Final Reflection

Sensory Overload

Some time around mid December, I receive an Email from Jeff Doughty asking if I were interested in studying abroad in Egypt for the summer 1 term of 2008. I was at my co-op job, and decided to reply…without consulting my parents…I sent Doughty a message saying I was extremely interested. Within a few weeks, I had convinced my parents that it will be a trip of a lifetime, and I applied…the fact that scholarship transferred was a huge plus…Within the next few months, I was accepted into the program and the rest is history. The whole spring semester seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was on a plane to somewhere I knew virtually nothing about…well actually I knew a few things; it was hot, it’s in a desert, and there were some pyramids…that’s about it.

If you remember reading my first few blog posts, you can kind of feel the initial shock that I went through. When I got off of the plane in the Cairo airport and saw the guards with AK 47’s, I had no idea what was going on. It felt like I had just entered a war zone. And being wiped out from traveling for a full day straight didn’t help…so after walking through the sketchiest airport I had ever seen, having to hand our passports over to the authorities, and being totally shell-shocked, we load up the busses to head to our hotel in Cairo. Driving to the hotel was just as shocking. We drove through the desert, and then through the outskirts of Cairo. The whole drive I couldn’t stop thinking “where the hell did I go.” Every building looked abandoned, and the people outside on the streets looked withered and lifeless. The infrastructure was so terrible, it was unbelievable. After navigating through the city we end up at the hotel, which happened to be in one of the nicest parts of the city, the island of Zamalek. We got to hang out in the hotel and gather ourselves for an hour or so before we all met up to go for a walk and get our bearings. This walk ended up contributing to my shell shock of Egypt. First off, it was very smoggy that first day so the air quality was terrible. And when I say terrible, it was so bad that just walking outside would make me sneeze and my eyes itch and water up. There were flies everywhere, and it was my first experience with the endless Cairo honking. The first day in Cairo is a great example of the best way I know how to describe this trip…Sensory Overload. I will never forger that first walk down 26 July street, barely making conversation through the honking, while the overpass above us seemed to act as a trap for the smog to sit in. People on the street were asking for money, and every corner had a police officer with an automatic weapon…all of this together was so much to take in, that it seemed like I would never get used to it…but little did I know.

The first full day in Cairo was Pyramid day. This was the most amazing sightseeing I have ever experienced. Pyramid day was another Sensory Overload episode. On the drive to The Pyramids we passed through more of sketchy Cairo. There were people walking across 9 lane highways, with no one slowing down for them. There were families, whole families of 4 or 5 people, riding on motorcycles down the highway. We turn the corner on the highway and there they were, 3 colossal peaks off in the distance. We were still about 5 miles from them, but you could still tell they were huge. We weave through some back alleys and get to the camels. This camel experience was definitely sensory overload. They were the craziest sounding animals I have ever heard. I think in my blog I explained it as Chewbacca from Starwars mixed with a diesel engine. It was one of the funniest things I had ever heard, and something I will never forget. Riding the camels to the Pyramids was like something out of a movie. The whole time I couldn’t believe what was happening. And to be able to see the Pyramids with my own eyes was a dream. The first 2 days of the trip were definitely complete sensory overload.

The trip to Aswan and Luxor was amazing as well. The Upper Egypt sightseeing was unbelievable. The photographs that I took I am sure I will remember forever. This part of the trip was more than sensory overload; I like to call it speed tourism. Everyday we had new awesome ancient sightseeing adventures that seemed to fly by without me understanding much of what I was looking at. By the end of, it seemed like all of the temples blended together. When I would fall asleep at night I would just see a mix of massive temple walls and pillars. If I hadn’t blogged every day, it would be impossible to keep it all straight. The other thing about this trip that I will remember forever is the nagging Egyptians. Every time we walked out of the hotels in either Luxor or Aswan we were instantly targeted. It was “felucca ride?...carriage ride?...want to buy this?, follow me, ill give you good price!...” Initially it was fun to barter and get good deals, but by the end I was all set with bartering. I just couldn’t stop thinking about how nice it’s going to be when I get home and don’t have to deal with that nuisance.

