infigaar!

There are very few things that I really, truly, absolutely adore about Egypt. There are very few things that I really, truly, absolutely adore in general (I am a bit of a cynic, after all), but I can with all faith say that the fanatical love Egyptians posess for football (what Americans would call soccer) is one of those things.

Last night was a big night for Egypt and Algeria. Last night, the two countries faced each other in the Cairo Staad, the football stadium in Cairo, to determine which of them would head to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. While you'd imagine that two Arab states who constantly emphasize solidarity would cut each other some slack on the field, this is not the case. Apparently, Egypt and Algeria are mortal enemies when it comes to football, and the general atmosphere reflected that. It was not a good idea to be wearing green last night (I did, but covered it up with a blue sweater and a red scarf; I called myself an opportunist) and if reports are correct, a few Algerians died yesterday in Cairo. More evidence for this can be found in what the Egyptian team was saying to the Algerians during the match -- I'm not good enough at Arabic to read lips, but Kholy is and he happily whispered to me that "kos omak, kos omak wa kos om al-gazaa'ir" was freely tossed around.

We showed up at a cafe just as the game was starting. The place was packed with men wearing red, some of them obviously just off work, and the few odd women who expressed just as much enthusiasm for the match as the males. There was even a little girl, probably ten or so at most, with her face painted and holding a very loud horn, who succeeded in getting everyone worked up about the game and continuing the cheers. It being an ahwa, of course, there was plenty of sheesha.

The match itself was boring. The beginning was great, and so was the end, when Egypt scored with literally ten seconds left on the clock, but otherwise to be honest the teams played pretty poorly. You could feel the tension, though -- while everyone got pretty damn excited after the first goal in the first two minutes of the game, when chance after chance was lost, it was obvious the Egyptians were getting a little disappointed. You see, it was necessary for them to get two goals at least -- since points are tallied as a whole in the qualifiers, with one point, Algeria would have proceeded to the World Cup. With two, there would be a rematch. With three, Egypt would go on.

One goal was all they had, up until the very last seconds. I could see the frustration on the faces of my friends, especially Kholy and Sameh, the latter of which had already given up and was smoking a cigarette in an obvious pout. But when that last goal was made?

The room exploded.

Everyone, everyone, jumped out of their chairs, onto their chairs, screaming and dancing and waving their flags. You could not hear a thing -- it was literally a deafening roar. I've never seen such pure joy on people's faces. You'd think Jesus just came back to life, or maybe Muhammad, in this case. I mean, there's national pride and all that, but holy damn. This was beyond anything I've ever witnessed. I don't think Americans have something to unite them like Egyptians have football. It's simply amazing.

Outside in the streets folks were driving around like madmen in their cars, waving flags and their bodies out the windows, honking horns, flashing lights, playing the national anthem as loud as it could go. It wasn't gridlock -- there was a river of cars, one after another, pouring through the streets in celebration like a giant metal dragon. Little kids were out and about taking part in the festivities, one of whom came up and rather impertinently sprayed Sameh with foam on his stomach.

So on 18 November there will be a rematch. This time, any number of points determines the winner.

It was one of the best nights I've had in Egypt. To top it all off, the cranky night guard in front of the dorms didn't give us the stink eye when we came back in strange men's cars (not strange to us, strange to him) -- instead, he pumped his fists in the air and went "MASR!" And then we did too and had ourselves a nice bonding moment.

As a closing note, I'm also sad that Americans don't have cheers and chants like the Egyptians do. This was the first time I've heard a cheer that literally translates to, "Fuck you, Algeria!"

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

down the upper nile

There are very few experiences that rival sitting on a train chugging its rickety way down the tracks for a straight eighteen hours. Yes, you read that correctly. Eighteen hours. My flight across the Atlantic Ocean was not as long as it took us to travel from Alexandria to Aswan. Mind you, I have already finished the one book I own in English here and had nothing to do for that time besides sleep, listen to music, and try desperately to keep my knees from knocking against those of the people across from me. I am small -- the space between the seats was smaller. But! Eighteen hours of dominoes and pranks and fitful sleep later, we arrived at our hot and arid destination.

