Eating for an Hour and a Half

Hey guys. This is just too ridiculous for us not to post it.

In other news, we went to see a mime last night. It was ridiculous.

Pretty Pictures from the Tops of Hills

This cute little boy harrassed us atop Muqattam. When we refused to give him money, he punched me in the stomach and kicked Peter in the leg. What a darling.

It's amazing how quickly the very things you most enjoy about a place can become those which cause you the greatest annoyance and distress. During orientation, one of the students in charge told us that the majority of foreigners in Cairo are giddy and excited during their first few weeks, but after a month or so, the city begins to wear on them. "Not me," I thought. However, over the last week in particular, some of the more unfortunate realities of this town have grown a little tedious. Of course, the obvious one is the traffic. In fact, ninety percent of the issues I have with this city are related to automobiles. There is the terrible congestion, the constant beeping, the lack of apparent rules,

Sunset on the Muqattam Hills.

the dodging between speeding cars to cross nearly every street, the terrible pollution they cause (appar- ently living in downtown is equivalent to smoking thirty cigarettes a day!). It's quite astounding. When I first arrived, the pollution didn't seem too bad, the beeping quickly faded into ambience, and crossing streets just seemed fun. I think part of my change in attitude is due to my health in the last week. Last Tuesday, I woke up feeling phlegmy and overtired, and I had a bit of a headache. As the days progressed, my symptoms never got much worse, but having that as an unfortunate distraction reduced my ability to tolerate other issues. Part of the issue was my concern that my sickness might have been brought on by something I had eaten. Consequently, I began avoiding a lot of my favorite haunts and eating a lot of American fast food to be on the safe side.

Peter's new cave. He was only in there for about thirty seconds and look at the mess he already made!

I'm glad to say that I'm feeling myself again now, but some- how a few of those food issues have remained. We went to get koshari (pic- tured in a previous ent- ry) a few nights ago, and I couldn't eat more than a third of my bowl. It just seemed gross. I hope that doesn't last, since for the first few weeks, I adored the stuff and had it literally once every day or two. Part of the issue may be the perceived lack of variety. One can choose basically between koshari, falafel, shawerma, and fatir (Egyptian pizza) before turning to American fast food. Good choices though those may be, they can get a little tiresome. Of course, the lack of variety is largely perceived. That is to say, this city is huge; there's plenty of food. It's just a matter of budget and proximity. The other stuff isn't even expensive, especially by American standards. It's just not as cheap as the staples I mentioned, and it does feel amazing to get a full, fantastic dinner for one or two American dollars.

Anyway, there's my little whiny caveat. Don't take it to mean I'm not enjoying myself. I still am having a freaking blast; the novelty of the city has just finally started to wear away and I'm starting to understand it more genuinely... I think.

Peter Lord of Cairo. Get it? 'Cause Peter's last name is also a title.

Now that all the scheduling shiznits have worked them- selves out and classes have been going on for a few weeks, I can discuss them less con- fusingly. In the end, I wound up in an accelerated introductory Arabic course, one on modern Arabic Lit in translation, another Arabic Lit course that is a senior seminar examining the place of women, and an introductory linguistics course. I like them all a lot. Unfortunately, my Arabic language course meets four days a week at 8 AM, which is way too early for me, but I'm managing. Also, it's reviewing everything I learned last semester at Oberlin before progressing way past it, which isn't ideal, but I guess the review can't hurt. The teacher is hilarious, too! She's a little Egyptian woman who speaks English well enough, but with lots of amusing errors. My favorite thing she has said so far came after discussing the overwhelming lack of Egyptian women in the celebrations following Egypt's Africa Cup win. We started talking about how women can't do a lot of the things men do in this country, or even back in America. She then said, "That's feminism! When you say 'Only guys do this,' that's like feminism." Maybe you had to be there.

