Türkiye

First of all, really sorry this has taken so long. But no one's probably reading any more anyway, so whatever.

I'll start you off with the link to the pictures.

When we woke up on the train from Thessaloniki, we were still quite far from Istanbul, though we had trouble finding out exactly how far. We wound up finally getting into the city around 10 AM, I think, which was two hours later than expected. I was really shocked to see how unpunctual the trains were, as the vast majority of my experience with them comes from my time in Holland, where they're like clockwork. Once we arrived, we went to buy as many train tickets for our time in Turkey as we could. Unfortunately, the early ferry and train to Bandirma and then Izmir had been cancelled, so we had to settle for an afternoon one, which meant more time in Istanbul, but no time to see Izmir, which, while allegedly rather boring, is Turkey's third largest city. We didn't get too broke up about it. The bigger disappointment came when we learned that there were no spots left in the sleeper car for the train from Izmir to Ankara. But whatever... Oh! While buying the tickets, a couple came up to Peter and asked him if he was from Houlton (he was wearing his Houlton shirt). He said no, but that he has family there and is from Maine. Turned out they were from North Yarmouth! What are the odds!

So we left the station and headed for our hostel. After getting all our stuff set up there and eating some lunch, we headed over to the hostel where some of our friends from Cairo were staying. Our roommate Stoo and our friends Sam and Adam had all decided to spend their vacation in Istanbul, so we had hoped to meet up with them there. By the time we got to their hostel, however, it was one in the afternoon and they were of course out seeing the city. We moved on, hoping to meet up with them later.

With only one day in Istanbul, it was kinda tough to decide which sites to hit, but we went for the big ones. Our hostel was only about five minutes walk from Aya Sophia and the Blue Mosque. The former was closed that day, so we hit up the latter, which is one of the most beautiful structures I've ever seen. It's funny to think back to when I was thirteen and went there. At the time, Istanbul was the most exotic place I'd ever been to, and the Blue Mosque was pretty much the only aspect of Muslim culture I'd ever encountered. This time, Istanbul seemed like Cairo on downers. It's a beautiful city, but it's very Europeanized and incredibly clean. I've decided Cairo is like learning to play an instrument for fun. As a source of entertainment, watching a movie is much easier, but learning an instrument rewards effort. Cities like Athens and Istanbul and really any Western city are awesome, but being in them doesn't give you the same feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction, for lack of better terms.

After the Blue Mosque, we went to see the Hippodrome, which was very disappointing. We expected some sort of a big arena that you could go into. It turns out that nowadays it's basically just some part of town that they call the Hippodrome, or something. I dunno... it confused me. Anyway, there were some neatish pillars, one of which was taken from Luxor. All those countries just wish they could be Egypt. Give it up, guys. From there, we walked over to Topkapi Palace, the Versailles of Turkey. It was pretty sprawling and awe-inspiring, especially the Harem. We didn't get enough time to explore all the stuff, but we saw some neat things. Probably the most amusing part was a little museum that claimed to contain Moses' staff and Mohammed's footprint, as well as many other equally incredible objects.

After sitting outside the palace watching boats go through the Bosphorus, we left that part of town and took the (brand new) tram to the Grand Bazaar. This was another thing that overwhelmed me when I saw it eight years ago, but this time around it seemed tame compared to Khan el-Khalili. I didn't buy anything but some shampoo and toothpaste. It was I think at this point that we started to realize we might be getting into some real financial difficulties. When Peter called his mom the morning before (Sunday), she had said she'd put the money in my account as soon as she could, which meant Tuesday, as the banks are obviously closed on Sundays, and Monday was some sort of a stupid American holiday. It was now Monday evening, and we realized that at the rate we were going, if the money didn't happen to make it in the next day, we could run out very quickly. Matt's cash was running low as well, and we didn't know how soon his mom was going to be able to stick some more into my account. But we just crossed our fingers and assumed all would be well.

We took the tram back from the bazaar and while walking to our hostel, would ya believe it?, we ran into Stoo, Adam, and Sam. We walked back with them to their hostel and made our evening plans, and we also discovered that some of the girls we hang out with were staying in our very hostel! We went back and ran into them there, and after shooting the breeze for a bit, got our stuff ready for one of the most exciting experiences of the trip: a Turkish bath! Peter briefly described it in a previous entry, but I'll remind you. In a Turkish bath, you take off your clothes and put on just a towel, and then you go into a large stone sauna and sit for a while, exfoliating and whatnot. After that, you are given soap and a coarse rag to clean yourself, or if you pay a little more, a Turkish guy will do it for you. Matt wasn't quite comfortable with that part of the deal, but Peter and I were on board! It sounds a little weird, but everything we'd heard about it said that it was an amazingly relaxing experience, as well as a compulsory part of being in Turkey. And it was incredible. The sauna was very comfortable, and after laying there for ten minutes or so, we were motioned over by our respective bathers. They started by massaging our chests, backs, arms, and legs, which felt really good after a few days of carrying around heavy backpacks. Then they scrubbed our skin, which removed the last layer of the sunburn I'd acquired in the Sinai a couple weeks prior. After that they doused us with cool water and scrubbed us down. Finally, they rinsed us off again and we were allowed to sit around for as much longer as we wanted. The Turkish bath we went to, or hammam as they're called locally, is one of the oldest in Istanbul, from around the 15th century I believe, and it was incredibly beautiful just to lay on the warm stones and stare up at the dome. When we'd finally had enough, we went and changed into clean clothes and sat around drinking fresh squeezed juice. Fantastic. I've never felt that clean in my life.

We headed back to the hostel to meet the guys for dinner/festivities. It turned out they'd already eaten, but some of the girls were hungry, so we went to get some food. We found a cute little place in a side alley that was pretty decent. All in all a very pleasant time had by all. We returned to our hostel, which is apparently Istanbul's central partying spot for backpackers. There were lots of people out front drinking and smoking sheesha and generally having a good time. The guys were there, already pretty drunk, and believe it or not, Jay was there, too! He was in the middle of his own wild trip around the Middle East, had just gotten in to Istanbul, was taking a cab to his hostel, and he drove by the guys sitting on the street drinking. He jumped out of the cab long enough to say hi, ran back and dropped off his stuff, and then joined them. It was pretty ridiculous. Anyway, we sat around and most people drank or kept drinking, though I didn't really feel like it just then. There were so many Australians and New Zealanders, apparently because of Anzac Day, which commemorates the defeat of the Allied forces at Gallipoli during WWI. Every year, thousands of Aussies and Kiwis flock to Istanbul to make a pilgrimage to the site where many of their ancestors died trying to get supports past the Ottoman Empire to the Russians. Ataturk and his Ottoman troops, however, did a very good job at holding them off, though the battle lasted nine months and left a third of a million people dead. So there's your little history lesson. It would have been neat to go and see the battlefields, and they're right next to Troy, so we coulda hit that too, but I wouldn't have wanted to have done it at the absolute busiest time of the year. We didn't have time anyway.

So after our lovely night with the boys, we said goodbye for two weeks and went to bed. The next morning, we got up, had breakfast, checked out, and went to see a few more sites before our noon ferry. First we did the Aya Sophia, which is overwhelmingly impressive but much uglier than the Blue Mosque, which sits across from it. Matt liked it better, though. After spending an hour or so there, we headed for the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art, which had lots of cool rugs and Quran stands and whatnot. Overall I found it to be a fairly boring museum though. And so we headed off to the dock to grab our ferry and bid farewell to Istanbul. We only got a day there, but I feel like we saw a lot of good stuff and got a pretty good feel for it. It definitely deserves a longer stay though. Oh well, next time.