After the trip to Upper Egypt is when reality set in for me. Class started, and the service learning started. I started freaking out a little bit because of the fact that I had to live in Cairo for the next 4 weeks. And when we started going out to Stabl Antar for the service learning portion of the trip, it just made it even worse. Driving out there and witnessing the living conditions of the people there was yet another case of sensory overload. These people had nothing. There was trash everywhere because the government doesn’t recognize them and provides them no services. Little kids were digging through the trash to find plastic or metal parts to use for scrap or money. There were bread lines due to the food shortages. There were dirt roads with no drainage or any structure. All of this just hit me like nothing I had ever experienced before. After traveling to the beautiful places of Aswan and Luxor, and staying in really nice hotels, the contrast was almost too much for me to deal with. I really had a tough time dealing with the fact that these people lived there daily lives in these conditions. And the weirdest thing about it was that they seemed more than content with it. But after a few trips out to Stabl Antar I became used to it, and got desensitized to the conditions. And after a while I realized that at least I was going out there to help them out a little bit.

With the start of class my schedule became much more structured. I had a lot of work to do most of the time, so the last 4 weeks was a bit of a blur. The sightseeing had slowed down, and by that time I had became much more accustomed to daily life in Cairo. This was weird for me, because I kept remembering my initial thoughts of Cairo, like the unforgettable first walk down 26 July Street. And by the time class started, I would walk down 26 July every single day no problem. I realized that the street is one of the nicest streets in all of Cairo. It is crazy how just because I had no idea where I was, and I wasn’t used to the TERRIBLE air quality that I felt so out of place. The fact that I was able to adapt, and be totally comfortable with it was amazing to me.

The daily grind of class got pretty intense at points. With only 4 weeks to complete an entire engineering course, we had assignments nearly every night. Although the fact that Professor Taslim was a fluid mechanics genius definitely helped out. He was completely thorough with everything and helped us out with every single question. It was the best classroom environment I had ever experienced. With only 11 students, it was much easier to retain and understand everything. But this was balanced out with the workload and pace of the class. So all in all, I learned a lot, stayed up late doing homework way too much, went out and had fun, and still managed an A-, so I'm not complaining at all. If I could do it all over again, I would have gone out more and hung out more with the Egyptian students. Although I did go out quite a bit, now that I am gone, I feel like it will be hard to stay in touch with them. But I still had a lot of fun, and made some great friends. Hopefully facebook will keep us all in touch.

When the end of the program started getting closer, I started looking over all the photographs that I had taken and reading the blog posts that I had written. I really couldn’t believe the fact that I was at these places, and that I had actually taken these pictures. The stories I have, like riding in the car with Mohammed, or the market is Ismailya. These stories definitely added to the sensory overload experience. The high speed driving, and rally car maneuvering I did with Mohammed was insane. It was fun and I am glad that I got to experience real crazy Egyptian driving, but I can’t wait until I can drive safely in the states again. And the aroma smorgasbord that I floated through in the Ismailya market is unexplainable. It was some of the best and worst smells all piled in on each other. But it’s the stories like these that I will keep with me forever. And it’s the fact that I may never do something like this again that makes me thankful for the dialogue program. I never thought that it would be possible to study abroad with my engineering program. But with the dialogue program through northeastern, it was. I hope that Northeastern can continue the program for engineering students in the future.

This program has been the single greatest thing I have ever done in my academic career. I was able to participate in a service learning project, travel around and see unbelievable sights while learning all about a culture that I had previously known nothing about, and still complete a necessary engineering course. The program didn’t always run perfectly smooth, but looking back that provided some of the fun for me. It was just part of dealing with the culture of Egypt. Nothing can be planned perfectly there because people are not concerned with timeframes as much. But in the end, everything worked out just fine. Everyone made it to the end, and everyone had an unbelievable time. But that much time in Egypt really took its toll on me. It was a stressful hectic place to be. And as our group’s time there came to an end, I was ready to leave. 5 ½ weeks was the perfect amount of time for the program. I would highly recommend the Egypt dialogue to anyone. But I will say this, be ready for the ride of your life. And just like Dr. Sullivan always said...“In Egypt, whatever you think should happen, expect the opposite”

