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

Islamic Cairo, and awesome burgers

Saturday: 5-24

After about 4 hours of sleep from a late night, we wake up just in time to catch the bus for a tour of Islamic Cairo. Grabbed a little bit of breakfast and then loaded up the vans for a tour of 3 different style mosques. The first mosque was the mosque of Ibn Tulun, and it was a mud brick mosque with very bland and basic design. Very peaceful and quiet. We walked up the minaret and had a beautiful view of all of Cairo. Our tour guide was very proficient but she was fairly annoying. She kept treating us like we were really dumb, and kept asking annoying rhetorical questions…but I just tried to tune her out and enjoy the peace and quiet of the beautiful places we visited…the next stop was the Mosque and School of Sultan Hassan. This was more modern than the first. There were more decorations along the walls, just generally more aesthetically interesting. The best part of the tour here was this room that was acoustically engineered perfectly for singing the prayer. One of the Sheikh’s took us into the room and he showed us around. Then, out of nowhere, he began to sing the prayer…this was unbelievable. I have never had the hair stick up on my neck like this before. Listening and watching him sing, with the sound echoing so perfectly throughout the whole mosque was a total sensory experience…unreal…we exit this mosque and load up the busses and head to the last stop of the day, the Citadel of Salah al-Din and the mosque of Muhammad Ali. This mosque was much more modern than the previous 2. It had a marble open area as you first walk in, and then the inner part of the mosque was absolutely beautiful. It had monster high ceilings with stain glass windows. Lights were hanging from the ceilings on these old rickety chains…very cool. When we exited the main room, we had the most amazing view of Cairo. The Citadel is up on a hill just outside the city, so the panorama view was awesome. The sandy hazy smog covering the shamble towns in the foreground with the highrise building of downtown in the distance. And if you looked REALLY hard you could see the outline of the Pyramids way off in the distance…super awesome.

Back to the hotel and head to lunch at pizza hut…back to the hotel, did some blogging, and then decided to go bowling…I was very excited. We take a cab to the lanes which was difficult because no one knew where it was. Get to the lanes and they look decent. Start bowling, and there is no wax on the lanes, so my curve ball wasn’t moving like it does back home at Ravena Lanes…o well, it was still a lot of fun. Back to the hotel, and we head to Vivant to hang out and meet up with Omar, another student I met at the dialogue. He gets there and say to Sean and I “You guys aren’t really going to eat here are you? I'm gonna take you to the best burger place in Cairo”…how could we object…so we head out and hop in his car…yea it’s a BMX 3 series…SO sick! He starts driving, and says I don’t usually drive this car crazy, I leave that for my Mitsubishi. So we start cruising and he starts driving about half as crazy as Mohammed did the previous day. But the fact that we were in a BMW, just made it so much better. So about 30 minutes of cruising, flying down the highway, we arrive in Maadi and get to the burger joint. He shows us the size of the burgers and our eyes almost fall out. They are about 6x6 inch square patties...absolutely massive. So we order them up and eat like gods. The meat wasn’t like an American hamburger but it was close enough…back in the car, and another cruise back to the hotel and pass out…

Peace

-Al

Best Day Yet

Friday:

sleep in real late, miss breakfast which kinda sucked…went to the Lebanese place for brunchish meal…it was awesome...again, I am still in love with manakoush…chilled out at the hotel for the rest of the day doing some photo editing and a little bit of homework...I don’t remember if I had said this earlier but I am playing soccer today with Mohammed my friend from the dialogue, and he is picking me up at 8…so I hung out at the hotel till then. Unfortunately it is Pete’s birthday and I will be missing his birthday dinner, but I'm hoping to be back in time to party with everyone. So 8 o’clock rolls around and Ted and I head down to the lobby to meet Mohammed. He gets there right when we get down the stairs…perfect timing…now the best day of the trip begins…we get in Mohammed’s car, its an old school Sahin, which is a Turkish car, common here in Cairo and he takes off…I instantly realize that Mohammed is a college student just like myself, and he would do what any college student would love to do in a city with virtually no traffic laws…throw caution to the wind and drive like an absolute mad man…He TAKES off and is flying through the streets of Cairo, in the on coming traffic lane, dodging and swerving like something out of fast in the furious, and no dad I did not have my seat belt on because there were no seat belts in the back seat…apparently shotgun in Cairo is more than just bragging rights, it’s a matter life and death…me and Ted are looking at each other like “what did we get our selves into”. So for about the first 5 minutes of the rally race I was clenching the handle of the door hoping to not die, and being extremely nervous. But then I had an epiphany. I remembered that this trip is all about new experiences and embracing differences. So I began to start laughing and having a great time…It was like a roller coaster ride, constantly accelerating and weaving in and out of cars like it was nothing. He explained to us the reason why everyone honks the way they do. Apparently there is a honking language. Different honks mean different things. Short honks mean I am coming get out of my way…he used that a lot…long honks are mean ones. And there is a honk combo for friendly honking as well, so crazy…Mohammed was having a great time showing off for us, mind you the whole time he was smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone…absolutely ridiculous…so he drives us past his house, and shows us his university, and then we meet up with one of his buddies who is going to play with us, and we race to the field…again flying in and out of lanes, no blinkers, and endless honking…oh yea I almost forgot, Mohammed loves metal (heavy metal is a loud fast music for those who don’t understand the lingo), so he had that blaring as well…so lets recap: Metal Blaring, Smoking a cigarette, on the phone, flying, dodging, weaving, and honking ubsurdly…probably some of the most fun I have had in a long time…we get to the club where the field is. Change, and wait around for the rest of the players to get there. The field is an outdoor basketball court with soccer nets on it, kind of like a super sized futsal court (futsal is like mini soccer)…so everyone gets there and we begin to play…I havnt had this much fun in the longest time…it was street ball soccer for 3 hours straight, so much fun. The game was filled with no looker lazer passes, everyone was pulling moves the whole time, it was so awesome. I unleashed a few rips, and raised a few brows…apparently they aren’t used to hard shots haha, they don’t need them here because they are good enough without them…it was cool to learn a new style and still be able to hang with them. I didn’t want to stop playing. The other thing that was so cool was that only mohammed and his friend new English, everyone else was speaking Arabic. But it didn’t matter, because soccer is Futbol is football, is Calcio and I that’s the only language I needed to know…3 hours of soccer in Egypt with Egyptians, and I didn’t want to leave. I had a smile on my face the whole time, and for the first time this trip I didn’t want to come home at all…so awesome. So after playing we grabbed a few waters, and headed back to Zamalek…flying through the streets and on overpasses, just as crazy as before. Got to the hotel, and get up to my room, and everyone is in there hanging out for petes birthday…perfect timing again…this day couldn’t have been any better. I took a quick shower and then hung out with everyone. Introduced everyone to Mohammed and his friend adam. And then we decided to go out. So we all head out and are planning on going to a club that Adam knew about. So a bunch of pile into Mohammeds car and in less than 3 seconds, this master rally car driver backs right into a car pulling out of his parking spot…and as I have talked about, there are policemen on every corner. So instantly they were at the scene and they told him to wait here. So we ended up having to just go back to the hotel, while he and adam talked with the police and waited for the owner of the car to come back. I wanted to stay with them to make sure everything would be OK, but they kept reassuring me that everything would be fine. They gave ted a call about an hour later letting us know that everything was fine…apparently they are from fairly well off families, and in Egypt that’s all that matters…so they didn’t have to pay anything…imagine if it were like that in the states?? Ridiculous! So, head back to the hotel, hang out till late, and then crash…best day of the trip by far…so many stories, so much fun…