The ferry was pretty boring once we got used to how awesomely fast it was, and it was awesomely fast. We crossed the Sea of Marmara in two hours and arrived in Bandirma around 2:30. Our train to Izmir was leaving a little over an hour after that, and since we were hungry, we decided to get some food. Reasonable boys, us. Peter's mom was slated to put the money in that morning, which means mid to late afternoon in Turkey, at some point while we were on the train, so while we were in Bandirma we had to make do with what little money remained to us. I wasn't even sure if there was enough left in my account to make another withdrawal at an ATM. Between the three of us we had a little over twenty lira, which should have been enough for lunch. We sat down at a restaurant in the train station and had a modest meal, but we foolishly did not ask for prices or check a menu. With about fifteen minutes remaining until our train's departure, we called for the bill. The waiter came over and began tallying everything up on a napkin. We watched him as he wrote the price of each thing we had eaten. All was going well, we'd reached maybe ten lira, until he hit our main courses, which totaled more than twenty lira alone! The three of us looked at each other, our faces written all over with "Oh shit," and we managed to communicate to the waiter that we didn't have enough money. We asked him to guide me to an ATM, and he pointed to Peter's watch. Thinking he wanted Peter to give him the watch in return for the meal, Peter shook his head. He just wanted to know how much time we had until our train left though. Seeing that we had a little over ten minutes, he motioned to me to follow him. We'd all expected him to take me across the street or something. Instead, we jumped in his car and shot across town to an ATM. There was no parking nearby, so he parked where he could and I got out and ran to the machine, where there was of course a line, though thankfully not a huge one. When it was my turn, I went to do the transaction, praying it would go through. I requested fifty lira, and the machine told me to wait. I listened attentively, and when I heard the machine begin to count money, it was the most relieved I'd been in a very, very long time.

So I ran back to the car and we rushed back to the train station. Jumping out of the car, I flashed the money at Matt and Peter, who in turn showed me faces as relieved as mine. We paid and got on the train in time. It wasn't until we were safely moving away from Bandirma that we started to lament how absurdly overpriced that lunch was. But oh well, we made it. People have since asked me if I was ever afraid in the Middle East, and I always say no. But that's a lie. That was the one time I was afraid.

The train plodded through northwestern Turkey for the next eight hours or so. It was pleasant enough, and the scenery was really beautiful. Instead of reading any of the many books I had to finish before my return to Cairo, I took this opportunity to digest just about every page of the background and history sections of my Lonely Planet guide to the Middle East. It was good to get a deeper understanding of the whole region.

The train didn't actually take us all the way to Izmir. The tracks right around the city were being worked on or something, so it dropped us off about half an hour north, and we took a bus the rest of the way. At this point, we were just about out of money, and the walk from the train station to an ATM was a very tense one. We got there, and I decided first to check my balance, which the ATM was unable to do. A lot of ATMs in the Middle East don't take my card, so our first reaction was to leave that machine, thinking my card was unusable in it. We started to look for another ATM, which normally wouldn't have been a big deal, except that it was almost 10 PM, and Izmir wasn't our final stop. We had to get to our hotel in Kusadasi, which was still an hour and a half or so away, and we didn't know how late the buses ran. It was then that it occurred to me that perhaps that ATM just couldn't do a balance check. Jogging back over to it, I tried to take out a pretty big sum, thinking that this would let us know if Peter's money had gone in. When we heard the machine counting, we all squealed with joy (maybe not Matt) and ran to get a cab to the bus station. We caught a bus to Kusadasi that was leaving right then, and we got to our hostel no problem. There we were treated like kings, since it still wasn't quite tourist season, and we were some of the only people staying in the hostel. After having some dinner, we went to bed.

The next morning, we all threw on our bathing suits and walked to the beach to try for a swim in the Aegean. When I was thirteen, Kusadasi was one of the ports my cruise ship pulled in to, and I've always regretted that I didn't get enough time to go swimming in the beautiful beaches of that town. Eight years later, however, I had a lot of trouble even finding a beach. Instead we explored the remains of an old pirate castle on an island just off the coast. We headed back to our hostel after that to check out, but first I called a few places to find out about taking a ferry to Cyprus should we get turned away at the Syrian border. As our hopeful entry into Syria drew nearer, I became more and more nervous about not getting in. The places I called did not help my anxiety. The ferry I had hoped to take to Cyprus as a contingency plan would not be running until May, though they did give me the number for a ferry that ran from another town along the Mediterranean coast. This was better than nothing, but the more I thought about our alternate plan, the more expensive and difficult I realized it would be. Ferries from Turkey to Cyprus are pretty cheap, but they really don't exist from Cyprus to Israel, and while I believe there is one to Port Said in Egypt, that one is rather pricey. To make matters worse, Cyprus is divided into halves based on political disputes between the Turks and the Greeks over the island. All Turkish ferries go to the Northeastern half, Turkish Cyprus, a country which is unrecognized by every other country in the world save for Turkey. Therefore, all ferries and cruise ships to Israel and Egypt obviously leave from Greek Cyprus. We'd have to cross a disputed border in order to get out of the country, and while the border is becoming demilitarized and easier to cross, it just didn't seem particularly fun. At this point I began spending every spare moment praying that we would make it into Syria.

We also went to an internet cafe that morning in Kusadasi where wrote an email to my mom letting her know what had happened and asking her if she could put a little more money in my account to help us get through until everything got worked out. After that I checked my online banking to confirm that Peter's mom had in fact put the money in. I found that money had indeed gone in, but only $500. That was more than enough to get us out of the rut we were in, but Peter had asked his mom to transfer $2000 of his money to the account. Assuming the $500 was from Peter's mom, he wrote to her asking her to put the rest in at some point fairly soon, and we kept going.

After checking out, we took a minibus to Selcuk, another big backpacking town, and the closest spot to Ephesus, our big destination in the region. Though we only spent about half an hour in Selcuk proper, two pretty hilarious events took place. The first concerned our luggage. Every place we'd go, we'd find a spot to leave our backpacks because, as I mentioned in the Greece entry, they were a bitch to lug around with us. We asked the folks where we purchased bus tickets back to Izmir for that evening if we could leave them there, and they motioned toward the back of the office at a spot where we could put them. Peter and I had no problem setting our bags down, but Matt somehow lost his balance as he got rid of his. Reaching out toward a curtain hanging from the wall to steady himself, he soon discovered that there was in fact no wall behind said curtain. The curtain was instead covering a little nook within which there were more bags. Matt started to fall into the curtain and he lashed out at anything around him to keep himself up. As he fell farther in, he tripped again over the bags which were inside. Finally after about fifteen seconds of delayed falling, he hit the ground somewhere behind the curtain. I saw the whole thing, and by this point, I was laughing so hard I was crying. My laughter and the noise of Matt's fall drew the attention of Peter as well as the Turkish guys working at the bus station. As soon as every one realized what had happened, they were laughing just as hard, and the Turkish guys were all explaining it in laughter-riddled Turkish to the others who hadn't been around. Matt got back on his feet and walked out proudly. "Laugh it up, asshole!" he said to me with his hands in the air. And laugh it up I did. It was probably one of the five funniest things I've ever seen in my life, and I laughed all the way down the street to the ATM where the next hilarious thing happened.