The lit courses are both taught by the same woman, Mona Mikhail. She is from Egypt but has been teaching at NYU for the last thirty years. This is her first semester

A picture... OF A PICTURE! Once again, that's the Cairene sunset through Peter's lense.

at AUC, and she's a little shocked by the compar- ative laziness of the students and academics. It's amusing to hear her call all the Egyptians spoiled brats. We have to read about nine or ten books over the course of the semester in the first course I'm in with her, and the students were so upset by that proposition. The first day they all bitched and moaned about it and tried to get her to lessen the load, but she stood firm. Needless to say, I like her. My lingusitics professor is also a character. She's Egyptian as well, and she gets ridiculously into the subject matter. She too makes fun of the Egyptian students for being lazy and spoiled, but her relationship with them is much more playful. I just enjoy being able to take a course in something that is hugely interesting to me and is not really offered back at Oberlin, especially with someone so enthusiastic about it.

Other than that, we've been hanging out a lot with some other kids from AUC. There are several girls who live near us who've become the female contingency of our gang. They're all pretty nice and laid back and fun, and they're over at our apartment fairly regularly. One of them is even from Bard, though she doesn't know Becky. There are also a few guys from the dormitory in Zamalek who hang out with us sometimes. There's a lot more freedom in the apartments than at the dorm, so ours has become a great spot to chill.

Other than that, we haven't done a whole lot. We've been going to the symphony here and there, which has been awesome. I won't say much more. I think Peter is planning to write an entry about it in more detail soon. This last weekend, we went to the Citadel, which is one of Cairo's biggest draws. It sits on top of a hill in the southeast side of town, and it's incredibly beautiful. It was originally built as a fortification by the legendary Saladin in the 12th century, and it served as the center of government until the 1800s.

The Mohammed Ali Mosque appeared and disappeared as we climbed the winding road to Muqattam.

An incredibly impressive mosque, the Mohammed Ali Mosque, was built there around that time as well to commemorate Mohammed Ali, the man who modern- ized Cairo. Anyway, it's beautiful, but we got there after it closed, so Peter and I decided to keep walking another couple miles to the Muqattam Hills, a plateau beyond the citadel that my survival Arabic teacher recommended as his favorite spot in Cairo. He told us it has the best views of the city, especially at sunset. It was a long and winding road that took us there, but we finally made it to a good spot in the city on top just in time to watch the sunset. Here is a fantastic time-lapse video we took of the sun going down. If the smog hadn't been so bad that day, you'd be able to see the Pyramids just left of center. I could barely make them out with my naked eye, but they looked strabgely cool in the smog like that. as it grew darker they totally disappeared.

Finally, Peter and I have recently been consumed with trying to figure out what we'll be doing with our two breaks here. We've got a short one for Easter in March, which we're thinking about using to go to Paris or Amsterdam, or maybe, if we're feeling a little more exotic, Khartoum. Then there's a long one in April that we'd like to use to travel the Middle East. Ideally, we'd fly to Istanbul and then take trains back to Cairo, hitting Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel along the way. There's still a lot of planning necessary between now and then though. Let us know what you think (via the poll at the bottom of the page)!

Here's a time-lapse video Peter and I took from Muqattam. Unfortunately, we got it started just after the sun disappeared, but it's still pretty amazing. Sorry about the smog.

Settling In

A completely candid shot of Matt and John studying.

So we've been in Cairo for just short of one month... holy crap! The first week went by ridiculously slowly for me as I was experiencing the whole culture shock and everything. But the last three weeks (ever since classes started) have gone by so fast. We still haven't done many touristy things except for the Pyramids, but between settling in and keeping up with courses, we've been pretty busy.

View from our window.

Signing up for classes was stressful. As everyone warned us, AUC, while terrific in most areas, sometimes lacks organization. My roommate, Phil, put it really well in a blog entry of his. But after being shuffled from one department to the next (and then back again), and after numerous frantic emails, I think everything worked out for the best. My classes have been great. I'm taking four engineering classes and an Arab Music Class. I've been surprised at how well their engineering program matches ours. I had a bit of a scare on my first day of classes after quite an "I'm from America" moment (one of many). My professor was showing us the textbooks for the course, and to my horror he raised one written entirely in Arabic. He asked if there was anyone in the class who couldn't read Arabic, and as I slowly raised my hand and every head in the room turned towards me, it occurred to me that international students don't typically come over for engineering. My professor was really good about it and is helping me through. All of my professors are great and incredibly helpful.