Peace

-Al

A regular day, A visit to the Arab League, and some reflection

Wednesday:

Wake up, breakfast, head to class…get my test…didn’t do as well as Id hoped but I'm not too worried about it…after class we had 2 hours to kill before our whole group met up to watch the Yacoubian Building movie. The Yacoubian Building is the book that we all had to read for our IAF class. We grabbed lunch at the caf…still kind of sketchy eating there, but I still havnt got sick from it so I'm feeling good about it…then we walked around downtown Cairo for a bit to kill time. Came back to AUC campus and played cards…we have since found out that it is illegal to play cards in public in Egypt…the last time we played cards, security guards came to us and tried to confiscate our cards…it was very weird. So we tried to play again this time, and noone hassled us luckily. But after talking with our professor, we will most likely not be playing cards in public anymore, I'm not trying to go to an Egyptian prison…torture is legal in this country…anyways, we met the group and watched the movie. It was in Arabic, with subtitles and the acting was terrible. I passed out for the first half, and watched the second half. It was alright, it pretty much followed the book exactly, which made it fairly boring…afterwards we came back to the hotel and grabbed some dinner at the Lebanese place again...so delicious…I am going to get a recipe for the bread they use and try to make it, its unreal…came back to the hotel, and hung out for a bit…then headed to Versaille Palace to watch the champions league final…amazing game, go Man U…I ran into Omar when I was leaving, which was pretty random…headed back to the hotel, crashed.

Thursday:

Wake up, and dress up nice because after class today we are going to visit the U.S. embassy and the Arab League. Head to class, after class we grabbed lunch and still had an hour to kill before we left for the embassy…I havnt talked much about the heat here, but I will today. The worst part about the heat in Egypt is that you cannot wear pants. It is not culturally acceptable, so you have to battle the heat in pants…and today was even worse, it was about 96 degrees all day and I had to walk around with a suit jacket. I was sweating my you know what’s off. So we walked around some before heading to the embassy. Met up with the group and started walking to the embassy…in a suit…in 96 degree heat…not fun. But when we got to the Embassy I had never been so excited to see the American Flag in my life. It was flapping in the wind, and it just made me feel great to stare at it. After living in Cairo for almost a month now, I have really seen just how fortunate I am to come from America. After seeing some of the things I have seen in the outskirt towns, and witnessing the general infrastructure of the country every day, it’s really a depressing place to see at some times. But then you go to the major sightseeing places and you can’t believe your eyes…it’s a crazy place. We get into the Embassy and we have a sit down and Q+A with some of the workers there. A lot of international affairs business that the engineers didn’t really care about. But I thought it was interesting to get a taste of foreign politics…an hour or so later we were out of there.