Actually this one wasn't nearly as hilarious, and at the time, it was somewhat frightening. I got some money out of the ATM, only to forget to take my card as I walked away. Fortunately there was a group of nice Turks behind us who got our attention and I retrieved my card without it being eaten by the machine or, heaven forbid, stolen. That was pretty stupid, but once we were in the clear, it was pretty funny. If I'd lost that card, then we really woulda been up shit creek.

So we walked from Selcuk to Ephesus, which was only a couple kilometers. On the way, we stopped at the remains of the Temple of Artemis, which was once one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Unfortunately all that remains of it is some rubble and one column, but I actually found that really awesome, and it led to some musings about what American ruins tourists will be exploring two thousand years from now, and what will be left of them.

Ephesus was just as awesome as I remembered it, and Peter and Matt had a grand old time walking around it too. It was a beautiful day, and in spite of it not being tourist season yet, there were a shitload of people there, especially Asians. So many Asian tourists in Turkey! We left the main center of Ephesus and continued walking around, exploring some of the other ruins nearby which I'd missed eight years ago. It was a really nice time, and we even snuck into the off-limits section of some ruins, though they didn't make it very hard for us to do so.

We decided to start heading back to Selcuk to catch our bus. We thought we had plenty of time to do so, but we had to walk around the hill against which Ephesus is set, and it took us longer than expected. If we'd walked, we probably would've made it, though it would've been close. Initially we decided to get a cab, but there were none to be found, so we decided to hitch-hike. I'd read a little about hitch-hiking in the Middle East in the Lonely Planet, and while the book didn't recommend it, it said that it's most of the time very safe and much more common than in the States. So we stuck our thumbs out, or rather we pointed at the road, which is the way you hitch-hike in the Middle East since putting your thumb up is considered vaguely offensive. After a couple cars went by, a family in their truck pulled over. I leaned in the window and said "Otogar," which is Turkish for bus station, and the driver motioned to the bed. We hopped in and off we went. It was awesome! The best part was there was a little kid who was making faces at us from the cab the whole time. We got to the otogar with plenty of time to spare, and we felt oh-so-resourceful too.

Getting back into Izmir, we grabbed something to eat before our overnight train to Ankara left. Once again we had to take a bus to the train, but once we were on, it was pretty comfortable, though we were all still a little miffed that we'd failed to nab spots in the sleeper. We made it though. The train was of course a couple hours late, but we weren't too upset. What I was upset about was the fact that the Lonely Planet has maps of tiny ass little towns in Turkey that no backpacker would ever have to deal with and yet it has no map of Ankara, the capital of the country and it's second biggest city. Needless to say we had a little trouble finding our way around, but once we got the metro worked out and found the center of the city, which turned out to be very close to the train station, we were okay. First we went to an internet cafe, where we discovered that Peter's mom hadn't put any money in yet, and that $500 that had saved our asses in Izmir had been my mom just putting some money in because she was concerned and wanted to make sure I was doing okay. I hadn't told her anything about Peter's issue, and the money had gone in before I sent her that email. Of course, that morning, she got the email and thought that the $500 hadn't been enough, so she rushed over and put another $500 in. Peter's mom, it turned out, wanted to wait for his father to get back from a trip out of the state before she dealt with Peter's money. I guess Peter didn't make the gravity of the situation clear enough to her. He did after that though, and the email he sent kept her up all night worrying. It was definitely a bit of a SNAFU, but we made it out alive and stayed liquid and after that, all of our parents, Matt's included, were so worried about us that we had plenty of money. Pretty ridiculous.

So we went to see a couple of Ankara's sites. We started with the Museum of Anatolian Culture, which basically chronicles everything that has gone down in the region from the dawn of humankind onward. It was really sweet actually. There were cave paintings and goddess mother statues (the fat little fertile chick), Hittite reliefs and relics, Greek pottery, Roman statues. It was probably my favorite museum of the trip and one of my favorite museums I've ever been to.

From there we headed up to the Citadel, where Matt got hassled by kids for money and we were afforded a beautiful view of all of Ankara. When we first entered the city, my opinion of it had not been very high. It seemed kind of dingy and fake compared to Istanbul, but after the museum and the citadel, I liked it a lot more. So we headed back down the hill to the metro, which we took to Ataturk's Mausoleum, which looked really sweet, and I felt like we owed it to the guy after seeing his picture so much all over the country, but we were too late and it was closed. We got some dinner and went to wait for our bus to Goreme, our gateway to Cappadocia. I sat in front of two very friendly Dutch women who were also going to Cappadocia, and I got to speak very terrible Dutch to them and talk to them a little about travel in Europe and the Middle East until we were hushed by the "flight attendants," for lack of a better term. The buses in Turkey are ridonk. They really have flight attendants, or people who basically fulfill an equivalent function. You get a snack and some water, and they come around with disinfectant with which you wash your hands and your face. Also, they always show a movie or the news. Crazy! We got to Goreme pretty late and went straight to our hostel, where we were staying in a cave! I had been really excited about this, but it proved to be somewhat disappointing. It seemed more like a damp basement than a cave. Oh well. It was nice enough.

When we woke up the next day we found ourselves totally unequipped to resist the temptation of renting mopeds, so we did. And it was probably the best decision we ever made. We each paid thirty lira and got the scooters for five blissful hours. First we rode them over to the Goreme Open Air Museum, which is the region's main attraction. Cappadocia is tough to describe. It's kind of a place you have to see and experience to appreciate, but basically the terrain looks like something you'd see in a fairy tale. It's the kind of place that makes you wish you understood geology. There's all these weird natural rock spires and caves and stuff, and about a thousand years ago or so, people started carving churches and houses into these caves, and so now it really looks like something you'd see in a fairy tale. I just pictured all these midgets and fairies running around the place. It was pretty cool. It may have deserved more time than we gave it, but we were really excited about getting back to the mopeds, so we left after maybe forty-five minutes. Cappadocia is a huge region, and we decided just to drive around exploring. The roads were pretty empty, so it was just very relaxing cruising around and looking at the whacky scenery. We also took the mopeds off-roading a little. Probably not the best decision, but we had a great time, and we didn't break anything, neither on the bikes nor on ourselves. After driving around for a couple hours, we decided to climb some of the whacky looking hills. It turns out that part of the reason the rocks are molded into such strange formations is that they're very soft and easily broken and shaped, which made climbing the cliff faces incredibly difficult. You'd grab onto a rock to pull yourself up and the rock would just crumble into a million pieces, and then you'd start sliding down. Plants were the key, as they gave the soil some integrity, but many of the plants were sharp and pokey, probably to keep people and animals from dislodging their root systems while climbing them. Peter and I had some trouble as a result, but Matt scurried up the hill like he was born and bred on it. I gave up after a little while and I wanted to get more out of our mopeds before we had to return them anyway, but Matt went for the summit, which turned out to be farther away than he had thought. He made it though. On the way back out, we had to do a little off-roading to get back to the on-roading, and Matt made a turn too fast and fell off the moped. Not a huge deal because we were all falling off here and there, but just as he did it, a big tour bus packed with people drove by and they all laughed at him. It was great.

