Just a heads up: my entries are going to be in random order because I’m writing as I remember each visit.

One of the parts of Cairo that we visited and I really liked was Islamic Cairo and the Khan el-Khalili.

We started our Islamic Cairo visit at Bab Zuwayla (which translates to Gate Zuwayla) and was the Southern gate built around the city by the Fatimids a couple of centuries after Cairo was founded.

The two minarets flanking the gate when we arrived were a great preview to all that we would find inside.

The gates were certainly in deteriorating condition but still a sight to see. They rose into the sky (just how high, we would find out personally), two pillars guarding the city contained inside. (photo to the right).

When we climbed up the minaret (all the way up, including up the rickety, completely unstable and shaky, looking like it was built 2000 years ago staircase at the top), the view was breathtaking (and breaths I took. A lot of them. I found out just how out of shape I am on this trip. FML).

But the view the top provided was ridiculous. All of the old city was splayed out in front of us, with minarets rising and dotting the landscape as far as my eyes could see (which admittedly wasn’t very far because I’m legally blind without my glasses, but you get the point).  Another thing we found out on top was that most people always leave the top floor of their homes under construction so they can avoid paying property taxes. The laws in Egypt only tax completed houses, so if you say you’re still building a floor, you won’t be taxed. Genius (on the taxpayers’ parts). Kind of dumb on the government’s part.

a view from the top

The actual markets inside the city was bustling, even though we went on New Year’s weekend (did I mention that getting used to a Friday-Saturday weekend and Sunday-Thursday work week was harder than expected? And it wasn’t very hard but I did notice a difference. So Thursday nights were Friday nights. Mind-blowing? I know.) and most things were supposed to be closed. The streets are not really friendly to walking (which I found out the hard way in my shibshib (flip-flops)), with holes, uneven bricks, dust and CAT FECES EVERYWHERE. I put that in capitals because I just realized that I forgot to talk about how many stray cats there are in Cairo. A LOT. Stray dogs? I saw a few near the pyramids, besides that, nothing. The cats, on the other hand….the cats. I’ve seen cats climb up to places never before discovered by man (okay, so I’m exaggerating a little bit but let a girl tell a story. sheesh). There were ninja cats that nimbly ran on the spiral tops of gates; there were crazy cats that ravaged through garbage bags and were as big as some dogs. They also had the crazy eyes one only hears of in ancient legends. I don’t think you understand…I was terrified of these cats. And Ioana (in her mother’s spirit) was sure they had rabies and walked far away, while crossing herself, every time. (<3)

….Anyway, back to the markets.

i can actually sense the atmosphere on the street that day

The Khan el-Khalili was also a marketplace of sorts, but it was a bit farther down from Bab Zuwayla. The Khan (originally created as a resting spot for merchants and travelers, where they would continue trading while they rested before going on to their destinations). It’s a massive area, lined with stores and storeowners vying for your attention with calls of “sister, come in here” to “I kill my wife for you!” You can probably find everything you see in one store for 10 pounds cheaper at the next store, but part of the experience is letting the sellers charm their way into your wallet.

We made good friends with the sellers in one of the first stores we went to, two guys named Abdo and Hany, who actually gave us good prices. (If I asked for the price for something, Abdo would ask if I was going to try to bargain or not. If I said bargain, he’d say an outrageously high number and if I said no bargain, he’d say a fifth of the original number haha). That’s part of the fun of shopping in the Khan. Being creeped on, making friends, bargaining for the price, etc. Set prices, shmet shprices.

I’ve been wanting to write an entry about this movie for a while but I haven’t gotten around to it. For our first snapshot assignment, we were supposed to watch an Arabic movie (without subtitles) to see how much we could learn about the movie simply from tones/expressions and body language.

First off, let me just say that the movie theatre (and whole mall complex) was freaking gorgeous. I probably couldn’t afford anything in the stores themselves so I satisfied myself with a mocha frappe from Starbucks (it was like being in heaven :3) and window-shopped until the movie began.

Once we were inside the theater, escorted to our nice, soft, red velvety seats (…what? in a movie theatre you say?) and the movie began, we realized that there was a moshkela kiteer (big problem): the movie had subtitles. While this put a giant roadblock in the path to completing our assignment, it was for the best in the end because I’m so glad I understood the movie and was able to appreciate it fully.