We now had another 2 hours or so to kill before we go to the Arab League. So most of the group went to the Nile Hilton to hang out. Ben sean and I walked around lookin for a place to grab some food. Finally went into a bar in the hotel and I ordered a double cheeseburger…probably the best decision I made since I landed in Cairo. The burger came and it wasn’t 2 patties, it was just 1 patty that was about an inch thick. Apparently a double cheeseburger at the Nile Hilton means double meat in 1 patty…awesome. It tasted like a summer day at home. And made me think about how badly I want to get home and grill every type of meat possible…especially when every time I talk to Bill or Andy they are grilling massive amounts of food at the new apartment…only a few more weeks haha…but anyways I eat the delicious burger and afterwards I am feeling great…time to head out and go to the Arab League. I didn’t know much about what it was but from the questions I had asked, it seems as though it is like a micro version of the UN just for Arab nations. We enter the building and it was beautiful inside. We enter a massive conference room, and waited for a delegate from the Arab League to come and talk with us about the Arab League…He came in and introduces himself, he is the second highest official in the whole Arab League. He was extremely well spoken, and I felt honored just to be in the same room with him. He talked about the Arab Leagues position in the Arab Israeli conflict, and other problems in the Arab world such as the new crises in Lebanon. He then opened it up for questions. Excellent questions were asked and he matched them with great answers…after about an hour of this he gave us a tour of the chamber room…this was so cool to see. It was a massive circle room with a chair for every country in the league. We got to explore around and take pictures sitting in the seats…very cool…after a few oohs and aahs, we headed back to the hotel. We didn’t have enough room in the vans, so Matt, Sean, Ted and I volunteered to take a cab. We didn’t think about what we had just done until we got in the cab. Sean, Ted and I are all over 6 feet tall…and the can was comparable to a mini cooper…needless to say, we had quite a tight squeeze of a ride home hahaha…hung out for a bit, and then went out and had a few beers…back to the hotel and crashed…

So I have now been in Egypt for 3 weeks, and I just wanted to recap about what I have been going through. When I first got here, I would say I had initial culture shock, which was drowned by the sightseeing right off of the bat. I got a little taste of the real Egypt driving through the towns, but really not much at all at first. When we toured Aswan and Luxor it was like a dream, and it didn’t feel like I was in such a terrible place. Everything was beautiful, with no worries. When we arrived back in Cairo it was like reality set in again…and I would say I could have reacted better. I was not ready for it. And the first service learning trip out to Establ Antar didn’t help. At this point I was in full culture shock. I couldn’t stop thinking about how low the standards of living were here. And the weird part about it is that the people here are content with it. They have their religion, and that seems to be enough for them…which is amazing to witness. But after returning there I was able to take it for what it is and realize that this is how it is, and its not going to change for a long long time…I have been feeling more and more comfortable here in Cairo after 2 weeks of straight classes. But I think in 2 weeks when it is time to leave, I will be ready to go. With the daily craziness of psychotic driving, honking, stray cats everywhere, and the dirtiness and dilapidated buildings, it’s just a grind… I am definitely glad that I chose to come because it has totally changed my views on this part of the world. I wasn’t expecting to be treated with such hospitality. Restaurant owners and shop owners love to talk with you and everyone here always says “I love Americans, but I hate the American government”, and we always agree. I would say in a word this trip has been eye-opening. I wish I could explain better what I have been feeling, but I don’t think that it is possible…I guess this is it for now…keep checking in.

Peace

-Al

Free Day, Establ Antar, Test day...

Sunday:

Wake up…breakfast…head to class…felt weird having a class on a Sunday…after class, came back to the hotel, should have studied for my test on Tuesday, but instead I passed out and took a nap…woke up and edited my photos for the rest of the day…looked at some fluids stuff but then realized that I was in Egypt and shouldn’t be studying so I went out for dinner…came back, passed out…probably one of the most boring days yet…but it felt nice to be bored for a change…either way, more for tomorrow…

Monday:

Wake up, breakfast and headed out for a day of service learning, no class today…We head back to Establ Antar to interview people from the glass blowing workshop for information to put on the website we will be building…My job, you guessed it, was to photograph the products for the website…so Jamula and I organized a system for photographing each product as well as documenting them. We set up a backdrop for the products and went to town for about 2 hours. By the end I thought my knee was going to implode because I had to crouch down for each photo...I also photographed the workers doing some glass blowing, which is so cool to watch. And after 3 hours there, we left…the worst part about it was that apparently the towns people complained to the NGO about us playing soccer with the kids last time. So we were not allowed to play with them again this time. This really upset me because that was the whole reason I wanted to go. But I guess we have to respect the cultural differences. I figured that having fun with the kids would do more for them than building a website, but o well. As Professor Sullivan always says “This is Egypt, so whatever you think will happen, expect the opposite.” This was one of those times…so we came back to the hotel…still didn’t have time to study which annoyed me. This is because we had our first dialogue with Egyptian students. It actually turned out to be really really cool. We went as a whole group to the Fulbright center to have group discussions with Egyptian students. We talked about everything from politics, to the noise level in Cairo, to movies, to the end of the world, to drug use, etc etc etc…I met 2 guys from here in Cairo…Mohamed, who was wearing chuck tailors and an Iron Maiden T-Shirt…Bill you would have been psyched on him haha…we are actually going to play soccer on Friday with his buddies, so I am looking forward to that…Sean and I also met Omar, he is wicked cool as well. We talked with him and decided to get lunch together on Tuesday…He is pretty cool, he drives a Bimmer, and he wants to take us clubbing, and show us around this weekend…so hopefully this weekend will be action packed…after the dialogue, we headed back to the Hotel and studied till about 1:30….

Tuesday:

Test day…breakfast…vans…into the classroom and start the test…it goes alright, and talking with people afterwards it seemed like I did alright…hopefully it goes alright…after the test, we went to lunch and met Omar there. We exchanged emails and talked about what to do this weekend. We might go cruising, or head up to Marina with him at some point....we head back to the hotel. I edit some photos and start my homework due for the next day…Also start working on the website for the glassblowing. Then we headed to dinner to try out this new lebanese place. we get there and everything on the menu is wicked cheap, under 15 pounds which is about 3 dollars american which was awesome. We get our food, and start eating it and it is amazing...I think lebanese is my new favorite food. The bread they used to make this Manakeesh stuff is so good, its like a super soft pita bread...so good definitely going back tomorrow...head back to the hotel, finish up my homework and watch some entourage…pass out...more to come for the rest of the week.