So we kept driving and saw a few more things before returning the bikes. We were pretty exhausted after a day of driving and climbing in the hot weather, so we went to get some dinner before the most dreaded commute of the trip... a twelve hour bus ride to Antakya, right on the border with Syria. Originally we'd planned to stay two nights in Goreme, but I'd thought Antakya was closer than it in fact was. When we found out how long it would take us to get there, we decided to take the overnight bus. There was some misunderstanding with our tickets when we transfered in Kaysari, but we got that cleared up. The bus ride was of course pretty uncomfortable, though I was surprised by how much sleep I got. We got to Antakya around 8 AM and hopped on a bus headed to Aleppo, our first destination in Syria, should we get that far. Of course, since we were Americans, we had to forfeit the Syrian part of our journey because we would take so long at the border, and there was a chance we might not get in, though it was heartening to find that the ticket salesman and the drivers batted no eye when they saw we had American passports and we were going to Syria without a visa.

It only took forty-five minutes or so to get from Antakya to the border. Oh, and by the way, Antakya is the biblical Antioch, where Christians were first called Christians, so there you go. We got to the border and said goodbye to Turkey, got our exit stamps, and I was relieved to read the terms of the visa and see that we had thirty full days since the issue of our Turkish visas to return to the country and use it again, which meant if we got refused entry to Syria, we wouldn't have to buy a new Turkish visa. And so we walked to the Syrian border and into the offices to apply for our visas. Our time in Turkey was over, so we hoped.

To Helwan and Back

Peter, Matt, and me in front of the Pyramid of Djoser. Our camels are named (from left to right) Ramses, Whiskey, and Banana.

Hello again. So here we are, on the cusp of another ridiculous trip. Tonight at 11:30, we head out to catch a bus to the airport for our 2:45 AM flight to Athens. It's pretty crazy. We're of course incredibly excited. We'll get into Athens around 6 AM and spend the whole day there. Athens is way too diverse and

Green water pouring out of a canal pump "on the way" to the camel market.

interesting a city to be seen in a day, but we're gonna try our best. At mid- night that night, we'll catch a train to make the five-hour journey to Thessalo- niki, Greece's second largest city, where we'll see Peter's roommate Ka- sia for a few days. On Saturday night, we'll hop on a sleeper to Istanbul, which should get us in around 8 AM the next morning. I've never taken a sleeper before, and we'll be taking three during this trip. Awesome! We'll do Istanbul until Tuesday morning, at which point we'll board a ferry to cross the Sea of Marmara. When we hit land, we'll grab another train that will take us to Izmir, Turkey's third largest city. Allegedly it's pretty boring, so we won't stay there long before taking a bus to Kusadasi, a little town on the Aegean Sea that is really cute, if a little touristy. The next morning, it's off to Ephesus to see some sweet Roman ruins, and then that night we go back to Izmir to catch our second sleeper, this one to Ankara, Turkey's capital. We'll do Ankara for the day and then that night head for Goreme, our new destination in the Cappadocia region (in lieu of Kaysari), where we'll stay in a cave for two nights! Then, on Saturday morning, it's off to the Syrian border, which should take up the greater part of that day. Hopefully we'll make Aleppo by midnight or so, find a hostel, and get a little rest before trying to see that city in one day. At

Birqesh Camel Market.

midnight, our third sleeper train leaves for Damascus, getting us there at 6:30 AM. We'll stay in Damascus until 7 AM the next day, which once again isn't enough time to do the city justice, but oh well. After that, we'll head to Amman, where we'll try to meet up with Prunie Brox from Oberlin. The next morning we take an early bus to Petra, another place we won't spend enough time in, apparently. That same night, we'll try to make it into Israel at the southern border. We probably won't be able to get to Jerusalem that day, so we'll get a hostel in Eilat, an Israeli resort town. There's a bus to Jerusalem at 7 AM the next morning (we're now at Tuesday, May 1), which should take about four hours. Then it's just hanging in Israel for three days with Sari Gardner from Oberlin, her boyfriend Casey, and my mom, who will be flying in the day after we get there. On Sunday we'll take a bus to the Israeli border, cross it on foot, and grab another bus to Cairo. Et voila... our krazy trip will be at an end. I really can't even begin to believe such a thing is about to happen.

Ross and Sam and the others look angry while Stoo argues with cab drivers.

Nor can I believe that, once we get back, we've got less than a month left in Cairo! Our time here has flown by. I've tried to pack the last few weekends with places around Cairo I haven't seen yet, since there's so much of the rest of Egypt I still need to check out, and I'm going to be using every weekend in May to do so. The strangest thing about it is how detached I feel from the me that came to Cairo in late January. I don't think I've actually changed that much, but I just feel like something big happened between now and then, something that took a long time and that makes the beginning of my time here feel different. It's hard to explain.

But anyway, two weekends ago, we didn't do quite as much as I would have liked. In truth, we did almost nothing. We tried to do something, but had very little luck. Early Friday morning, we got up and headed for the Birqesh Camel Market. This is where the majority of the camels in the Cairo area are purchased after being led up through the desert all the way from the Sudan. Apparently it's supposed to be

Peter, Martha, and Matt in front of the Pyramid of Djoser.

crazy and fascinating, in a fairly grotesque way. The camels are herded around and beaten for incentive, peo- ple are yelling, and there's so much activity that there's barely room to move. Unfortu- nately, our cab drivers had no idea where it was and got lost for an hour or so. Once we finally showed up, we'd all but missed it, and they still wanted to overcharge us to get in. We decided it wasn't even worth it anymore, and so we demanded to pay less than what the cabbies wanted to charge us (which was way too much anyway). A long argument ensued between Stoo and the drivers, impressively all in Arabic, and he managed to get us rides back for half the price. On the bright side, we did get to see some camels, and the taxi drivers' crackpot route home took us by the Pyramids of Giza, which is always fun.

Martha rides off into the desert.

This last week- end I felt pretty good about how much we got done, even if it was slightly less than I'd planned. On Friday, Peter, Matt, Martha, and I got up early to go see the Saqqara Pyramids. A lot of people don't realize that there are many more pyramids in Egypt than just the famous trio at Giza. Right near Cairo, there are two entire other complexes: Saqqara and Dahshur (which we'd also hoped to see, but we ran out of time). Saqqara is famous for its step pyramid, the Pyramid of Djoser. This was the first major pyramid completed and was also the first major stone construction ever built in the world. When it was created almost five thousand years ago, it was the world's tallest building, a title it didn't hold for long, as its creation ushered in the greatest wave of pyramid building in Egyptian history. The complex is located about ten miles south by southwest of the city center. We had hoped to take the metro as far south as we could to Helwan, picking up Martha along the way in Maadi. At Helwan, we planned to grab a taxi, which would

More cameling.

take us across the river to Saqqara. However, it seemed that the con- ception of the Pyramids at Giza as the only Pyramids does- n't just exist in the West, as that is pre- cisely where our driver took us, backtrack- ing all the way to Cairo and then going over to Giza, all in spite of the fact that I repeatedly told him in Arabic that I wanted the Pyramids in Saqqara, not the ones in Giza. It was a terrible parallel to our camel market experience from the week prior, especially when we finally got to Saqqara an hour later than we should have and I proceeded to argue with the driver in Arabic, at which I am much worse than Stoo. He was demanding twice the acceptable price, so finally I just threw the money on the passenger seat and walked away, a very effective method for dealing with someone who is trying to rip you off.

St. George's Monastery in Coptic Cairo.