Aswan is not a pleasant place for tourists. I don't say that to be mean to the city. It's an honest observation. The very first thing that happens to people is that they get harassed by felucca captains and store owners and other unsavory characters who lurk on the Corniche (yes, it appears there is one in every city) and try to get you to pay an exorbitant amount of money for something that you probably do not even want. And they do not go away. Aswan is without a doubt the most harassment-filled place I have been, and I pity those poor tourists who neither dressed appropriately nor spoke Arabic, and therefore made themselves both obvious targets and could not tell said irritating people to get lost.

Our first day in Aswan was more of a half day, considering we arrived sometime around one in the afternoon and checked into a hotel that was surprisingly... hotel-ish. The beds were clean and the rooms had air-con AND a fridge, as well as a REAL LIVE BATHTUB and a toilet that flushed (but we supplied our own TP). A group of us ate at a delicious restaurant and then took a boat over to Elephantine Island, got lost in the Nubian village, found the museum, got let in for free because the three vaguely Egyptian-looking girls made a huge stink about wanting to get in "bibalash" (without paying), and spent more time than was necessary or appropriate wandering around the property and its adjacent ruins. Ruins were cool. I was too tired to really appreciate it. Forget where I ate dinner. I possibly did not.

Day two we woke up at three in the morning to hitch a convoy headed south into Abu Simbel. While Abe had fantasies about running away to Darfur to do... something assumedly humanitarian, I had recurring thoughts about getting attacked by insurgents and having to seek refuge in the desert, living off our wits for weeks until our rescue. Differing viewpoints, I suppose. Maybe that's a commentary on myself. ANYWAY. Abu Simbel was less interesting than I anticipated. In fact, I did not expect much thrilling about it. See, years ago, when the Egyptian government commissioned the High Dam, they realized that it would flood dozens of ancient relics and temples in the area, including Abu Simbel and Philae. So international teams got together, pulled money out of thin air, and managed to painstakingly dismantle and relocate the most important monuments to higher ground. While this as an engineering feat is astonishing and something I would study, the fact that Abu Simbel itself is no longer the real Abu Simbel makes it less... great. I could see the seams where inevitably the stone was lost to sand in the process of moving, and it saddened me. But, it was neat.

A two hour bus ride later, I was awakened rather rudely as a flimsy ticket was thrust in my face and I was herded out of air conditioning into the bright, blistering noontime sun, only to be greeted by the World's Worst Tourist Site Ever, the Aswan High Dam. Now, I have no problem with dams. They have a function and sometimes they can be cool, like the Hoover Dam in the US. The High Dam is just... a dam. I'm not interested in it. I was especially annoyed by the military men walking up and down the sidewalks, telling people in broken English to not take video or use zoom lenses. Private Mahmoud, no offense, but I think the technology used to construct your precious dam is in no danger of being stolen by a bunch of overweight white folks from America or England. We've got a few of our own. Plus, to top it all off, the fucking ticket was twenty guinea, so that's four bucks I won't ever see again, wasted thanks to a tourist site I did not want to see nor had any say in.

But following the High Dam Debacle, we went to the temple island of Philae, which I have wanted to see ever since The Mummy Returns came out. Aside from the harrowing experience of renting a boat to take us to the actual island (you pay for your ticket, then enter the gates only to find out now you've gotta haggle your way across the water, too), the temple did not disappoint. I guess because it's not that big of a deal, tourists don't often go there, so while there were a few groups of Spaniards wandering around, it was relatively simple to get photos sans the compulsory tank-top-wearing, fifty year-old woman standing awkwardly in the foreground. I liked Philae. Neat idea for a temple. Unfortunately, its charm was also diminished by the painfully obvious concrete used to reassemble the building. At least here they sculpted the island to resemble the original one, not like at Abu Simbel where you walk around the back and you can tell it is a man-made hill.