Double parking has a new meaning here.

I've been slowly getting to know some of my classmates, and they've all been really nice and have helped me with translations and the like. OH! I'm also taking a course in Arab music. Part of it is a mix of music theory and history while the other part is a music ensemble. I'm playing the piano in the group and am having so much fun. I have to say, though, we're pretty terrible. It's a small group and most people are just learning their instruments / I'm terrible at sight-reading. Regardless, it's a really really fun group. I've met some really cool people, and it's just so great to be playing and getting exposed to such different and interesting music.

By this point the culture shock has pretty much warn off, although I do still giggle a little when I see armed, uniformed guards walking down the street hand-in-hand and swinging their arms playfully. Many people I talked to before coming to Egypt had ideas of the people here being

We tried pigeon, a delicacy here. Tastes like chicken, but it's a lot smaller.

very unfriendly towards Americans. As far as I've seen, that thought couldn't be further from the truth. I'm sure that there are people who don't like America much, and I've probably inadvertently offended a person or two here and there (I certainly seemed to do it easily enough in the U.S.), but for the most part I've been amazed at how friendly and helpful people are - and I've been to Canada like five or six times!

The language barrier has been much less of an issue than I expected. I came here not knowing a lick of Arabic save for shukran, or "thank you," which I would proudly say to waiters after my friends ordered food for me. After taking the Survival Arabic course offered by AUC, I still know next to no Arabic, but I know enough to get by okay. I was feeling really proud of myself when I started ordering things and discussing prices in stores entirely in Arabic. I was put back in my place, however, when I tried to have a real conversation with someone who didn't speak English. Enough people in downtown Cairo (particularly in restaurants and stores) speak some English anyway, and if they don't, it can be fun trying to communicate.

Downtown.

On the night Egypt won the Africa Cup, amidst the wild celebrations, I talked for about ten minutes with two guys my age who spoke almost as little English as I did Arabic. We didn't get terribly far or deep with the conversation, but we all had a lot of fun trying. That's the most encouraging part - if you're having trouble with the language here, people aren't rude about it like one might expect. Instead most people I meet like to help out.

Well that's all for now. Sorry we went so long without writing. Here's a video John and I took to show what crossing the streets is like in Cairo. And before any of our parents write back at how dangerous it is, save your breath - it's just the way things are here.

Egyptian Frogger.

!مصر! مصر! مصر (The Africa Cup)

The scene at El Horea.

So, all this stuff we've been blogging about has been happening within the context of a pretty significant sports event: The Africa Cup. Of course, for Americans, nothing soccer-related will ever seem like a big deal, but here, the Africa Cup is second only to the World Cup, and they are both like a Superbowl multiplied by three World Serieses. Like the World Cup, the Africa Cup only comes once every four years, and it's freaking nuts. There have been a couple games every week since we arrived, and as Egypt got closer to the championship, the streets grew wilder and wilder. On Thursday night, Egypt won the semifinals and the whole city flipped out. But nothing could've prepared us for tonight, when Egypt won the Africa Cup.

Laying the national flag on your friend's back is the Egyptian equivalent of rally caps.

We played Cameroon (it feels a little weird saying "we," but after my involvement in tonight's scene, I feel pretty comfortable doing so), and Peter, some of the rooomies, and I went down to El Horea, our favorite bar (the name means "freedom," awesomely enough), to watch the game. It was exceedingly well-played, with no scores in the first half, but right around the switch into the fourth quarter, Egypt scored a goal, and every man, woman, and child in that overpacked bar jumped up and screamed with joy. It was just a defensive game from that point on, and when the clock finally ran out with Cameroon still scoreless, the city exploded. It was incredible. It had all the energy and singing and dancing and hollering of a Red Sox World Series win without any of the car-flipping or drunken brawls. In all honesty, there's really no comparison. The streets were filled with a cacophony of cheers and beeps and chants, and people led impromptu parades by foot and packed onto mopeds or the the beds of pickup trucks or even just holding onto the tops of cars while they sped past. As Americans, we were at first just part of the crowd, but after the initial celebration, people began to see us sort of as novelties, perhaps the way we'd view groups of

Egypt scores the game's only goal.