After that unpleasantness, Saqqara was very fun and wicked cool. We checked out the Im- hotep Museum, which is filled with neat artifacts and even a mum- my! Imhotep was the architect of the Pyramid of Djoser, as well as a bunch of other stuff, I think. After the museum, we continued along to the pyramids. The step pyramid was the only really impressive one. The others looked more like heaps of stone and sand than like pyramids, but they were neat in a run-down, prototypical kinda way. After walking around for a little while, we decided to ride camels, except for Martha, who opted for a horse. It was really fun, though our guides were a little too in our face about asking for more money and trying to provide us with prostitutes and hashish on the side. But they were still very friendly. We never

Ross and Sam are captivated by the Coptic God.

went faster than a slow trot, which was okay by me. Those things are freakin' tall! Our friend Adam fell off one at Giza, and even though you're falling on to sand, I wouldn't want that to happen to me. After the camels, we wandered around the ruins, which are poorly guarded. This was both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in that it allowed us total freedom to explore and touch hieroglyphics and look in little temples and caves and whatnot, a curse in that it also meant that there was copious graffiti, which was also something of a blessing and a curse in and of itself. These temples have been poorly guarded since their creation, which means that while, yes, there is stupid American graffiti, there is also Greek and Roman and Arabic graffiti. Pretty neat, actually. All in all, it was a very fun trip. The pyramids weren't quite as cool as those at Giza, but they are definitely a must-see.

The ruins of Fustat, the third city to be established near modern Cairo and the first that was Islamic.

The next day we decided to stay a little closer to home, and so we went to Coptic Cairo. For those of you not fa- miliar with them, the Coptic Chris- tians have been in Egypt longer than the Mus- lims, dating back to the first few centuries after Christ's death, which also makes them some of the oldest Christians. They are neither Orthodox, Protestant, nor Catholic, though they are probably closest to the last one. They have their own pope, who was only recently recognized by the Catholic Church, which means that they've finally stopped badgering the Copts after a couple millenia. The root of the word "Copt" is the same as that of the word "Egypt," which shows how closely intertwined their histories are. Also, I read that since Copts are far more strict than Muslims about not marrying outside of their religion, consequently they are more closely related to the ancient Egyptians, which is kind of neat, if somewhat pointless. Anyway, Copts make up almost all the Christians in Egypt, who comprise about five percent of the total population. Most of them live in Cairo or Alexandria, where their pope is. Coptic Cairo is one of the oldest parts of the city. It is at the site of Babylon-in-Egypt, which was founded by the Romans and was the second city

The Mosque of Amr, technically the oldest mosque in Africa, though as you can see it's been extensively renovated.

created in the basic area where Cairo is (after Mem- phis). Alleged- ly, this is where the Holy Family lived while in Egypt. It was a pretty cute area, and consequently it didn't feel much like Cai- ro. We wander- ed around through churches and monasteries and cemeter- ies, and then we headed away from Coptic Cairo to see some other nearby sites, including Fustat, the next city after Babylon-in-Egypt and the first Muslim city. It was inhabited from the seventh century until the twelfth. By that time, it was mostly abandoned anyway, and as the crusades neared the new city which had sprung up to its north, Al-Qahirah (Cairo), they decided to burn Fustat to keep it from being used as a base from which the crusaders might attack. It burned for more than fifty days, which means that unfortunately the ruins nowadays are pretty much nonexistent. It's just a bunch of bricks and rubble in the middle of a large open field. But it was still pretty neat to see what something that huge can turn into.

From Fustat, we went on to the Mosque of Amr, which was built around the same time as Fustat and is thus the oldest mosque in Africa. However, it has been rebuilt and revamped extensively since then, which is why Ibn Tulun often gets that distinction. I was much more impressed by Ibn Tulun overall anyway, though Amr was very peaceful. On our way back to the metro, we hit the Ben Ezra Synagogue, which is the only truly functioning synagogue in Egypt, though there are others. There are apparently only around two hundred native Jews left in Egypt. There were more here a hundred years ago, but in the period leading up to and immediately following the creation of Israel, most left. Anyway, the ones still around are stingy about pictures, apparently. I tried to snap one (without a flash) inside the synagogue and got kicked out as a result. Whatever.

Other than that, we've been doing a lot of work mostly, catching up from our Eurotrip. Peter has been especially hard hit recently. As much as I get on his case about not writing blog entries, he has some pretty good excuses. First of all, unlike just about everyone else studying abroad, his grades transfer, which means he

Ross, Stoo, and me... dayumn...

has a slightly less "relaxed" time here than the rest of us. Second of all, the engineering department happens to be one of the only departments at AUC that is comparably difficult to a university in America, so he has a signi- ficant amount of work to do in general. Lastly, he has charitably volunteered his time to build a website for STAR, the organization with which we are teaching refugees English. They have fundraising issues, and they've decided putting a cyberface on the group could help them get some support. Peter's never actually made a website before, though he is familiar with HTML coding. Still, he had to do a lot of research and spend a lot of time trying things out and working out the kinks before he got it right. Additionally, STAR is absurdly disorganized, which means he keeps getting told to do one thing which then gets negated and so he's told to redo the website in this way and that way. Fortunately, after about a month of fairly regular work on the site, it looks like he's just about done. So yeah, I guess that stuff is a little more important than the blog... I guess. He does plan on writing, though, I think. Hopefully before we leave in June.

The last big presence in my life during the last few weeks has been Naguib Mahfouz. You probably don't know him, since he's criminally underrated, but he's the only Arab ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He died a few years ago, but for most of his incredibly long life, he wrote prolifically and excellently. In the last few weeks, I've read two of his books and am working on a third. Miramar was the first, and so far definitely my favorite. It's about a bunch of people living in a pension in Alexandria in the 1960s, just after a major revolution in Egyptian politics and life. They all appear okay on the surface, but underneath, each are unhappy, and thus they serve as an allegory for the nation itself. It's really great. The next was Mirrors, which is a very strange concept. It's a series of about thirty-five short (two to four pages each) descriptions of all the important people in the narrator's life. Through each one, you learn more about the other characters as well as about the narrator himself. There wasn't much of a plot, and at times it got a little boring, but it was a very interesting style and parts of it were really well done. Now I'm reading Midaq Alley, which is one of his most popular. It takes place on a real alley in Khan El-Khalili (see a previous entry) and, like Miramar, discusses a group of people who serve as a microcosm of all of Egypt, or even all the world in this case. It's good, though not as good as Miramar, which I highly suggest to everyone, regardless of their interest or lack thereof in Arab culture. It's a great book. One of the best things about Mahfouz is the degree to which he has informed me about recent Egyptian history, which is really fascinating, especially considering how close I am to the spots where so much of it happened. Just down the street at Midan Tahrir, Egyptians protested the British presence in the 50s, and they were answered by British tanks which rolled in from across the Nile and shot into the crowds. I read about that in a novel describing it happening while sitting in the middle of Midan Tahrir. Very crazy.

Anyway, I have to get all ready to head out in a few hours. I'll try to update here and there along the journey, but since we'll be very busy traveling and afterwards entertaining my mom, it might be a little while until another significant entry. Have a good April!

One last picture of the Step Pyramid. I suppose the world's oldest major stone construction deserves it.

Wahlkomm... to za MUHSSHEEEN!!

Cairo's hottest new band.

Yo yo yo everybody. Here's a quick update, but don't expect too much, cause the last week has been kinda slow. Here are the highlights (and some other stuff I added just for fun!):

The minaret at Ibn Tulun.