Final Day in Cairo, and Flying out to Greece

Sunday: 6-8-08

Wake up on the last full day in Cairo…I really cant believe that it has been 5 ½ weeks since we touched down…it has been a complete whirlwind of unbelievable events…check my internet before breakfast and Professor taslim sends an email with my grade…A-….and I am PUMPEDDD!!! Head down for some breakfast and then decide to take one of the vans to City Stars, which is like Egypts version of the mall of America. 9 floors of shops, and all the shops are just like the shops in the states. This place is pretty much just for high rollers in Egypt. There were much more uncovered women than you would see on the street. It was interesting to see how some of the more wealthy families do not follow some of the religious traditions. The dialogue students had told us about this, and to see it first hand was very interesting. Hung out at the mall for a few hours, grabbed a light lunch and then headed back to the hotel…Abdu is having us all over for dinner at 3 so I didn’t want to eat too much because his wife cooks FEASTS!...hop in the vans, and head to Abdu’s. Eat a massive meal and afterwards we have a debrief in his living room. Professor Sullivan wanted to know our feelings about the trip and how we felt things went. He also wanted any ideas we had to improve the experience for next year. He asked the Engineers for their input about how our class went. And the Arabic students about their course as well. We exchanged feedback and everyone brought up good points. I think the main point that the engineers would like to see in the future is to have a hands on civil service project that every year the students could come over and continue working on…We know this is extremely hard to set up, but we would like to see it happen eventually…Afterwards, we all headed out. A lot of us had to say our goodbyes because everyone was heading out in the morning. 4 of the engineers were heading to boston at 2 am, The Arabic students were heading to the Siwa oasis and Abu Dhabi. And a bunch of us engineers are heading for the second leg of our trip of a lifetime…Greece, Italy, Spain, and maybe a little dabble in France if we can work it in…so everyone says there goodbyes an heads back to the hotel to finish packing and hang out…a bunch of us ended up going back to Versailles to hang out with the Egyptian students one last time…It was sad to say goodbye, but some of them are trying to come to the states, so that would be awesome if we could see them again…back to the hotel, and hit the hay one last time in Cairo…Athens tomorrow…

Monday: 6-9-08

Wake up in the AM, and grab breakfast one last time…get my bags together and head to the lobby. Wait a little while for the van to get there, and load it up…one last time…I thought I would be sad to be leaving, but actually, I was very excited to be leaving. Cairo is a crazy place and it really takes its tole on you. I was looking forward to getting back to more modern civilized places…so we drive through the streets of cairo one last time, over the nile, past AUC’s campus, and to the airport…we get our bags out of the van, say goodbye to Ferris, our awesome driver, and get through security just fine…grab some lunch before we get on the flight…head through our last security stop, and load up the plane…it’s a little plane, but it has 4 jet engines, looked pretty bad ass…Aegean Air…get the usual safety talk from the flight attendants and before I knew it I was flying high over Cairo, and saying goodbye...so I guess I'm out of Egypt…wow…don’t really know what else to say…Thanks for staying tuned for the last 5 ½ weeks. It has been awesome. I hope you got a little taste of what I went through…but ill be home in a few weeks, so those of you who want some more stories; you know where to find me…I will be posting a reflection piece encompassing the whole trip next. So don’t worry, there is still a little bit more to come…but for the daily blogs sake,

Thanks again, and for one last time,

Peace

-Al

Final Exam, Free Day...

Friday: 6-6-08

Wake up, grab breakfast, and study a little bit more before the test…head over to the test. Test goes very very very well. I think I NAILED it…so I'm pretty excited…we grab some lunch and then head back to the hotel and watch a bunch of movies and just hang out for the rest of the day…later that night we had a little end of fluids party in our hotel room which was fun…stayed up real late and crashed.

Saturday: 6-7-08

Wake up, grab breakfast and decide to go check out the Khan El Khalili. This is a massive bazaar in downtown Cairo…one of the biggest in all of Egypt. We hop in a cab and head over to it…we walk into a little spice shop and this guy follows us in. He starts speaking to us in really good English, and he said that he would take us to the “real” handmade good are in the Bazaar. So we decide to follow him…bad mistake. He takes us through the back alleys of this market area, people were getting worried, but I had kept my bearings so I knew how to get out of there…so more wandering through slums and trash piles, hanging wires, unpaved roads, dilapidated stucco buildings and he brings us to this hole in the wall “factory” and says here is the real hand made goods…it was pretty much 2 guys sitting there and making chess boards…very unimpressive. So Sean and I realize that this is just some stupid tourist trap, and decide to tell the girls we need to leave and not listen to this guy anymore…so we leave, but he says hell bring us back to the main road…on the way he brings us to “the only guy in all of Egypt who does paintings on real animal leather”… apparently he is “very famous throughout Egypt”…and my only thought was “if this guy is famous, he wouldn’t be doing rinky dink paintings of the pyramids and camels on friggin fake leather…the place was so dumb. We walked in, looked at it, and left all within about .3 seconds, yes .3 not 3.