Afterwards, we went shopping and I bought lots of scarves and a bag to put them in. On day three, we set out on our Grand Felucca Journey, which turned into something of a joke. I'll admit, I very much like feluccas. There is nothing much to do, obviously, and the biggest drawback is that there is no bathroom aside from the wilderness. But it isn't hard to amuse yourself if you have a good group of folks, and we did. Many games of cards and Animal Concentration and Mafia later, we still hadn't reached our expected point of disembarkment (that's a word, I hope) and therefore had to take a bus instead. In fact, the group left without our felucca on the third morning, without any warning or word of advice, which appears to have started the string of ill-advised decisions on Khalid's part.

We spent an agonizing hour in Edfu waiting for folks to visit the temple of Horus, while I waited with horrible bowel cramps in the bus until I finally ventured out to find a working toilet. Note to self: do not constipate yourself using Imodium for three days on a felucca. I was paid 25 piastres by a Chinese woman in the bathroom 'cause she thought I was the attendant, which made me laugh and made her very confused. I suppose I was wearing a keffiyeh (the black and white checked scarces), but now that's just silly. First off, I'm painfully not-Arab, and second, 25 piastres is kind of rude. One guinea is acceptable.

But Luxor. Oh, Luxor. Worlds better than Aswan, in terms of harassment. Yes, it is bad. But taxi drivers are assholes anyway and it was not nearly as stalker-ish as in Aswan. And I can forgive the official sign reading "WELCOME IN LUXOR" because we stayed in a hotel this time, a real hotel, named the Mercure Inn. There were comfortable mattresses and down comforters and shower curtains and soap and shampoo and toilet paper and a beautiful pool and a continental breakfast that included an omelette man and crepes with chocolate syrup.

The first day we ate lunch and then tried to get into Karnak, which was impossible because we arrived too late. But on the upside, we met four coaches from the University of Baghdad soccer team, and did, in fact, take photos with them. Then we ate at the world's best restaurant, Sofra, which is in a gorgeous building with a wonderful terrace, delicious food, and incredibly friendly staff. Walked to get ice cream, went to bed.

Our first full day in Luxor we took a bus to the West Bank sights. Some of the group rode bicycles, which I commend them for but still think they are insane, since there is no way in hell I'd ride a bike dozens of kilometers in the hot sun AND be able to appreciate the sights. First off was the Valley of the Kings, where we saw the tombs of Ramses the II, IV, and IX, as well as a bothersome English tourist who wouldn't stop touching the hieroglyphics and who was eventually caught taking photos with his iPhone. I do hope it was confiscated, but hey, it's Egypt and the rules are meant to be broken, here. I was very proud of the temple "attendant" who caught him, though, since he did take it seriously.

After the Valley of the Kings we went to Deir al-Bahri, or Hatshepsut's Memorial Temple, which was fascinating in location and construction, as well as the fact that Hatshepsut was one of the few female pharaohs. Unfortunately after her death, her stepson Tuthmosis III tried to erase all signs of her existence, so most of her faces in the temple are destroyed, as well as all but one of her cartouches, which Chelsea got a picture of. We stopped by Medinat Habu, which is the memorial temple of Ramses III, and the remaining Colossi of Memnon. We learned some new swears from Kholy, who later begged us to go to a concert in Cairo instead of heading straight back to Alexandria, an offer we refused on account of valuing sleep more than anything else at the moment. And then shit got weird.

Liz, the residential coordinator, got a call from a "friend" that "we" had in Luxor, who wanted to take us to lunch. Fine. Lunch sounded great. But we were all tired when we got back to the hotel and it was terribly unclear where this lunch would take place. But we trudged out to this random man's shop, where he proceeded to ignore Liz because he was mad at her, protest against all of our suggestions of places to eat, and finally drag us to his apartment where he had no food ready and made the Egyptian girls cook for him and us. Now, being in Egypt means you have to put up with a certain amount of being strung along -- this was over the top. It became apparent that Khalid was the one who set up a lunch date, only to not show. No one knew this man except him, and he was painfully absent.