Last weekend, my room- mates Stoo and Ross, our friends Matt and Sam, and I all went to the Mosque of Ibn Tulun. It's the oldest mosque (9th century, I think) in Cairo and the biggest as well. It's definitely one of the most impressive things I've seen so far here. The architecture is very simple, and the central open area (there's probably some proper term, but I don't know it) feels like a desert with the sun (and the smog?) beating down from above. The spiral minaret is another highpoint (no pun intended!). Allegedly, Ibn Tulun, the man for whom the mosque was made, was idly spinning a piece of paper around his finger when someone caught him. To disguise his time wasting, when asked what he was doing, he replied, "designing my minaret!" It worked out pretty well, cause it's a sweet minaret, and it has great views of the city. But it would've been nice if Ibn Tulun had designed some guard rails as well. Being at the top is a little terrifying. Meh.. who needs 'em!?

Me putting the "Tul" back in Ibn Tulun.

Later that day we decided to check out the City of the Dead. A good portion of east- ern Cairo is covered by graveyards and tombs. In a city with a housing prob- lem like Cairo's, it's no surprise that those graveyards serve a dual purpose. About half a million homeless Cairenes sleep in the City of the Dead each night. In the day they leave and wander the city, but they return every night. It's a pretty creepy thought, to live and sleep by your

A tomb in the City of the Dead.

ancestors. It's nothing like I imagined it. Of course, hearing that people lived in cemeteries, I imagined the traditional expansive and green American cemetary. The Egyptian style is totally different. It's a maze of mausoleums and above-ground tombs, mostly. The cemeteries stretch for miles, with a mosque thrown in here, a mound of garbage there. Wandering around the area was pretty surreal. We went in the day, so none of the homeless were there yet, but nevertheless, it felt a lot like voyeurism. Not just of the living, but of the dead too. Many of the mausoleums, while they're dark inside, have large windows through which you can look. You can't see much without additional light, but I took a few pictures with my flash on, and I half expected to see a ghost or something in the exposure, silly as it may sound.

A "satellite city" of a different color! HA!

That was prob- ably the big- gest event of the last week or so. Other than that, we've been hanging around mostly. Matt's friend Dave and his girlfriend Jen just left after spending a little over a week here. They were both very nice and it was fun to have some visitors, even if they weren't mine. A lot of the roommates are getting visitors soon, so the apartment is going to be a little crazier than normal. This weekend Stoo has a good friend coming. Ross' parents are coming in around the same time. I think next weekend Jay's parents are coming. I don't even know after that. My mom bought her ticket though, so she's coming for sure! She's going to meet us in Israel in May and hang out there for a

Ibn Tulun.

few days, then take the bus with us to Cairo. The last weekend she's here we're gonna hit up Alexandria. I'm really excited to see her. I miss people, especially my parents, a lot more here for some reason. It probably has something to do with dist- ance and security and whatnot. Whatever. Oh, and speaking of Israel and visitors, the only other people who I thought were gonna visit me bailed out a little while ago. Losers. Sari from Oberlin and her boyfriend Casey are studying in Jerusalem, and they were going to come sometime in April, but because they don't want to take the bus and they couldn't find a satisfactory flight, they've decided not to. Personally, I don't think they looked hard enough for the flights, especially since my friend Hannah just got visited by a friend of hers studying in Israel who flew direct for the price Sari and Casey wanted. Oh well. Their loss. And Peter and I will still see them when we're in Israel, so there's that.

OH! Last Wednesday we went to see... get this, an Egyptian Pink Floyd cover band! It was hilarious! But only a little. It was actually quite good. They had the arrangements perfect, and one of the guys did the most amazing David Gilmour. The other guy had a wicked thick accent, which I thought added to the experience. "Hay! Taichur! Leave zose kidz aloaan!" Peter plans to include something about them in his forthcoming entry, which has gone from being a quick discussion of the symphony to encompassing everything there is about music in Africa's biggest city, judging from the amount of time it's been kicking around in his head anyway. "Hey Peter. When are you gonna write your next entry?" "Oh, I wanted to wait until we'd gone to [insert concert here] so I could include it." Oh, and then I throttle him, usually.

More Ibn Tulun.

This past weekend was pretty low-key. Thursday night, Jay, Peter, and I decided we wanted to eat something other than Egyptian cuisine and American fast food, so we went on a long sojourn to track down a Chinese place. We didn't find one, but we did happen upon a very good Korean restaurant. I'd missed the taste of MSG. The next day was laid back as well. Peter had a big test to study for, so he was out of commission. I discovered that Phil enjoys cribbage, and we had maybe the closest, most intense game I've ever played. He won by one peg. ONE PEG! After bumming around the apartment for a while, Stoo, Sharif, Phil, and I all went out with Hannah and her aforementioned friend (Michelle) from Israel. We went to Sequoia, an upscale restaurant in Zamalek. My god... it was one of the nicest places I've ever been in my life. It's right on the Nile, and the atmosphere is perfect. Even the music isn't too loud. The food is excellent as well, not to mention the shisha. Really, it's like the Cheesecake Factory of shisha. They bring out a giant tray with probably forty different flavors. I went for cola, which wasn't the best. Sharif's rose was quite nice.

Our Felucca coming in to port.

After that, we went back to Hannah's apartment and got into one of the biggest, most intense debates I've wit- nessed in a while. I say witnessed because I wasn't as much a part of it as the others. It was over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and I just don't know as much about it as my friends here do, nor am I quite as invested in it, I don't think. Sharif and Stoo are both Arabs, and Hannah and her friend Michelle are both Jewish, so their interest needs no explanation. Phil just knows his shit, but it was mostly an argument between those first four. Finally, at 4AM, we left and came home... and stayed up until 6 doing absolutely nothing. On Saturday, after Peter finished his exam, we hung out for a little while before going on a felucca ride with Matt, Dave, Jen, Martha, Hannah, and Michelle. It was a really beautiful night, and even though we didn't get on the boat until just after sunset, it was still a great time. The next day was once again pretty lackadaisical. We'd been craving some good old fashioned steak and taters, so Martha and Sarah, one of Martha's friends from Maadi, came over and we had ourselves a nice little dinner. Unfortunately, I started feeling really sick afterwards, and I wound up going to bed around 9:30. I didn't fall asleep for several hours, however. I was freezing at first, but after pumping the heat for a while, I started to get really hot and sweaty. At some point I entered a half-dream,

Peter and Martha relax on the felucca.

half-awake state in which I believed that I had discovered an alternate method of sleeping which somehow involved flying all around the world at absurd speeds. I was legitimately convinced of this until I had been awake for about an hour or so the next day. When I woke up, I felt good enough to go to class, but after sitting there for twenty minutes or so, I started feeling pretty sick again. I went home early, bought some Advil, and took a long nap. After I woke up, I felt a little better, but I was still a little off, which was too bad. My St. Patty's Day was, consequently, not too exciting. The good news is I felt right as rain this morning when I woke up. I'm still a little funky... stuffy nose and whatnot, but other than that, I feel great. I think it might have been food poisoning or something. Or AIDS, if I wanna believe WebMD. Hypochondriac's nightmare.

In other news, I got a house for next year back at Oberlin! I'm living with Liz Segroves, Eric Gibbs, and Big Rachel. We got a place on Pleasant St, which is over by the Art Museum. Not the best location necessarily, but with a bike it won't be a big deal. Plus it's sweet just to have a house! All of us have terrible, and I mean terrible lottery numbers, so we were praying for an okay apartment on Union St at best. It was nevertheless a pleasant surprise to get our own house. You can see a picture of it here.