So we get back to the main road and ditch the guy and walk through the bazaar by ourselves…this bazaar was much more hectic than the ones in Aswan and Luxor. The passageways were much more narrow and the people were just as annoying. I have just about had it with people nagging me and touching me to buy stuff. Normally I can just block it out, but you can only do that for so long. 5 weeks of the non stop nagging shortens my fuse. And for those of you who know me, its not that long to begin with…right about the time I realized I wanted to get out of there, this guy comes up to me and starts talking to me…he was being friendly, and I wasn’t. He wanted to know where I was from, who I was, and I didn’t really feel like talking to him. So I just gave him 1 word answers and didn’t make eye contact, and just kept walking…and then he had to go and say this…“why are you afraid of me, are you Jewish? Only the Jews are the afraid around here” and this set me off. I kind of snapped and started yelling at him…but before anything escalated, the rest of the people I was with just told him to get out of our face and we just parted ways…more wandering through the market, and we all decided we had had it, and we hopped in a cab and back to the hotel. And again, we just hung out in our room all day and watched movies, way too hot outside…got some lunch, picked up my laundry, figured I would do a load at the Laundromat before the Europe trip to make it easier…hung out some more, and before I knew it, it was late and I just passed out…one more full day left…can’t believe I'm almost out of here.

Peace

-Al

No Sleep, Study for the Final

Wednesday: 6-4-08

Wake up…I feel like death…I am sore from soccer, tired from four hours of sleep, and I have a stomach ache…perfect timing…class in the terribly uncomfortable classroom…awesome…well I guess everyone gets a little sick in Egypt right…it wasn’t too bad…by night time I was fine…after class, headed back to the room and napped for 5 hours…funny, my nap was longer than my nights sleep…wake up, start the homework, stop, get dinner, continue the homework…still kind of feel like crap after dinner…but 4 hours of homework later and I felt a little better…crashed.

Thursday: 6-5-08

Last day of class today…I can’t believe I'm out of here in 4 days…pretty excited for my euro trip which is fast approaching. Rod Sean Matt and I have been booking hostels, and researching everything online for the past few weeks…we are set for Greece so far. Just have to book Rome, Florence, and Barcelona…but today is not the day for that…class, and studying for the final which is tomorrow…have class, review at the end for the final and then head back to the hotel…lunch from the metro, delicious, and cheap…watch James bond, and then start studying…study for 3 hours, then grab dinner, study some more and then blog the past 2 days…test in the morning, and then I am scott free…I cant really believe I took a 500 level engineering class in 4 weeks, but I guess I did…and its all over tomorrow…wish me luck.

Peace

-Al

Class, More Soccer, Late Nights of Homework

Monday 6-2:

Wake up, breakfast, vans, class. Get my test back, did well, pumped…after class came back to the hotel, grabbed lunch…edited some photos and blogged…tonight Proffesor Sullivan and Professor Taslim are taking the engineering students out to dinner…so I started some of my homework, and then before I knew it it was dinner time. Went out to La Bodega, the place that Professor Doughty took us before he left…had a great dinner with everyone, and it was awesome that they payed for it as well…back to the hotel, and finished up my homework, stayed up way too late…finished up my blog and crashed around 2 AM…

Tuesday 6-3:

Wake up breakfast, vans, class…for some reason they switched the room on us today, so we had class in a crappy classroom with awful wooden chairs…class finished, went extremely slow in the new room, and then we had a few hours to kill before we have our walking tour of the Egyptian Museum. I walked around downtown for a little while, grabbed some lunch and hung out until we had to head to the museum…on the way to the museum we saw a fist fight between 2 Egyptians, it was pretty funny…there were cops standing there not doing anything, just watching and laughing…Rod Chris and I were saying that in Boston, if there was a fight, the cops would find joy in destroying both people, but here they find joy in watching…pretty funny…we get to the museum, and Sullivan’s friend Melinda met us there to give us a tour. She is unbelievable, she knows all. Every artifact, she could have talked about for 3 hours…the things at the museum were unbelievable. They had mummified animals, statues galore, sarcophagus’ everywhere and the best part…King Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus and all of the artifacts from his tomb…Including the famous headdress. It was amazing…I couldn’t believe what I was looking at, so many times I have seen it on the cover of Nat Geo, but in person, it was awesome…11Kg’s of solid gold. After about 3 hours of touring the Museum, I had just about had it, along with everyone else…we headed out, hopped in a cab and back to the hotel…started some of the homework, but then got dinner early because tonight a few of the dialogue students set another soccer game for us. So a huge group of us met up after dinner and headed to a field to play…there were probably a good 20 of us total, Egyptians and Americans…we got to the field, and with some swindling, they got us all in for 10 pounds each. We walk through this club, and there are little kids everywhere, and families hanging out…the Egyptians suddenly realized that this was a bad night, because school has just been let out for the summer, so everyone was out that night…and here’s where the fun begins…we get to the field, which is 1 huge soccer field, that has been split up into 4 fields…and when we get there, there are nearly 150 little kids on the field just playing soccer in little groups…very awesome to see, in the states, you would never see that. So we enter the field, and all of a sudden half of the kids stop playing, and swarm us…it was crazy. We were just standing there with a sea of little Egyptian kids yelling and screaming and taking pictures with us…this was pretty cool for the first 20 minutes, but when we tried to play, and they were all swarming the field, the overseer of the field got pissed…He grabbed the ball and kicked us off the field because we were causing way too much commotion. He told us that we could wait till 11 o’clock and he would kick all of the kids off…so we waited around for about an hour and a half, and then the field opened up…wicked annoying because I had homework to do, and I didn’t want to stay late…but that didn’t matter cause the field was open and we were playing…we split into 4 teams and started playing…after a few goals we would switch teams…did this for about an hour until another field opened up and we moved there…before I knew it, it was 1:30 and we had been playing for nearly 3 hours…and it was awesome…it wasn’t as serious as the other time I played, but it was just as much fun…after playing, we hopped in Mohammed’s car, and he drove us back to the hotel…his car is totally messed up by the way, apparently his mother was driving it and did something to it…the back end was lurching to the left every time he shifted, it felt like at any moment, the car was going to flip…but o well, we got back ok at about 2AM….and I still hadn’t done my homework…sit down, burn the midnight oil for a few hours and finally finish…take a shower at 4:30 AM and then go to sleep...tomorrow is gonna be rough.

Peace

-Al

Alexandria, and some football

Thursday: 5-29

Wake up, breakfast, off to class for the second midterm…feeling a little worried because this material is way harder than the previous test. Test begins and I start cruising. Finish the test and fell very confident. He goes over the test and from what I remembered from the test it seemed like I got most of it right…after class we all decide to have a celebration for both being done with midterms and Chris’s birthday that was last Tuesday. So after hanging out for a few hours we all meet up in Emily’s room and play cards and other games till late. A bunch of the Egyptian students from the dialogue came over and hung out with us as well. After that some of us went to Versailles Palace and hung out…afterwards, meandered back to the hotel and crashed…waking up early tomorrow for a weekend in Alexandria…cant wait. I have always wanted to go to the city with my name in it.

Friday: 5-30

Wake up at 8am…breakfast real quick before loading up the vans…dead tired after being out real late, so I figure I can get some sleep on the 3 hour van ride to Alex …that’s what everyone calls Alexandria, it actually got annoying cause I thought everyone was talking about me the whole time…Got a few hours of shuteye on the van and then woke up just in time for a rest stop. After the rest stop I finally finished reading my manual for my camera…I wish I had finished it earlier because right at the end I finally learned how to change my white balance settings and color and vibrance settings…so now all of my pictures are coming out with much nicer color contrast…finally arrive in Alex. This city is amazing. It is right on the Mediterranean. Absolutely beautiful.

Here is a rundown of the Alexandria trip. Dr. Denis did not set up for the group to stay the weekend. But he gave us the option if we wanted to, to find our own lodging and stay for a night. So most of the engineers decided to stay, as well as a few of the IAF majors.