But then we went to Karnak, which was the great moment I'd been waiting for. I have wanted to see Karnak for years and years and to be honest, I almost cried when we finally got in. I wrote a while ago that the Pyramids took a bit to sink in. Forget that shit, man. Forget the Pyramids. Bunch of rocks. Karnak is absolutely stunning, and it hit me from the very first step I took between the short avenue of sphinxes. What really bowled me over was the Great Hypostyle Hall -- it is absolutely breathtaking. The columns are so enormous it's crazy, and every inch of the temple is covered in hieroglyphics. We ran around like a bunch of idiots until closing time, and even got a special off-limits tour of the Temple of Ptah by a bored guard who probably never saw visitors that far out against the northern enclosure wall.

Nighttime meant food time. We ate at a place called Snobs, which was good. Khalid came along with us, which was odd considering there was an option of going to a Coptic moulid, or religious festival, that night and his friend was going to be taking those who wanted to go. Sounds like Khalid should go too, right? Apparently not. The next morning, over a (delicious) continental breakfast, we heard that the moulid was absolutely the sketchiest thing ever, complete with fistfights, no lights, in the middle of nowhere, with the same asshole who held us up at lunch the previous day, and who would not let them leave when it was clear they wanted to go. Sounds like a ball. Good thing I was busy hunting feverishly for ice cream through back alleys with Kholy.

Train ride back to Alexandria. Got yelled at by my roommate for talking to our police escort. Apparently in Egypt girls are not supposed to talk to men they don't know. Big whoop. In all actuality, he was the least cop-looking cop I've seen in Egypt so far -- tight pink shirt, gel in his hair -- but the gun on his hip and the fact that he was definitely our police escort put him on the somewhat less sketchy side of sketchy. He was also flirting up a storm with the girl next to him on the train, which was amusing and somewhat cute to watch. To be honest though, I liked our first travel buddy better. I appreciate professionalism and suits look better than pseudo-retro.

And then we were back at the medina. There is still no hot water.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

alexandria's old town

As of today, I have fifty days left in Egypt. This is roughly halfway through the semester. And in the tradition of things falling apart halfway through anything, we had quite the scare yesterday. One of my good friends was in a very serious accident involving the tram here, and he is currently in the hospital (doing better, but being the progeny of two doctors makes you wary of saying things are fine when they can suddenly be not-fine in the space of a few hours) and will be returning to the States next week for real medical treatment. We did not have class yesterday. We, and especially the Middlebury students, were a bit of a junk show -- Khalid scared the shit out of us, since he walked into the center where we study with the most ghastly look of fright on his face, and you could tell he was trying to keep it together, but that there was clearly something very, very wrong. We'd already heard the news about our friend, but Khalid's expression made it even more gut-wrenching.

At any rate, Karim took Chelsea and I out on the town last night for a drive, to clear our heads. We went for a jaunt on the Corniche, out on the highway to Cairo, and then finally to the old part of Alexandria, where buildings date back hundreds of years, where wooden support beams and roofs are still the norm, and where the streets were not constructed with any sort of rhyme or reason. It was very interesting, especially since it was about midnight and anyone respectable was most likely in bed. We went to the Jew's Alley, where all the Jewish families used to live until they left, of their own free will or not (there are only 12 official Jewish people living right now in Alexandria). We drove Taht as-Sur, literally Under the Wall, which is the old wall separating the town from the original harbor. We saw the harbor. We saw the shrine of a martyr, built hundreds of years ago when Egypt was Shi'a and not Sunni, and which was left standing when the Alexandrians built their tram line (they curved the tram tracks around the shrine). We also drove over one of the first concrete bridges in Egypt.

That concrete bridge took thirty-one years to complete. Why? Because back in the 1800s, Egyptians were mostly using steel to build, and had just heard about concrete. Because they didn't have the technological know-how to produce concrete structures, they would usually sub-contract out to a French or other European engineer to design whatever was needed. The Egyptian contractor in charge of this bridge, however, decided it was time his country got the knowledge itself so they would no longer have to rely on foreign help for concrete buildings. So, he sent his son to France to learn engineering.

And then they had to wait for their bridge, for 31 years.

