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