Chinese students cheering for the Patriots or the Cavaliers. It was a little disconcerting to be the center of attention in that way, but it was also very interesting to have everything flipped around, for once to be so clearly the foreigner. Nevertheless, as usual, once you'd get one-on-one with an Egyptian, he'd be overwhelmingly friendly. Peter talked for some time with two young men from Cairo, both of whom were just thrilled to pick his brain and practice their English. Anyway, here are some pics and a video to show you just what I mean. Oh, and Masr is the Arabic term for Egypt (pronounced almost like Muss, but with a quick little R thrown on the end). That's what the chanting is in the video and also that's what the title of this post says.

!مصر! مصر! مصر Woot! Woot!

الهرم (The Pyramids)

We went to the Pyramids yesterday. It was an amazing trip. Here's a slideshow. You can click on it at any time to navigate between slides or view the whole album.

Visceral City

Mmm, koshari... our favorite meal.

I don't know how much you guys have been keeping up on recent events in the Middle East, but in case you haven't, there has been one event with a pretty direct effect on our lives this past week. There have been some severe storms in the Mediterranean recently, and, though the exact cause is unknown, two major internet lines were damaged, severing seventy percent of Egypt's internet connection. The effects stretched to the rest of the Middle East and even to India, which lost some absurd amount of money in one day due to it. It's pretty crazy to think that just a few lines could be responsible for that much, and it's a little annoying to have to deal with such a slow and flakey connection, but mostly it's been kind of encouraging to see how little we actually need the web. Sure we

Sharia El Tahrir, one of Cairo's main drags.

haven't been able to Skype or check our Facebook quite as fre- quently, but we've found other ways to spend our time. I've taken up sewing! Well, I've sewn up a couple articles of clothing that needed the patching, any- way. One of my pairs of jeans had developed a mighty rip down the right outer thigh during travel that only increased as we neared Egypt. By the time we finally stepped off the plane, all of Cairo got a hearty view of my boxers and my hairy leg. Pretty amazing. But that's all fixed now. The internet should be running at full capacity (which is still fairly slow by American standards) in a week or so, but maybe sooner if they manage to reroute some other lines.

Matt has a thing for exotic birds.

Other than that, the last week has been pretty lax. The six-part survival Egyptian Arabic courses ran from last Monday until Saturday. They were each night from 4:30 until 7:30. There are twenty or so different classes, each of six or seven students, arranged according to prior ex- perience with Arabic. Everyone in my class had taken about a semester of Modern Standard Arabic, which it turns out does fairly little to prepare you for Egyptian colloquial. I knew the dialects were supposed to be pretty different, but I assumed it would be in ways similar to the differences between British and American English. It turns out that calling them dialects is in all honesty a bit of a stretch. Our roommate Matt estimated that about seven-tenths of the languages are totally different, and I'd say that's about right. And while the two clearly have similar roots,

Fakhfakhina Palace.

so do French and Spanish. Big, important words like "yes" and "good" are totally differ- ent. Grammar, while operating along similar lines, also diverges in some signi- ficant ways. But neverthe- less, the class has been helpful and entertaining. My teacher in particular is amazing. He's a short, cute, middle-aged Egyptian man named Sabri, and in spite of our amateur level, he refuses to speak English to us. As a result, we learn most of the vocab and grammar through some of the best charades I've ever seen. I swear to Allah, if the man ever played Cranium, his team would have an incredibly unfair advantage. He's very laid-back and friendly, and he took to telling us a joke entirely in Arabic at the end of each class. Here's one of my favorites:

There is an American, a Sudanese man, an Egyptian, an Iraqi, and a Palestinian. The American asks the other four 'What is your opinion on the meat which they serve during meals in your country?' The Sudanese man replies, 'What is a meal?' The Egyptian replies, 'What is meat?' The Iraqi replies, 'What is an opinion?' And the Palestinian replies, 'What is a country?'