Funny story. Kind of cute, in a silly way. We had to return to the dorms after that, though, because we told the women we'd be back before one and they have gotten more and more pissy each time we tell them we'll be back late. Two girls were locked out for an hour and a half, until three am, the other morning.

I think this weekend will be a tame one, for us. We're all feeling a bit... subdued, you might say. Our friend's accident has given most of us some food for thought, concerning mortality and our own ways of tempting fate, just by daring to cross the streets. It's Halloween weekend, back home, but I think the scariest thing I have in store is listening to ten minutes of a BBC presentation on the future of formal, modern standard Arabic for my fosha class.

... I'm not sure life lessons on mortality are the main thing that students are supposed to bring back with them after a study abroad, but I think that will figure prominently in our experiences here in Egypt, at least. And I suppose that's both a good and a bad thing.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

siwa oh nine

This weekend we took the semesterly school-sponsored trip to Siwa Oasis, a little spot of green on the otherwise dry and arid Libyan border. I was especially eager to get the hell out of Alexandria because the mold on my wall has returned with a vengeance, and I am not enthusiastic about spending more time in my creepy, biohazard room than is absolutely necessary. I will be taking pictures of that shit, by the way, and putting it online -- just gonna wait a few more days until it really gets pretty.

But yes, Siwa. I was interested in Siwa because some of the bottled water we consume here has "Bottled in Siwa Oasis" written on the labels, and I guess I like to know where the food I ingest comes from. The trip is roughly nine or so hours from Alexandria, mostly on a coastal/desert road that I missed the first time around since we left at six pm on Wednesday night (we arrived around three am). I was awakened by the bus rocking violently side to side on the dirt road that led to the hostel -- I found out later that there is only one paved road in Siwa, and it is in the way back of the town (not by our accomodations or anything else central). We stayed at the Palm Trees Hotel, which is a nice name for a vaguely crappy joint -- think Crazy Camel Camp in Dahab, but worse. The rooms were stained with years of cigarette smoke (and smelled like it, too) and the blankets were disgustingly unclean, but it was a place to sleep and so we crashed.

After four or five hours of sleep we woke up to discover the joys of the bathrooms. There is only one on the end of each hall, home to a shady-looking toilet and shower with no hot water, and a sink. Oh, and about five million mosquitoes. Considering my intense allergy/tendency to be a homing beacon for mosquitoes, I was particularly overjoyed to be bitten in the night by those fine specimens of useless evolution.

We took a tour of Siwa Thursday. First, we went to the Mountain of the Dead, which is a hill where rich folks were buried back in the Greek/Roman periods of occupation in the area, when some wealthy families relocated themselves to Siwa for the beauty. It wasn't really touched until World War II, when the locals used the tombs as bomb shelters from air raids, and made a bit of profit from chipping away the paintings and selling them to mostly the British. A few murals remain, though, and honestly they're really quite amazing to see -- I'm vaguely certain that they were restored in a less-than-quality fashion in the not-so-distant past, but it was still a wonder to behold something from so long ago.

The Temple of the Oracle was next. Although the area is pretty much wrecked you can still tell that one of the buildings was definitely a temple. We stopped at 3in Cleopatra in the afternoon, which is a clear spring where the locals usually hang out. The boys swam -- the girls were less than eager. At the restaurant next to the springs we met our first Asshole Tourist, and he was damned lucky Chelsea responded to him first otherwise I would've laid into him like none other. That douchebag had the nerve to tell us, "HEY. You're in an Egyptian house -- take your shoes off!" I mean, dude, 1) we're not in a house, we're on the roof of a restaurant, 2) we're been here for two months and know a little bit about Egyptian culture, 3) you are shirtless, wearing shorts, and speaking in a British accent, and 4) you don't know jack shit about Arabic otherwise you would've understood the nasty names I called you from across the room.

But I drank an amazing mango-pomegranate smoothie there.

We watched the sunset from a little peninsula on a natural lake in the oasis, looking out over the Libyan border. It was beautiful for sure, although sadly enough there were lots of clouds and we were unable to actually watch a sunset. Dinner was at a rather nice place with interesting architecture if only moderately passable food, and after all the hubbub we went off exploring the ruins of Shali, the old, original fortress-town of Siwa.