So we're off to Europe tomorrow morning, bright and early. We are of course wicked excited, though we didn't anticipate quite the level of SNAFU that skipping a few days of class might elicit. I have a paper due the day I get back; Peter has a final. Also, two days after we get back, we leave Cairo again to go to the Sinai for a weekend with some friends. Crazy! Hopefully we'll get a chance to post something about our trip to Europe before then. Hope all is well.

The call to prayer at Ibn Tulun. We hear this all over the city, from our apartment (less so) and from classes (oh yeah), five times a day, every day.

We're Going to Europe! and Other Causes for Excitement

Gaam'at Al-Azhar, one of the oldest universities in the world.

Hello everybody! So our long, tiresome search for a good Easter Break destination is at an end. It actually wasn't all that tiresome, or long... we were basically deciding between the Sudan, Paris, and Amsterdam. Unfortunately our little poll down below didn't do much to help us. There were only five votes at the time of writing: one for Paris, one for Amsterdam, one for Helsinki, and two for Khartoum. Oh well. There's still one day left to vote, so do it up. Anyway, I think

Phil and Stoo chucklin' up a storm.

the Sudan was winning until, after copious internet booking problems, we found a round-trip flight that goes into Amsterdam and flies out of Paris for compar- atively cheap. On Wed- nesday, March 18th, we head to Cairo International to fly EgyptAir to Am- sterdam where we'll stay for two nights. That Friday, we'll catch the high speed train to Paris. It's about a four hour ride, but it's a wicked nice train, so we're excited about that. In Paris, we'll meet up with my good friend Franny Brock from Oberlin for some French fun. We'll be there until Tuesday afternoon, when we head back to Al Qahirah. Peter and I are both wicked excited. As most of you probably know, I lived in Holland for ten months when I was twelve and thirteen years old. I've been back once since, but that was freshman year of high school, which believe it or not was already six years ago! Gee ain't it funny how time just slips away. Anyway, I can't wait to go back and experience the city and nation as an adult. We're staying in Amsterdam, but one

Kellie and Ross. This and the last picture are both in Ross' room, which is pretty much hangout central.

day we're going to take the train up to Alkmaar and rent bikes to go to Ber- gen, the little town by the North Sea where I lived. I've contacted a bunch of my friends from my time there, and hopefully I'll get to see a few of them, though many have dispersed around the world. Friggin' cosmopolitans. As for Paris, although I was just there a year ago (almost to the day!) visiting my sister, I'm still wicked excited. It's a great city, and it'll be awesome to see Franny and hopefully Rebecca Balmer as well, though I haven't gotten in contact with her yet. I'm also very excited to see how Peter likes these places. It's going to be really fun.

Some other interesting happenings over the past week or so:

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!!!

Last weekend, despite an overall aura of extreme lazi- ness, we did manage to get out and ex- plore the city a little. We went to Khan El- Khalili, which is Cairo's big- gest and most notorious ba- zaar. It dates back to 1382, and it's bas- ically miles upon miles of winding alleys, small stores, and people... lots and lots of people. The sights are quite impressive. Peter and I spent a mere hour or so in the actual market, and in that time, we saw two different men each carrying about ten live chickens by their feet, presumably to their death. People were arguing loudly over prices and whatnot, touts were tracking Americans and

Al-Azhar Mosque.

trying to overcharge them, rabbits were sitting in cages ready to be slaughtered. All in all, it's quite an im- pressive and stimulating place to visit. While in the area, we also visited the Al-Azhar Mosque, one of the prettiest and most famous mosques in the city. It's right next to Al-Azhar University, one of the oldest universities in the world. This was the first mosque we'd actually been inside since our arrival, and it was an incredibly serene and relaxing experience. In some parts people were on their hands and knees praying, in other places they just lounged around, talking softly or reading books, and in the central area, children played. The atmosphere is so different from a church. Kwayyis awi (which means "very good").

Inside the mosque.

One of the biggest new things in our lives is STAR, or Student Act- ion for Refu- gees. STAR is a group commit- ted to provid- ing affordable instruction in the English language for refugees living in Cairo. Peter and I had heard great things about the program, both before coming and since being here, and I was definitely interested in taking part. After going to the orientation meeting, Peter jumped on board for sure as well. We teach in Nasr City, a poor suburb constructed within the last century in the desert northeast of downtown Cairo. It's about an hour away in a microbus. We've had two classes so far. Students are split up into groups according to their proficiency, with zero as the least experienced and five as the most. Peter is doing Level 5, but I, for God knows what reason, decided that I wanted a challenge and chose a Level 1 class. On top of that, it's a Level 1 class with lots of Somalis, who don't even speak Arabic particularly well either. Fortunately some of the students speak French, and my partner Abd El Aziz is a native speaker of Egyptian Arabic, so together we can get the points across... most of the time. It's definitely tough, but I can't tell you how much I've been enjoying myself so far, which bodes well

My students.

for my prospective teaching ca- reer, I sup- pose. The students are really inter- ested in learn- ing the lang- uage, and they're also quite funny. My favorite moment came last class when we were dis- cussing capital letters and the appropriate use thereof. We got proper nouns down, and then we were doing beginnings of sentences. I wrote the sentence "My name is John" to show that both "My" and "John" are capitalized, though for different reasons. I then wrote the sentence "Did you know that my name is John?" to show that "my" does not always have to be capitalized. After most things that I say, Abd El Aziz has to translate it into Arabic. He reread the sentences with his name inserted, and when he got to "Did you know that my name is Abd El Aziz," one guy in the back piped up and said "Yes." It was pretty funny.

I should probably stop trying to tell humorous anecdotes on this blog. They probably don't come across as all that funny. Oh well.

So three or four weeks ago, I got a very unexpected email from Martha Hoffman. Martha is my ex-girlfriend Zoe's good friend and cousin. While Zoe and I were dating, Martha and I used to talk to each other online here and there, and though we only met once, we liked each other a lot. I hadn't heard from her much recently, however. That is until I got this email, which informed me that she was coming to Cairo for three months to teach kindergarten. I was very excited to see her and to have another friend in this faraway place. She flew in two weeks ago, and since then we've seen each other two to three times a week. She lives in Maadi, which is a nice suburb about a twenty-

At Hardee's, Peter and I each enjoyed a traditional Egyptian فلي تشيزستاك بورجر, or "Philly Cheesesteak Burger." Allegedly, the Pharaohs were buried with several in their casket so that they would not get hungry on the journey to the afterlife.

five minute metro ride south of downtown, where I live. It's really great to see her and to have an- other person here besides Peter whom I know from back home, however cas- ually. Appar- ently, she's been called in as a replace- ment kinder- garten teacher for a woman who couldn't take the pres- sure and left before the end of the year. Martha says she's not the biggest fan of teaching kindergarten, and her first week was pretty rough, but she seems to be enjoying herself a little more now, which is good. On Sunday, she and I took a long walk around town to visit the musical instrument district. We're both interested in the oud, and since they're so cheap here, we've thought about picking one up and bringing it back to the US. They're pretty cool instruments, but despite their resemblance to the guitar, they're tuned more like a violin. They're also fretless, so I assume the learning curve might be pretty high. But still, you can get a very nice oud for sixty to eighty American dollars. So, as they'd say in Egypt, mumkin ("it is possible" or "maybe").

Who's a happy Peter!