Peace

-Al

First Free Weekend

Thursday, Friday, Saturday:

Thursday: wake up, breakfast, class, Weekend…sweet. Head back to the hotel, and chill out for a while…blog, and send my final paper to Dr. Denis. I know I didn’t do a stellar job on it, but I'm not too worried, I'm sure it’ll all work out…went to the metro and bought laundry detergent. I started my first load of laundry in the tub, and it seems to be alright so far. Thursday night was pretty chill. We went to dinner at vivant again…I ordered lasagna, and they it took them 35 minutes to tell me that there was something wrong with my meal so I had to reorder. So I got my meal just in time for everyone else to be done. I ate fast and left no tip. Went to the metro, and picked up a cigar, back to the room and watched some entourage...hung my clothes out to dry… Then we went and chilled out at Versailles Palace. Some people smoked hookah, Sean and I smoked cigars. Then we got bored and went to chill out at Longchamps hotel balcony. Headed back to Flamenco. Got stuck in the elevator but I figured a way to jury rig the safety mechanism to work and I rescued us from a night in the elevator…I was pretty psyched on that. back to the flamenco, passed out

Friday:

Breakfast, and then dried off a set of clothes cause everything is still wet… went straight to cinnabon for some internet. Stayed there for about 6 or 7 hours doing a combination of fluids HW, photo editing, and surfing the internet…430 rolled around and I was starving. Back to the hotel and tried to get a crew together for some food. We decide were gona go downtown to meet some people and grab some food. 630 rolls around and were just leaving, and my stomach is screaming at me…luckily I still have some peanut butter left that I am rationing for snacks…gota go grocery shopping soon…hit the downtown area, its actually really nice. Apparently it is modeled after the champs Elysees in france…went into a few shops and then finally got some dinner…chicken sandwich…eh not so good…walked around with some of the girls for a little while longer and then took a cab back to the hotel…the cabs here are insane…rickety pieces of crap that feel like they are gona fall apart at any moment…but its awesome to ride in them, you just kind of have to develop a trust for it and your all set…kind of a theme here in Egypt…back to our room, put in a movie and I was out like a light…

Saturday:

I forgot to tell you about the plans that molly made for a few of us on our free day today…we planned a day trip to Ismailya on the Suez Canal. 10 of us rented out one of the vans and we headed out early…I slept most of the way there, but from what I could tell on the drive, it was desert the whole way, and not much else. Pretty insane to see a desert as I'm sure I have already said, but even still, its insane…I actually saw a mirage, never thought that it was a real thing…we arrive at Ismailya around 10 oclock and we went to see the canal first…there was a huge sign across the canal that said welcome to Egypt, thought that was pretty cool…then we went into Ismailya to walk around…we get out of the van and the first thing I notice was the noise level…it was so quiet and peaceful and there wasn’t a lot of people around…no tourists, except for us…a different feel from anything we have had so far…we walk down the main drag and we get to the open air market…I thought the souk was intense, and now after today, that was absolutely nothing…what I experienced at this market was so intense that explaining it in a blog, or photographing it will never capture what I went through…I think that in one phrase, I will call it sensory overload...so here is my trip through the market….

First, I see some meat hanging from hooks in the stores before the market, standard Egyptian style. Then I look a little further in this one shop, and there are FULL cow carcasses hanging, and the smell was horrendous…absolutely disgusting…we cross the street and there are 3 more stores with full cow carcasses hanging, and chickens in cages…we get to the market and the scent changes from foul smelling meat to the sweet smell of fresh fruit…it was the biggest 180 my nasal passageways have ever experienced, it felt like I fell into a fruit smoothie or something…that doesn’t make sense but I don’t really care haha…anyways, we walk a little further through the delicious smelling fruits and we get to more meat…another nasal 180…then walking further through yelling Egyptians, and fruit and meat carts we get to a vegetable section, and it smells so fresh and good that my brain is having trouble processing all of this…there are flies everywhere, and trash everywhere and my nose is freaking out from the mix of aromas, It was so intense…walk further through the umbrellas and veggie stands and there is a new disgusting smell and I finally see where its coming from, we were in the fish section…and I thought I had seen most every fish, but these things I swear were from another planet…this guy had a tub full of these half cat fish half eel looking things…they were oozing this green gunk and it smelled like death…I couldn’t believe what my nose was going through, everything either smelled SO good or SOOOOOO bad….keep walking and we get to the garbage dump from the market…and we all look at each other and say…”what just happened??” haha it was ridiculous.