Shali was built out of a special salt/sand/rock mixture, and stood the test of time until three days of rain made the thing melt. We climbed around there at night like a bunch of hooligans, and got scared away by a pack of wild dogs that seemed none too friendly. But hey, it was entertaining. At the base, I found the most beautiful scarf in the world, but I am poor and I do not have the four hundred guinea necessary to pay for it. Two hundred, deal. Four hundred? Not on your life.

It was Thursday night that we all realized why we felt so weird in Siwa -- of the total three or so adult women we'd seen, they were all veiled, but not veiled in your typical burqa way. I can handle the burqa. It is irritating, but I can handle it. I cannot handle this: the women in Siwa wear black mesh to obscure the entirety of their bodies, including the whole face, with a large traditional Siwan shawl draped over their heads and the rest of their bodies. They simply sit there, usually in the bed of the donkey carts driven by their husbands or sons. And because of their appearances, they scared the shit out of me -- they were like ghosts, or some sort of sinister priestesses. It really was unnerving.

The next day we took a random trip out to Mount Dakroor, in the back of Hameida's (our tour guide) pickup truck, and shopped around for some souvenirs. Chelsea and I met a nice man who claimed to have lived in San Francisco for thirty-two years, and he had the California driver's license to prove it, so while I'm sure he bs-ed half of his life's story I think some of it was true. At any rate we bought a lot from him and he gave us tea, so I liked him.

Then, in the afternoon, we loaded ourselves into cars and went off to spend the night in the desert. When I say the desert, I really do mean The Desert -- this is the Great Sand Sea, or something like that. When we went joyriding with the Bedouins in Sinai, I was entertained by the desert driving -- here, it was the Real McCoy. We slid down more hundred-foot dunes than I ever thought I would see in my life, let alone crest them and then gun down them, engines blazing and passengers yelping like a pack of puppies. It was amazingly fun, and amazingly beautiful, too. We stopped at two natural springs in the middle of the desert, one cold and one hot, neither of which I partook in, since I do not want bilharzia and I was too lazy to change my clothes. We also harassed our first tourists in Egypt. They were Italians, and if by some weird chance one of them reads this: don't take it personally, Sameh is just an ass anyway and we've been in Egypt too long.

We stopped for the night at a Bedouin camp. Instead of spending the night in the camp, we trekked out into the desert and laid under the stars, which sounded like a great idea but ended up being the coldest, least-prepared night of my life. I enjoyed, despite probably making my existant cold worse -- I saw a total of nine shooting stars, including one with a bright orange tail and one with a long, long green and blue tail. We watched the sunrise, too, since it was buttfuck cold out and no one could really sleep -- Khalid wussed out and left in the middle of the night, back to the camp where they had a fire going.

My glory of the weekend? Wearing the same clothes for two and a half days in a row (too cold and lazy to change after the night in the desert) and getting seven mosquito bites on my face in the middle of the Great Sand Sea. The middle of the desert. I also did not take a crap for three days, leaving my penance to be using a roadside "restaurant" in the middle of nowhere, where the kid charged my half a guinea for nothing but a bowel movement and stomach pains the rest of the five hours back to Alexandria. I leave you all to beat that.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

cairo, take two (part two)

We woke up Friday around twelve-thirty. Understandable -- we went to bed six hours earlier and I was grumpy as hell because I pretty much just wasted a whole day doing nothing but snoozing. Karim actually woke me up with his incessant bleating, "Amanda, ana gao3an neek," which basically meant he was fucking hungry and wanted food. There was no food in the apartment -- I mean, come on, four young bachelors, four young Egyptian bachelors, were not going to have more than a box of corn flakes and a frying pan sporting orange mold. So after kicking Karim and Yamila out of bed, we went to the gas station for the worst croissant I have ever eaten in my life (no joke) and then headed into the city for my second visit to Khan el-Khalili.