The movie was 678 (the number of a bus) and dealt with the issue of sexual harassment in public buses (and later, harassment in general) and how three very different women come together (in a way) and deal with it. There’s Fayza, the traditional, conservative wife who experiences harassment practically every day (which seemed a bit exaggerated at times) on the bus to her office, and this leads to a decline in her relationship with her husband, since she is turned off by all sexual activity. Then there’s Saba, who was assaulted many years ago and was shrugged off by her husband when she needed him most. Saba is more modern, but still holds the weight of her past experience and has started a class to educate women on how to deal with sexual harassment. Finally, there’s my favorite character Nelly, a modern woman who is a stand-up comedian (a bad one) and is in love with and engaged to a man who is also a stand-up comedian and supports her in all ways. When Nelly gets sexually harassed and wants to take the case to court, however, his family demands she drop the case to avoid bad publicity for the family’s reputation.

I won’t give away any more than this (because I’m going to naively assume that some of you may watch this movie based on my glowing recommendation :D. Which you really should do. Seriously.) but I will say that the way the movie was filmed, the plot, even the unexpected twists were all fantastic. It wasn’t perfect, of course; it seemed a bit unrealistic at points for one thing, but the positives outweigh the negatives a whole lot.

What I also liked about the movie was that it dealt with an issue that applies not just to Egyptian women and Egypt, but to many people in many places. Have you ever taken the 7 train? Or any crowded train on the NYC subway? Then you know what I’m talking about. While we may gasp at the things the women face in the 678 bus, we must not forget that we face similar things here and similarly, most of us don’t speak up either.

Here’s the trailer:

678 Trailer

There’s no subtitles, but you’ll get a feel for the movie. I don’t think it does full justice to the movie, though, so you should just listen to  my expert opinion and watch the movie. 🙂

So I started this entry …… 2 weeks ago. heheheeheheh. I know, I know, I should be updating more, this is like a journal, I should write daily, etc. But due to: 1) the shitty subpar internet provided by the oh-so-lovely 1 star Horus House Hotel (it’s a love and hate relationship), and 2) the busy days we’ve been having, it’s really hard to sit down and let myself just write. This also kind of shows that I’ve been doing a lot here, so that’s a good thing (or this is just an excuse for my abysmal blogging-ethic).

The original purpose of this entry was to talk about starting Arabic, but since the final is this week, I’ll just talk about the general progression of Arabic. To start off, I love the language. Love. I always listened to an Arabic song every now and then and loved how beautiful the language was. It flows off the tongue but is also punctuated by erratic glottal stops and noises that you’ve never heard before. I love it.

Learning it….is a whole different experience. It’s both harder and easier than I expected. On the one hand, I realize that I grasp words and vocabulary relatively quickly, but then re-learning how to read and write from right to left (in a completely different alphabet) is pretty difficult. (Italian, I’ve never appreciated you more.) But I also feel super-cool when I read a sentence. Or write one. (I have terrible handwriting. Arabic is like art because you have to let your hand be free and yet in control. I’m a failure. My writing looks like chicken-scratch written by a drunk chicken). But I still feel very proud of myself every time 😀 (until I find out that what I wrote/read was completely off. Whatever).

I definitely want to continue studying it when I get back to the states; perhaps in the form of a class or just reviewing myself. (ruhroh we know what that means 🙁 ). I just don’t want to waste the work I’ve put in here, and Arabic is so beautiful (and spoken in so many places) that it’s only a win win for me to continue studying it. My dreams of being bajillion-lingual are a small step closer to being realized.

I’m also thinking about coming back here for the summer for the St. Andrews Church internship. I still have to think about it though; and I don’t know how my parents are going to react at all. But it seems like a great opportunity. And I love this city…and maybe there’s other reasons for coming back too. Es posible.

This hasn’t been an exciting entry (it’s late. I need fresh material). I’m just really grateful for all things we’ve done and seen in this SHORT time (I don’t care what anyone else says, this ~month went by really fast :/). I have to sit down and run through everything and write about it, because it’s all been a great blur at some points.

Today. was. amazing.

I’m really glad (and I don’t want to jinx this) that the first day here did not let me down at all. After getting to Cairo last night at around 10pm, we met Abduh, Professor Sullivan’s habibi and our amazing tour guide, who drove us back to the hotel in Zamalek (it was about an hour away). We were ridiculously tired since the time zone change had taken a night’s sleep from us and when I get movie options on a plane, sleep is no longer a priority. (I watched Step Up 3, Slumdog Millionaire and The Hangover this time. Successful plane ride? I think so).