Pretty funny, eh? Maybe not hilarious, but imagine having it told in a language you barely understand, and each difficult word being conveyed to you through ridiculous Arabic charades. The American's question alone took about ten minutes for us to grasp, mostly because of the somewhat unconventional (by English standards) grammatical structure required to get the word "meal" in there. It was a joke we really had to work for, I suppose.

One ticket to Alexandria, please.

The gardens at Fakhfakhina. It might not be as impressive here, but that's all one tree.

Beyond that, last week con- sisted mostly of running around trying to do all the random shit we're supposed to have done in the first week or two of arriving and then at night trying to meet more students and explore the city. We've gone on three college-chaperoned events, one lame, a couple that were pretty cool. The first was to a night club called La Piste in Mohandisseen. Anything under the auspices of AUC precludes drinking, so it felt a lot like a high school dance. A couple nights later we went to a very classy restaurant on the college's dime. The atmosphere was relaxed, though like so many

Yeah that's right. I climbed a tree.

places in Cairo, it was a bit too loud. The food was good, though there must have been some sort of mistake with mine, since I didn't get it until a half an hour after everyone else. Still, it was a cool night. Then, on Friday night, we went to the Fakhfakhina Palace, which is this absurdly ornate palace about fifteen minutes from campus. I felt like I was in some old movie about Arabian princes and princesses and whatnot. The gardens were probably the most impressive, as you can see in the photos. There was also some very cool traditional Egyptian danc- ing, though once again, the music was absurdly loud. Like La Piste, the event had soupcons of a high school dance, which became most clearly manifest in a big circle that developed around a few somewhat talented dancers but then severely outstayed its welcome. I realize I was part of the problem, but seriously, the circle lasted for about five minutes with pretty much no one in the middle, everyone just standing around the edges, clapping, waiting for the next mediocre dancer to embarass himself. Talking to my friend Meggan (from BC), we realized that the dance circle was only possible in high school because we were too young to know better, and it's only possible at our current age because of alcohol. Maybe we Americans attribute too much of our potential for success at dances and parties to alcohol, but I seriously don't understand how a man can avoid awkwardness in that sort of a situation without it.

So now classes have started, which has actually been a bit of a hassle. Like everything at AUC, it's way more complicated than it needs to be. Any bastion of rhyme or reason gets drowned out in the bureaucratic jumble. Nevertheless, I think it'll work out. The weekends here are Friday and Saturday, so classes started yesterday. I had two then: Modern Arabic Literature in Translation and Classical

In case you couldn't tell, Fakhfakhina was ridonk!

Arabic Liter- ature in Trans- lation, one right after the other and both taught by the same boron. Thomas Hefter is his name, and he's about as thrilling as linoleum. Pro- fessor Hefter is American, and he's unsure of himself, and he's not that passionate about the subject, and he assigns nearly nothing for reading or work, and he's awkward beyond belief, and I hope he's not reading this blog. Needless to say, I came back from those two classes, originally having thought I had my schedule perfect, and decided to overhaul the whole thing. I'm glad to say that I'm now only a few steps away from being in none of Prof. Hefter's courses, and the ones I've switched into (or am trying to switch into) are immeasurably superior. I'm in an accelerated beginning Arabic course, which repeats a lot of stuff I've already learned, but eventually will teach me a bunch of new stuff too. I'm in several new Arabic lit courses at higher levels as well. I'm not sure which ones I'm going to keep and which ones I'm going to drop, but all options seem good at this point. I'm very excited to get better at Arabic and to get back to reading lots of books and writing papers and being generally literary. Last semester at Oberlin I focused mostly on my languages and on Creative Writing, so I missed a lot of that fun stuff.

Anyway, that's how things be. Keep us posted on your lives too!

Another picture of Cairo by night to end an entry, 'cause it's the thing to do.