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