So when we arrive, we obviously hadn’t set up a hotel yet, why would we that would make way too much sense. Some of the kids had, so we decided to walk around and find a cheap place to stay. We split up and decide we will all meet up and talk about the places we find. So Sean Matt and I check out this place we had read about online before we came, and it was about 30 pounds a night (6 bucks). We get there, it is kind of crappy, not a great view, but we feel it’s a pretty good deal. So we head back to the meeting spot, and tell them about the great deal we found. And then molly comes with a huge smile on her face and says “15 pounds…unbelievable view…we can all stay” so we go check it out. And when I tell you unbelievable view, that doesn’t do it justice at all. The rooms looked out over the Mediterranean from the 5^th floor. The whole bay of Alexandria was in view, with the Citadel way off to the left, and the Library of Alexandria all of way to the right…with the main street underneath…please check out the night shot from my room, I think It might be my favorite shot of the whole trip…so we pay for our room and go meet up with the group back at the vans to go sightseeing…first stop, the Citadel. Unfortunately we did not have a tour guide, so I did not get all of the history about this white stone barricade, but with the freedom to walk around and experience it was awesome. The fort was used to guard Alexandria way back…I think I overheard someone say it was built around 800A.D. it was a bleach white color, with a massive walkway all the way around the outside. And inside there were lookout windows with passageways everywhere…very cool…so I walked around by myself just looking around and snapping a few winners. It was awesome to walk around the outside with Alexandria and the Mediterranean on the horizon…we left there and headed to tourist spot number 2…the catacombs. Again, no tour guide so the only history I got of these was from a sign that had been transliterated English, so it was hard to follow. The sign said that the catacombs were found on accident because a man was riding a donkey and the donkey fell through a hole in the ground and he ended up in a tomb…I thought that was pretty funny…the catacombs were interesting because they had ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs on the walls, but the carvings were reliefs, unlike any of the temples which were just etched into the wall…unfortunately cameras were not allowed but that’s fine with me, my eyes work just as good…Another thing that was cool about the catacombs was the mix between the Greco-roman art and the ancient Egyptian art. Alexandria was highly influenced by the Greeks and Romans. So the tombs had statues of roman and Greek gods to go along with the Egyptian carvings…it was cool to see how some of the Egyptian gods were carved in a more Greco roman way…hard to explain but just the body shapes and poses were different than anything we had seen before from the temples….out of the catacombs and off to the library…the library of Alexandria is the largest library in the world. The architecture of the library was awesome. They engineered the windows and the slope of the roof perfectly for the optimal lighting for reading and preserving the books. You should Google the library of Alexandria and check it out…its pretty cool…we got a tour of the rare books collection, as well as an art exhibit. We also got a tour of the ground floor etc etc…but by the end the whole group was so hungry that no one was really paying attention anymore…we herded back to the vans and they took us to dinner…ordered up a steak, damn it was good…a funny side note, but not so funny for Rod…He ordered “fried fish” but they misinterpreted him and gave him just “French fries” so while he was waiting for his nonexistent fried fish, everyone else had been eating...Sean finally realized that they had most likely misheard him so he reordered, and they were out of the fried fish so he had to settle for the mixed grill…very funny…back to the cheapest hotel in the world, and we hung out for a bit but we were all beat and we just passed out…

Saturday: 5-31

Wake up in Alex, gaze at the wonderful view out off of our balcony, snap a few goodies and wait for everyone else to wake up to grab some grub…order up some pancakes at this nice breakfast place…an hour and a half later and they finally have them ready…and guess who got there’s last…unfortunately it was rod, again…he is having the worst luck with food hahaha…finally finish breakfast and we load up the vans and head to the beach…this was awesome…although I would have liked to walk around Alex a little bit more, hanging out at the beach for the day was just as nice. Everyone went in the water, but for some reason I decided not to. I was just comfortable sitting in the chair on the beach soakin the rays that I just didn’t feel like getting wet….3 or 4 hours later, we hopped in the vans and rolled back to Cairo…a great stay in Alexandria…I think if I ever come back to Egypt (a BIG if) I will stay in Alex, its way nicer than Cairo and its much more relaxing…so we arrive in Cairo at about 7pm and head out to grab some dinner…we were going to play soccer tonight but that got cancelled…so a few of us just went to Versailles to hang out…usual night…headed back to the hotel and crashed.