In other news, it's looking more and more likely that my parents will come and visit! My mom is pretty much definite (she's hopefully going to book her flight today!). She's thinking of flying into Tel Aviv at the end of our Spring Break trip and meeting us there for a few days, then taking the bus to Cairo with us, hanging out around town for a little while, and then, before she heads back the next weekend, going to Alexandria for a night or two. I'm really excited to see her and have her here. I think she's going to like it a lot. Plus, she'll be around for my birthday! As for my dad, his is less certain, but he's definitely interested in coming out here. I really hope he does, too. He hasn't left America that much, and I think he would really enjoy the alternate perspectives that one encounters here. Plus he loves old stuff, and Egypt is pretty much the best place in the world for that. He'd be more likely to come a little closer to the end. Perhaps he'll fly in right around the time finals finish up, and then we can hang out for the few days between the end of school and our return home. We'll see though.

Fans of Peter, fear not: a post is forthcoming, ostensibly on the Opera House. Like most of Peter's posts, it's been kicking around in his head for at least three weeks, so I'm sure it'll be chock full of goodies. Hope all is well with you guys, wherever you are.

Houston, We Have a Light

From left to right: Peter, Sharif, and Phil in the living room.

In short, the apartment ex- ceeded all of our wildest dreams, which isn't actually all that impress- ive, since I didn't really have any preconceptions and Peter was intentionally imagining it as a dingy and undersized piece of shit. But yeah, it's pretty incredible. We don't even have to lug shit up the stairs! There's this sweet old-timey elevator that we can take to our floor. On the ride over, we met two other students who were to be living in the same apartment, which meant we didn't in fact have a double. No big deal though. One of our fears was having everything at our fingertips and therein becoming homebodies, so we were excited about living with others. We arrived and found that there were to be eight guys in all, which sounds like a lot, but, as you can see from the pictures, it doesn't matter, 'cause the place is effin' huge! Eight roommates and five bedrooms: that's three doubles and two singles. As you enter the apartment, you come to a large dining/living room with a couch, some chairs, a big dining table, some bookcases and closets. Off to the left is Peter's and my double, which is also pretty big. It has a nice window overlooking a busy street. The next room belongs to Stoo and Matt. It's probably a little bigger than ours, and it has a balcony, which is excusable since it's a double. The following room belongs to just Ross. He definitely got the best deal, since he's got a balcony, a couch, and his own room. Sheesha! After that is Phil's and Sharif's double, and finally comes Jay, with another single. Everyone is American, though Stoo's parents are both Iranian and Sharif's father is from Alexandria. They all seem cool and nice and pretty agreeable. Matt is from Long Island and is reserved but very friendly. Stoo hails from Needham

Our third toilet.

, Mass., and he's incredibly outgoing and funny. Ross comes from Woodstock, NY (right near Bard!), and he's quite down-to- earth and easy- going. Jay, we've decided, is John Carr meets Jon Hyman, which, in case you don't know those two, means he's approachable and happy-go- lucky. Both he and Phil are from the Detroit area. Phil is a nice presence, as his appearance is a real throwback to Oberlin. He has long hair and a big beard and always wears a bandana (I guess it might be a little early to say "always"), and he's incredibly laid back. Last but not least, Sharif is from Chicago and he's the eldest. He's wicked helpful and expressive. Maybe it's because I know he's older, and also since he's already spent a semester here, but he seems like the most mature of the group. Anyway, there's the apartment in a nutshell. Oh yeah, and there's a kitchen, two bathrooms, two showers, three toilets, a washer, a drier, and we can climb some stairs to hang out on the roof, which is also amazing.

Peter's nut card. It translates literally to something like "An allergy is belonging to me regarding almonds and hazelnuts and pinenuts and pistachios and walnuts."

When we showed up there were already five of us here. Two more showed up within an hour or so (everyone but Sharif), and after a little unpacking and unrestrained disbelief at the awesomeness of the apart- ment, we headed down- town to get some dinner. We passed AUC, and it is indeed quite close to where we live. There are tons of shops and restaurants around. It really is a great location. After getting lost a little, we found a little place recommended by one of my travel guides. We walked in and were immediately welcomed and ushered to seats. The place only serves one meal: kushari, which is pretty much Egypt's national dish. It's macaroni, rice, chick peas,

Meaty Petey in our room. Of course, it's already a mess.

lentils, fried onions, and hot sauce. That might sound weird and maybe even gross, but it's pretty damned good actually, not to mention filling. I imagine it's fairly nutri- tious as well. Unfortunately, we didn't know how to say that Peter had a nut allergy, so he was pretty nervous about eating it. He went over and asked a man, and despite some communication difficulties, the fellow managed to understand him enough to let him know there were no nuts involved. Plus, he was superbly friendly, which is really the way to be here, apparently. Everyone we meet or ask for help or encounter in anyway is just so happy to be of help. It's pretty awesome. So anyway, the dinner was great, and for the seven of us with food and drink, the bill ran to LE60, or a little over ten dollars. Pretty freaking incredible, eh? After that, we walked around some more, getting lost again and being dragged around by helpful Cairenes, though a few of them were surely just trying to get some money out of us tourist types. It was only 10 when we got back to the apartment (which was just as amazing as we had left it), but after being awake for about thirty-five hours, we were very ready for bed.

Cairo skyline across the Nile.

After ten hours of weird-dream- filled sleep, we got up around 8:30, and thanks to jetlag, I still felt very tired. It's affected Peter a lot less so, but I felt tired pretty much all day. After laying around until noon, we walked downtown, to get some food ostensibly, but we were sidetracked by a friendly man who somehow got us to buy perfume from him, despite our best efforts. We have of course sworn to avoid that at all costs for the rest of our time here. But he had a picture of himself with Mohammed Ali! How could we not give him our money?.

Feluccas on the Nile.

We had a traditional Egyptian meal of Sbarro since Peter was still a little hesi- tant about his allergy. But fear not: using a phrasebook we prepared him a card stating in no uncertain terms that he cannot eat them. After lunch, we trekked down to the Nile for a cool dip... er, walk, I mean. It was pretty whacky to see that water which had flowed thousands of miles from the lakes of Rwanda and the mountains of Tanzania and the deserts of the Sudan, only to empty out a hundred or so miles north in the Mediterranean. That's right, I waxed poetic. Deal with it.

The Cairo Tower.

Then we came back to the dorm to finish unpack- ing and setting every- thing up. It was quite a shitshow. Within an hour, we had broken three fuses, two transformers, a circuit breaker, a power adapt- er, and a chair (Peter's fault). Needless to say, we sat down and worked out exactly what would be required to get our electronics up and running properly. After a surprisingly successful jaunt around Cairo's electronics district (which is, like everything else in this town, conveniently located!), we came back and got everything working fine and dandy... except for the speakers. That's where the power adapter blew, and the universal adapter we bought to replace it turned out to be the wrong kind of current. But nevertheless, a pretty good save.

The rest of the night we spent hanging out with the roommates, playing a little poker, talking politics, and then wasting time on the computer. The other guys went out on the town, but we were exhausted and, personally, if I'm starting over, I don't want to develop a terrible sleep schedule too early.

Our humble little kitchen.

Of course we wound up staying up until 3 AM anyway and not getting up until 3 PM. As a result, today got cut a little short. We basically got up, farted around for a bit, went to Pizza Hut (I don't know why... please don't think we're already missing shitty American food, but I guess we figured that with four months, we'll wind up getting plenty of local stuff), and bought cell phones ($40 each! see sidebar for numbers).

Anyway, everything has been incredible so far. Sorry I'm so long-winded, but you'll all just have to wait.

Cairo from our roof.