We leave the market and walk around the town for a little. We came upon this Coptic catholic church and this little old lady took us in and introduced us to the priest. He spoke English, and told us some jokes and let us walk around and take pictures…we took pictures with him and then he gave us his email to send them to him…then it was time to get back to the van and go to the beach…we get to the beach club and chill out there for a few hours, I didn’t go swimming, Ted did, but noone else was brave enough…or dumb enough…to go swimming in the suez…yes the suez has beaches…all of the Egyptian guys on the beach loved us and they came and took pictures with us…I bought a soccer jersey of the team Ahly, from Cairo, so when I wear it people go nuts! They love that I wear it and they all yell Barakat! When I walk by, because that’s the guy who’s jersey it is…so the guys at the beach thought I was him and they took pictures with me...left the beach, and back to Cairo for another dinner at Abduh’s…the trip back was insane…I'm not sure if I had told you about security for Americans in Egypt… If the authorities find out that there is a group of American tourists, they like to do police escorts for them…well they found out that we were there, and they hooked it up big time…and when I say escort, its more like a parade…We had 3 cop trucks surrounding us, each truck had 6 guys in the back each with an AK, and 2 guys up front wearing Hawaiian shirts and packing glocks…so that’s……18 automatic weapons and 6 pistols…I was feeling pretty good about my chances of not getting fucked with…so as were flying down the highway, sirens blaring from the cop trucks, and people getting out of our way the whole way, we end up hitting a checkpoint of some sort…the policeman working there knew that we were arriving so he stopped us to let the traffic in front of us get ahead of us, and then after about 2 minutes, he let us go and HELD the traffic behind us for about 4 or 5 minutes. So now we are FLYING down the highway with cop cars surrounding us with noone else on the road…it was pretty cool. We get to Abduh’s and have a delicious dinner with the whole group. Another group pow wow to talk about the service learning…blah blah blah. Back to the hotel…finish up my HW and watch a movie…wrote up this blog and now I'm gona crash…class tomorrow…on a Sunday? Weird…more coming soon.

Peace

-Al

Stabl Antar

Wednesday 5-14-08:

Wake up, breakfast, vans, class…meet up with the group again to make another trip out to an even worse neighborhood to check out the glass blowing shop that the NGO has help start up.

I thought yesterday was bad, and then we went out to a little town called Stabl Antar, another outskirt town of Cairo. We are driving through the town, and I can’t believe that the van actually made it down the roads we were on. They were dirt roads filled with trash, and god knows what else…30 minutes of driving past donkeys with carts, kids playing football (soccer) in the street, poverty everywhere, and bread lines…the food shortage is a serious problem in Egypt right now. We arrive at the glass blowing shop with a football field out front and there is a group of kids playing. I instantly wanted to go play because that was one of the things I wanted to do when I came here…we get a tour of the glass blowing shop. It was actually very nice, and the stuff they made was beautiful. It was nice to see that in such a terrible part of town there are some good things happening. We watched the glass blower make a perfume bottle for Dr. Sullivans daughter, Grace, who is on the trip with us. He wrote grace in both English and Arabic on the bottle for her, it was very cool.

After the tour, we were waiting for everyone to use the bathroom, which was upstairs, and they would only allow one person at a time to go upstairs due to their religious views. So I had some time to kill, and the kids were still playing soccer…with Abduh, and all the van drivers…It took me a while to get up the courage to go and play with the whole group standing around, but I did and it was awesome. These kids were probably about 10-12 years old, and they were NASTY! They were popping rainbows, and step overs, and heel passes etc etc etc. It was a dirt field, so I was slipping everywhere in my nike running shoes, but I had a blast. I cant wait till the next time we go up there so I can play again…We left Stabl Antar, and came back to Zamalek. Tried out a new place for dinner, finished up my paper before I went to sleep, and then crashed.

More for tomorrow…although I might just start doing a post every other day or so, not as much to report since we stopped speed tourism…but stay tuned.

Peace

-Al

A little culture shock...ok a lot of culture shock

Tuesday 5-13-08:

Wake up, breakfast, load up the vans and head to class at AUC. Another 4 hours of fluids. Professor Taslim is one of the best professors I have had yet. He doesn’t miss a thing, and he is very helpful with questions. I was worried about having 4 hours of 1 class 4 times a week, but I think that it is going to work. Were learning a lot, but I'm enjoying it. After class, we head up to the knitting and carpet factory that I talked about yesterday…the trip out there is scary to say the least. We drive to an outskirt town of Cairo, through dirt roads with people living meagerly everywhere along the way. There were whole communities of dilapidated houses everywhere. I was feeling terrible for these people and I couldn’t believe that they were living like this. I started freaking out a bit…culture shock…it just seemed like there was an infinite amount of people living this way, with no way of getting out…this was the first time that I had the though “I want to go home”…

We get to the knitting factory, and it is actually a lot nicer than I was expecting. It seemed like the women working there really enjoyed it. The products that they make are very nice, and very authentic. We stayed for about a half hour asking questions using a translator, just to get a feel for what we could do to help them out…we left and headed to the carpet factory…we drove through more of the same shack like neighborhoods and arrive at the factory. Right when we walked in there was a rug in the front room made especially for the president of Fulham F.C. in England…We are greeted by a lady decked out in designer clothing who gave us the schpeal on the place.. She told us about how they are a family business, and how they are linked with a school in the area and that they provide young kids with an artistic trade that they can use to provide money for their families…blah blah blah I didn’t believe a word she was saying. She then says that they are the oldest and one of the most prestigious carpet factories in all of Egypt…Then she gives us the tour, which made me want to puke. There were whole families working on massive looms, including the little kids in the families. The carpet’s they made were beautiful, I have to admit, but to watch these little kids make carpets like they were robots was just really hard to watch. There was one girl who had nicked her hand with the knife that they use, and was bleeding…I couldn’t believe what I was looking at…it was like a small sweat shop for families…I couldn’t believe that this lady who ran the place was wearing all of this designer clothing, and that she was employing little kids to make the carpets…it was ridiculous…I mean I guess that if the kids probably don’t have another option in life, that it is a good alternative, but at least give them a chance with school before just sticking them in a carpet factory to make quilts. And this wasn’t even the part that made me the most upset. I couldn’t stop thinking “if this is such a prestigious carpet factory…why do they need our help?”…and I found out why when the tour ended…Cruella Deville (designer clothing lady) had no idea that we wanted to help her out. She thought we were there to buy carpets. She starts bringing out every type of carpet that they produce and giving us a background on all of them. The whole group is just staring around, just like at the meeting the day before, with the “what the F#@$” look on. Someone asks her about the help that we thought we were going to give her, and she looked confused. Then someone explained to her what we were doing there, and she kind of realized what was going on…There has been a serious misunderstanding with the NGO we are working with…and everyone in the group seems extremely frustrated about it. After a few more minutes of standing around and feeling super awkward about what we were doing there we head back to the vans and head home. Driving through the slums again made me really miss home a lot. I couldn’t stop thinking about how there can be people living like this…It’s overwhelming because I wish there was something that I could do, but there seems to be nothing. And with our partnership with the NGO falling apart it makes it even worse…all I wanted to do was leave Egypt for a while…but when I got back to Zamalek (the island the hotel is on) I was back to my comfort zone and I began to feel a little better. I can’t believe that Zamalek is now my comfort zone, because when I got off of the plane and arrived at Zamalek, I remember being totally overwhelmed with the chaos. Now I walk around Zamalek like its totally fine, which it is. But it’s just crazy how going to the slums in the outskirts of Cairo REALLY put things into perspective for me…back at the hotel I finished my fluids HW and then went out to eat…edited some photos and blogged. Passed out. More for tomorrow.