After settling into our rooms (which are decent, but the bathrooms. Oh man, the bathrooms. Think big, think porcelain and speckless. Best part? We have a butt-washer. Let’s not be embarrassed to talk about this now. It’s one of those amazing contraptions (in case you don’t know what I’m talking about) that is kind of like a lower toilet seat and you kneel over and it squirts a jet of water, cleaning errythang, errywhere. Let’s leave it at that).

So, this morning, we woke up (bright and early at 7:30 a.m. after sleeping at 2:00a.m. last night and being super tired from the plane) to head off to the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx. It. was. surreal. There really is no other word for it. I remember spending 3 years in elementary school, studying Egypt and the Pyramids, learning about the Nile, how to write our names in Hieroglyphics, etc. The first thing you think of when you think of Egypt is either the Nile or the Pyramids. Being on a camel (named Whiskey, who was uber-cute, if rather unsightly) walking towards the Pyramids in the Sahara Desert was unbelievable. It was a culmination of all those years of study, and it did NOT let us down at all. The desert felt serene and quiet at the same time (besides the 30 American tourists on camels, posing and saying “Aloha” (don’t ask) for photographs every minute of the entire trip. I was obviously one of them :3), with a slight wind blowing at the same time (did I mention I LOVE the weather here? I LOVE the weather here). It was a very ethereal feeling to be honest, passing by dead horse carcasses as our camels made their way through the vast Sahara.

One thing I will say here (and I’m the first one to be guilty of this) is that I think we spent too much time taking photographs and not enough time appreciating the fact that we were in front of the Pyramids. I would be snapping away and realize that a photograph will never recreate the exact feeling and I should just try to take in as much of that as possible. So I did. For awhile. Because the other side of the argument is that we will (most likely) never be there again and it’s justifiable to want to take as much of the place back with you as you can.

This camel is ridiculously cute.

Next, we visited the Sphinx, which I’ve got to say was awesome but definitely less than I expected because of all those photo-shopped photos where the Sphinx is standing alone in the middle of the desert. In reality…not quite.

To round up the day, we visited the Papyrus Museum near the Sphinx (it’s literally leads up right to the edge of the city, it’s eerie and awesome) and learned how to make papyrus from the papyrus plant from a man who spoke 390493 languages (that is a rough estimate) and looked around the store and bought some things.

THEN, WE HAD LUNCH. At that point, I was starving and would have eaten someone’s arm without seasoning, but the restaurant we went to was (I’m not very creative with these adjectives, I know) amazing. We had authentic hummus (DELICIOUS. and this is coming from someone who wasn’t of big fan of hummus previously), Egyptian pita bread, Sticky rice wrapped in cabbage leaves, falafel, and the main course of chicken, lamb and beef grilled meat. I was stuffed to the top and would wait for a burp to make more room and continue stuffing (this sounds really unattractive. which is true. don’t judge me).

After lunch, we were on our own to make plans for new year’s eve, which was slightly disappointing at first, but in retrospect, it’s the best thing that’s happened in a while. (More on this later). Professor Sullivan did recommend an Oud concert by Naseer Shamma, renowned Oud player, that was happening that night in the neighborhood tonight. We decided to buy tickets and go to the concert and then see if we could perhaps make it out to the feluccas for a ride on the Nile on New Year’s Day.

The concert was phenomenal. I had average expectations, mostly because I have a short attention span and I was expecting to get bored at some point. I was engaged during the whole concert. The Oud is really a beautiful instrument; it kind of resembles a guitar but it has a hollowed out back (google it) that gives it a slight echo with each note. Every time I listen to Arabic music, and especially tonight, I felt like I was leaving something behind. That is always the feeling I get from it, a sad or sometimes happy feeling about moving away from something and remembering it through the song. And, oddly, it reminds me of the desert as well.

The second good thing about the Oud concert was that I sat next to someone who was being taught by Naseer Shamma, and translated/explained many things to us during the concert. It was really lucky of us, actually, because he spoke very good English and was very helpful. Egyptians are really friendly. And even if they don’t speak english, they will try to work something out for you. 🙂

For the rest of the details on what we did for New Year’s Eve, please just ask me because this entry is very long and I’m about to fall asleep. Wake up tomorrow at 8, we’re going to Islamic Cairo! And then during the afternoon, Ioana, Albina and I are hanging out with a new friend we made. 🙂

Good night/Good Morning Guys! It’s 4.am here. Some habits die hard. You already know.