know they have more. Your tab is the number of beers on your table at the end of the night. For 8 drinkers, we had 23 beers total I believe.

Yesterday, AUC organized a trip to Old Cairo, which is Christian Cairo. The coolest spot to visit in Old Cairo is this church in the Greek cemetery (for anyone that knows me well enough to know that I had dead people/dead bodies, you know that this was painful for me, but thankfully their tombs use beautiful architecture to distract me) that was built on top of a crypt where Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived for a month during their stay in Egypt. There is a well there that is treated as holy water since it is the same well that Jesus once used. Christians and Muslims go to it for blessings and wishes. In Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, you are surrounded by places that are known because Jesus or any of the people of the books slept there or did something major there. And saying that Jesus slept here is a lot cooler than George Washington slept here, despite how much you love GW. We visited the Hanging Church, which is suspended over an old Roman fortress and I believe it is Coptic, St. George's Greek Orthodox Church (I swear I can never escape the Greeks no matter where I go!), a Synagogue that’s no longer in use, and this massive mosque. The mosque was beautiful. It had red carpets lining the floors against the white and gray marble walls and columns. There are apparently 365 columns.

Last night marked the end of our 6-days of 3 hour long Survival Arabic classes where we were taught colloquial or Egyptian Arabic. It has proven so helpful since no one on the streets understands Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which we are taught in school. I'm still nervous about it b/c it is so hard to remember to use Egyptian words when I know how to say what I need to in MSA, but I'm working on it and getting better. For our last night, we are to go on an outing to practice what we learned so our group went to a nearby restaurant that several of us had already tried and enjoyed. Our teacher brought along her husband, a fellow doctor by education. Our teacher, Hanan, is the cutest woman ever! She’s sooo happy and bubbly. Everyday when we go around asking how each other is doing she says she is "very very very good" and is always super excited and into it when we act out situations using the new words. I wish I could have her as my Arabic teacher for the rest of the semester!

Really quickly about everyone here. Everyone I've met from AUC staff and students to study abroad kids to my roommate has been insanely nice. The study abroad group comes from all over, but mainly the East Coast and Midwest. DC schools outnumber everyone. I've met several people with whom I have friends in common, which is crazy. My roommate is from northern Jordan. She is sooo nice. Her sister was staying with us for a few days this past week. In short, its going to be a great semester here!

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Comments

[MamaSherry]

Sooo.... I hope you eventually got your luggage so you're not walking around in musty clothes for the week! So good to read your descriptions. Enjoy every moment. XXOO

[Dorothea]

Remember: NS, ND, NA, NH, NF, BG, BS, PH and DETF XOXOXO