Peace

-Al

Classes, and a frightening civil service meeting

Monday 5-12-08:

Wake up at the Flamenco, breakfast, delicious. Load up the vans and head to AUC for the first day of classes. Arrive at AUC, it’s in a fairly nice neighborhood of Cairo, and we get to our classroom. Our room isn’t really a classroom; it is more like an executive meeting room. It’s beautiful with very comfortable old style chairs. 4 hours of fluids later and its lunch time. So far the class seems very interesting, a lot of the same mechanics as previous classes, just with different applications of fluids involved with it. We get lunch, and then meet up with the rest of the group for our first meeting about our civil service project. Everyone in the group was under the impression that we were going to be painting a bridge in a small impoverished community outside of Cairo. But when the meeting starts, the people working for the NGO tell us that that has actually fallen through and that there are new projects that we can work on. They tell us about there other projects that they have going on. The slide show they are running is pretty terrible, and Yousef, the guy running the meeting seemed like he had no idea what was going on. The other lady working with him seemed the same was as well. They have 3 main options for us to choose from: Help a small knitting factory by setting up a website and other things. Also, they would like us to help a small carpet factory build a website as well as other stuff. There is also a glass blowing factory that needs help. These 3 factories are being helped by the NGO apparently, and they help Egyptians with jobs and learning a trade. The last project they had for us was what they called “sanitation” of this community near the factories. They want us to pick up the trash in this neighborhood that is full of trash because the government denies there existence and refuses to help them out…so here are my initial thoughts:

I instantly thought that the factories were probably sweat shops, and that we aren’t going to be able to help them at all. All the questions we asked like “what are we going to do to help these factories” were answered completely vaguely, or by them saying “how would you like to help these people”. This made me realize just how unorganized this whole operation was.

and when I heard about the trash picking, I thought it was a joke…firstly there is no way in hell I am going to pick up trash in a community like that for obvious health reasons…secondly if I pick up the trash, its not like there is a system to keep the trash out of there, it will just pile up again…many people from the group asked questions about this and they were answered the same way as before...vaguely. I started looking around and everyone had the same look on their face as i did, it was a “WHAT THE F&^% IS GOING ON??” look...

Then the 2 people from the NGO that were running the excuse for a meeting say…OK! Now organize yourselves into groups of what project you would like to work on...we are all like…WHAT?! How the hell are we supposed to know which project we want to work on yet? We havn't even seen these places yet…they realize our mindset and they agree that we should see the places first thanks to Dr. Sullivan. By now I was so furious with what was going on I really just wanted to get out of there…

When I signed up for this, I was under the impression that there was a potential for some engineering community service stuff. But then that fell through before we came over and I was fine with it. I was cool with painting a bridge, which was the other plan, that seemed like something substantial to help people. But when that fell through, and they were asking me what I wanted to be doing because they had no idea what THEY were doing, man that fired me up…It was like they had no idea what they were doing and they wanted us to figure it out in 1 month…

After the meeting I thought I was mad and then I talked to everyone else and they were just as furious with the whole thing. So I guess I still havn’t seen the places, maybe it wont be as bad as I thought…after the meeting, we load up the vans, and head back to the hotel. Do a little of my first homework assignment and work a little more on the paper. Head out to dinner at a sweet little pasta place…full plate of pasta for 2 dollars American…ridiculous…back to the hotel, work a little bit more on my paper and then crash…

Being back in Cairo has definitely increased my stress level. I am no longer a tourist, and I am wearing thin. Class is almost relaxing because it gets me out of the city for 4 hours a day. But I feel like whenever I am with the whole group I go insane because nothing is planned very well anymore…when we were touring Upper Egypt, it was excellent, and everything ran smoothly. Now that I'm in class and the civil service portion is FUBAR, I'm getting pretty annoyed. 4 weeks ill be done and I'm looking forward to it…

More for tomorrow

Peace

-Al

Back To Cairo...unfortunately

Sunday 5-11-08:

Wake up on the train in Cairo…slept terribly, the guy on the train kept knocking on our door asking if we wanted breakfast etc etc…so annoying…also everything else bounces around on the train and there is always knocking…whatever…so we get in at about 7am…back to the hotel at 8am…and we get the great news that we cant check in until noon at the earliest…GREAT! So I sit on the curb for a little bit and try to get some internet…half hour of that and I was fed up…lugged my shit over to cilantro and ordered a hot chocolate, thinking I would get a hot chocolate…instead I got a cup of pretty much heated up chocolate syrup…I wanted to throw it on the floor I was so fed up with cilantros…I havnt been this stressed in a while, and Cairo doesn’t help. Also the fact that vacation is now over, and I have to start classes tomorrow is really not helping out my mood…everything is loud, people smoke inside and its friggin hot out, I didn’t sleep and I got crappy hot chocolate…So I do what always helps me relieve my stress, and edit photos for a few hours. Finally calmed down, and before I knew it it was noon and I was checking into the room…Sean and I are now roommates and we ended up with the corner room which is a lot bigger than most other rooms…so now I’m feeling a little better. I layed on my bed for about 2 hours just chilling out and watching entourage to try to relieve some stress…After that I decide to work on my paper, and I get a decent amount done. Chill for a little bit more and before I knew it it was dinner time…head out with a big group to a place that Doughty knew about. Get there, the menu kinda sucked but the place was pretty ritzy…a little pricy, but whatever, classes start tomorrow so I’m celebrating…have good convo and enjoy a great dinner…head back to the hotel, pick up some drinks for tomorrow at the grocery store…the juices here are AWESOME. Back to the room, edit some more pictures, and work on my paper a little bit more and then pass out, with class in the morning? Weirdddd…more for tomorrow.

Peace

-Al

Last Day in Luxor

Saturday 5-10-08:

Wake up at the hotel, breakfast, better than the day before but still not so great…load up the busses and head to the Karnak Temple. I was excited for this because this was the only temple that I ever remembered reading about. About a 15 minute bus ride and we get there. After a week and a half of speed tourism, we were all pretty wiped out. It was great to be seeing these historic and ancient ruins, but it was another temple and I was just about at my max. The temple was massive, at least 4 times the size of any of the other temples we had seen. We walked around with our tour guide for about 30 minutes, and then we had a half hour to ourselves. We walked around and took a bunch of photos. The temple was amazing, there were massive stone pillars everywhere with hieroglyphics everywhere. The entrance was very cool too, there was a walkway lined on both sides with small sphinx’s…It was a beautiful day, and after about 20 minutes of walking around we just sat down and relaxed. The group met up, we loaded up the bus and headed back to the hotel. We got back around 11am, and had to move our stuff into a new room noon. Again because we had to check out of our old room due to the fact that we were catching the midnight train again at night. So everyone moved all their stuff into 4 rooms...I read my book for an hour, and then moved into the new room. Then I went and chilled by the pool and finished the book…finally. Took a dip for a bit and then dried off and went out to lunch in Luxor. Back to the hotel, blogged, photo edited for a few hours and even started my paper. Then we went to the Luxor museum. Got a tour from Dr. Sullivan’s friend Melinda. She is a professor from Georgia state with a dig here in Egypt…I got her card for Nate and Rachael…She knows pretty much everything about ancient Egypt and it was really cool to have her telling us everything about all the artifacts. I wish we had her for our tour guide the whole time, I probably would have been more interested in everything…our other tour guides had thick accents and it was tough to concentrate on what they were saying when the sights were so awesomely distracting…back to the hotel and get my bags together to head to the train. Arrive at the station, get on the train and head back to Cairo…watch the Italian job, fall asleep before the ending…more for tomorrow when im back to Cairo.

Peace

-Al

Sightseeing in Luxor

Friday 5-9-08:

Wake up at 5:30…shitty. Breakfast at the new hotel…shitty. On the bus and off for a day of sightseeing. First stop, Valley of the Kings. We were allowed to pick 3 tombs to see with the pass we had, and there was also the optional pass to see King Tut’s tomb, which I bought. We arrive at the Valley of the Kings, and get a ride on a golf cart up to the tombs from the main building. Sean, Matt and I decide to go off by ourselves after being sick of sightseeing with a massive group for the last week. We go to our first tomb, Rhamsees III, and it was pretty cool. We walk in this small door and instantly there are hieroglyphics everywhere. There are hallways, and rooms everywhere all filled with ancient hieroglyphics and surprisingly there was still a lot of color left on the carvings. Next stop we went to was Tethmus III. This one was crazy. We had to walk up a huge flight of stairs just to get to the entrance, and then we had to walk down a steep entrance ramp just to get to the start of the tomb. It was hotter than hell inside. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how in the world people found these things…Unbelievable…the inside was similar to the previous tomb, hieroglyphics everywhere…next stop, King Tut’s tomb…so many times I have read about this in Nat Geo, and I have always wanted to see it, and I finally did…very moving. The entrance to the tomb was nothing special, and the tomb itself wasn’t that far underground. Apparently he died at a young age, so they had to use a makeshift tomb for him because they hadn’t finished his actual tomb. But anyways, we get inside the tomb, and the only thing I see initially is his sarcophagus. So I spend about 5 minutes just staring at this beautiful sarcophagus. It was just like you always saw in National Geographic, the gold and blue pharaoh with his hands crossed. Then all of a sudden I turn around and see a glass case…inside the case is the preserved body of King Tut…I couldn’t believe my eyes…I feel like every day there is something else that I see that I cant believe…anyways they have the preserved body of the king just hanging out in the tomb, so cool to see it. Then I went into Rhamsees IV. Another tomb very similar to the others, hieroglyphics everywhere and the fact that the color was preserved all this time was amazing. Then all of a sudden one of the Arab workers yells at me accusing me of taking pictures, and I get really pissed off. He tried to grab my camera, and I was like HELL NO, GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! He told me to leave to leave the tomb, and that he was going to confiscate my camera, I told him to F off and that he wasn’t going anywhere near my camera. Luckily after a few minutes of bantering, Mo Taslim, my fluids professor, talked to the guy and everything was settled…so that was an exciting…I noticed that my ticket still had one more hole punch to go, so one of the guys who was clipping tickets must have messed mine up…so I luckily got to go into another tomb. Rhamsees the VII…I went in and the carvings and hieroglyphics in this tomb I think were my favorite. There was a carving of the solar boat that was so vivid, and the tour guide gave a great description of its significance. Stayed for a while just looking and then it was time to leave. Back on the bus and off to Hatshepsuts tomb. Her tomb is about a 5 minute drive just around the mountain from the Valley of the Kings. She was not allowed to be buried with the kings so instead she decided to make a MASSIVE tomb for herself just on the other side of the same mountain…A great photo op here…the place was massive, with huge sculptures everywhere. We walked around for 30 minutes or so and then it was time to leave…Next stop on the docket was the Ramesseum Temple. This temple was very similar again to all the previous temples we have seen although the location was very cool. It was set right at the bottom of a mountain, with ruins behind it, which made for great pictures. Unfortunately, my battery died after about 10 minutes at the temple so I was SOL for taking pictures…I didn’t mind at all though, I was so burned out from taking pictures. So I just walked around and enjoyed it…back on the bus and one more stop to go before the day was done. Just down the road a few hundred yards were the Colossi of Memnon, two huge statues that were used to guard the entrance to the Ramasseum Temple in ancient times. We get out, stare in awe for 5 minutes at these massive beautiful statues, get haggled by some merchants as usual…Back on the bus, back to the hotel and I took a quick nap. Then I read the book until my head wanted to explode, and went out with some of the group to the Luxor Temple, which is right down the road from our hotel. The Luxor temple was again, very similar to all the other Temples, but still very very cool. We went at dusk and the lighting was awesome, I took some great shots…then we decided we should all go out to eat in a massive group, 23 of us total. We get to the restaurant and they welcome us in, quickly set up a massive table and we ate like kings for dirt cheap. 3 beers, a plate of pasta, and some great conversation, and I was ready to crash. Walk back to the hotel, hang out in the room for a bit, edit some photos and pass out…Temple Karnak coming up tomorrow…

Peace

-Al

Off To Luxor...

So I have been in Egypt for a week now and I just have to say, this is the craziest place I have ever been. I was ready for some culture shock but I don't think it was possible to prepare for just how different it is over here. Crappy food, loud people, honking cars, and poverty everywhere. The other thing that is weird to deal with is how the terrible condition of the country is balanced with the amazing sightseeing. There are some of the most famous ancient sights in the world and they are nestled in with some of the worst slums i have ever seen...either way, i just wanted to recap my feelings on the first week. here is week 2...enjoy.

WEEK 2:

Thursday:

Wake up in Aswan at 6am…boo!, breakfast, pack up, get on the bus and head out for Luxor with a few stops along the way. The road we are traveling on is very dangerous so we have a police escort the whole way. Also, this escort only allows for us to have a certain amount of time at each place we stop at, which makes it annoying because we end up doing what I like to call "speed tourism"…We arrive at our first stop along the way after traveling through the impoverished farmlands of the Nile river valley. It is called the Kom-Ombo Temple. An ancient Temple very similar to the Philae Temple from yesterday. Huge pillars everywhere, with walls full of beautiful carvings and hieroglyphics. It was unbelievable to see all of this, so unbelievable that it was almost too much. It felt weird to be looking at these ancient ruins, of which I didn’t really understand the history behind…But, we get a nice history lesson from our tour guide which helped…We are then allowed about 10 minutes to check it out ourselves...kind of annoying because I would have liked to walk around a little more and really take it in…oh well. Back on the bus and another hour or so later we get to our next stop, The Edfu Temple…And again, it is very similar to the previous Temples we have seen. You first see the huge buildings from far away, and then you get to the court yard where there are massive hieroglyphics. Enter the Temple, massive pillars everywhere, and hieroglyphics still everywhere. Very stunning, although I didn’t understand the significance really, it was still breathtaking. Another history lesson and we allowed another 5-10 minutes. A bunch of us stayed a little longer than they allowed and when we got back to the bus, Dr. Sullivan wasn’t too happy…oh well. Another hour or so and we get to Luxor. Great hotel, with another pool…super pumped. We go walk around town and try to find food, Sean and I have a semi panic attack because we couldn’t find anything and then all of a sudden we found a pizza place, and went in and got some grub…not great, but cheap and I was starving…back to the hotel, hit the pool, which is on a floating barge on the Nile, very nice view yet again. Got out and read for an hour or so, the book is actually getting a little better. Quick dip before I head out, end up smacking my forehead on the bottom of the pool while trying to do a flip-turn…idiot…up to the room, read a little more, and then out to dinner with a big group of us. We found a ridiculously cheap place; I got a beer (500ml beers here) and a cheeseburger for 21 pounds which is about 4 dollars American. We had a good time at dinner, talking about funny hometown stories, etc etc. We asked the waiter if he could put on the wooh wooh song, and he ended up finding it and he played it for us. The girls then started dancing, and some of the little kids of the restaurant owner started dancing with them…the guys stayed at the table and hung out…classic. After dinner, we bought some water for the following days excursions. Back to the hotel, watched Dodgeball for a little and then passed out with a 5:30AM wake up call coming up fast…lots of sight seeing tomorrow…

Peace

-Al