Sunday: 6-1

Yes, its June, yes I have been here for a whole month, yes I can’t believe it either. So today is a service learning day, except that its not really service learning because all we are doing is going to the 3 places that we have been helping out…glass blowing, knitting and carpet factory…remember cruella deville…so we go to the glass blowing workshop first, and we showed them the website and the pictures I took. We also gave them a photo of them that I took, it came out great. Some people bought some things, and we finally got out of there after about 2 hours…off to the knitting factory…same deal, showed them the website, stood around for 2 hours and finally left…off to cruella devilles carpet factory…same thing and of course she hated our website and wanted us to change everything, we said no, blah blah blah I didn’t really care because it wasn’t my part of the website I was on the glass blowing team…anyways we finally got back to the hotel and I have been leaving the best part of the day out just for some surprise…so The Egypt national team plays Congo tonight for a world cup qualifying match…and guess whose got tickets…for 25 pounds…(less than 5 dollars)…SOOOO pumped…so 530 rolls around and a bunch of us pile in a van and head to the stadium. We met up with a bunch of the Egyptian students, and we entered…the entrance was lined with military vehicles, and there were an insane amount of police with riot gear already on…we get through the gates and there are even more police, and the knight sticks here aren’t like the ones at home, there like 5 feet long…pretty crazy…we get in the stadium and it is HUGEEE. Not very packed yet cause we got there very early, and we got front row seats…so that was pretty cool, if you like front row seats, at world cup qualifying games, in Cairo international stadium…so the game starts, and we are going crazy, and the whole stadium is going crazy and it was just awesome…so I got to do 1 of the things that I really wanted to do over here, see a live game…and it was sweet…Egypt came back from 1 down to win…after the game, back to the hotel…crashed…more for tomorrow.

Peace

-Al

Sunday Through Wednesday

Sunday 5-24:

Wake up to a phone call of Cynthia telling me and Sean we needed to meet with the website team at 11:30. This was annoying because we had already met and were already all working on our stuff…o well. So I wake up, eat breakfast and head over to cinnabon and work on the website for about 3 hours. After that, got lunch and then went back to the room to do fluids homework…did that for the rest of the day and night…about 8.5 hours straight…awesome…a boring day but at least I got it done.

Monday 5-25:

Wake up…class…and we get another homework assignment due the next day…awesome. After class come back to the room, blog, edit photos, start the homework. Tonight we have our second and final dialogue with the Egyptian students. So at about 6 we head out for that. Get there, meet up and hang out for a bit before the sit down discussion starts. Talk with mohammed before the sit down. Then the dialogues begin. We talked about more cultural differences such as the reasons for dressing certain ways. We also talked about the book we read The Yacoubian Building and how it relates to Egyptian culture. We talked about the censorship of movies and the reasons for that. after the discussion they have dinner for us on the roof. So we all head up to the roof and eat a massive feast. After dinner, a bunch of people decide that going on a Felucca would be a good idea. I thought for a second that I should go back to the hotel because of the homework, and then I thought about what I was thinking and realized that that was a terrible idea. So after 20 minutes of figuring out whose riding with who and how many seats the Egyptians had in their cars we head off to the felucca. We get there and there are about 30 of us total, Americans and Egyptians. Takes us about another 45 minutes of standing around to get everyone together and get on the boats. The boat ride was awesome. The Egyptian guys brought a drum with them and we were singing and some were dancing for the whole time…way better than sitting in the hotel doing the homework…The Nile was once again beautifully illuminated from the lights of Cairo. An awesome night…after the boat ride, which cost everyone 5 pounds (1 american dollar), hop in a cab and back to the hotel. Stay up till god knows when to finish the homework and pass out.

Tuesday:

Wake up…class…and yet again we get a homework assignment. I have never had to move so fast through a course…My second midterm is this Thursday, and my final is next Friday…we are flying through this stuff, but I am actually understanding it so I'm not too worried. Get back from class and grab lunch. Start the homework and work on it all day and night. Pass out…I have done work for the last 3 days straight with not much sleep…definitely need a nap tomorrow.

Wednesday:

Wake up, class…no homework tonight but I do get the pleasure of studying for the midterm tomorrow…get back to the hotel after class and pass out for an hour…felt great and started to hit the books. Tonight the rest of the group is going to the whirling dervish, which I really want to go see but I decide that I can go next week and should study…hit the books all night and grab some dinner at Dido’s…after dinner, watch the juggernaut video…so funny, back to studying…1AM, pass out…game time tomorrow…

Peace

-Al