The first time we went to Khan el-Khalili it was during Ramadan, and it was honestly one of the strangest experiences in my life. The place is an enormous tourist pit, full of hapless Americans and Europeans and Asians who dress in horribly inappropriate ways, get very obviously ripped off by the Egyptian salesmen, or both. But amongst all the kitchsy crap (i.e. the pyramid/camel/miscellaneous statues, "Rolex" watches, etc.) there are some real gems of items. I managed to barter my way down forty guinea for a white tunic, which was still vastly overpriced but a lot better than the original price. Khan el-Khalili was much more vibrant and lively this time around -- while the hawkers more or less left us alone (I have developed a very good "piss the fuck off or I will punch you in the kidneys" look), they were very enthusiastic when it came to the other tourists, and it was highly entertaining to watch some interactions. The place is a veritable maze -- I do not know how Karim knew where we were going.

We also ate pigeon at a little... I wouldn't call it a restaurant, but there were tables and food was served and I ate it, so I guess it might qualify as a restaurant, but that's just being way too generous. Anyway. Pigeon. It was delicious. There is not a lot of meat on a pigeon, but they stuffed it full of brown rice, which was amazingly tasty, and I managed to discover the hidden treasure trove of pigeon meat on the hips of the bird. The spine, amusingly enough, is very, very elastic and stretchy. Also, the ribs are very small and tend to show up in random and surprising bites. But yes, I would eat it again. My fosha professor stared at me in confusion and a little bit of disgust when I told him I liked pigeon -- he claims Cairo food is the worst, and has vowed to take us all to a restaurant here in Alexandria that serves "the best pigeon in the world." Hanshouf -- we'll see.

We returned to the apartment after Khan el-Khalili and Karim and Yamila slept -- I did homework. Kar Kar came back from... wherever he was, and we left that night to go to a club we were not able to get into the night before: Rithmo, by the Semiramis Intercontinental Hotel.

We ate there because we were starving. There is no dance floor at Rithmo -- rather, people just stand up by their tables and dance. Kar Kar and his friend, a man studying to become a neurosurgeon (a terrifying prospect, seriously. I would rather do my own brain surgery than let him do it), drank more or less an entire bottle of tequila, with Yamila's help, of course. Karim and I sat and critiqued people's apparel. We danced a bit, then left.

This is where my night got fucking ridiculous. I would appreciate if my sisters are reading this, that they not tell dad or my mom. Standing outside the club, waiting for someone to bring Karim's car, Kar Kar and his friend, Gamal, were being stupid-drunk and standing in the middle of the street. Now, while I mentioned before that streets here are vicious and dangerous, the fact remains that people will stop if they see someone in the road, not moving. Usually, at least. And for the first two or three times, the cars did stop for Kar Kar's drunken antics. The third time, however, they did not. As I watched, there was a squeal of tires, the sound of roughly 160 pounds of human flesh hitting a car hood, and the sight of Kar Kar spinning off the car and sprawling gracelessly into the street.

The guy took off, and the valet bringing Karim's car tried to chase him down, but to no avail. Everyone was freaking out -- we drove Kar Kar to the hospital (mistake: we should have waited for the ambulance, but like I said, Gamal was a sketchy doctor to compliment sketchy Egyptian healthcare), then to another hospital where Gamal works, to get him checked out. He was fine -- a broken wrist and a bruised knee, but nothing serious. I knew he would be fine -- the car was only going at most 30 mph and Kar Kar was drunk and relaxed, so no serious injuries were likely. I also have no pity for him -- that was his fucking fault. So we stayed out again until seven thirty in the morning, and I watched my second Egyptian sunrise in two days -- that's two more than I wanted to watch.

I slept for two hours or so that morning. Karim and Yamila slept together in the same bed until probably two in the afternoon, when Chelsea and Molly finally got them out of bed to drive us back to Alexandria. By this point, my grump the morning before was nothing -- I was fucking livid, and I am still honestly pissed off at Karim and Yamila. I did not go to Cairo to party, sleep, watch them hook up, and waste my weekend. I went to see Cairo, to see the antiquities, the museums, the city itself. I went to be a tourist, and instead I ended up a stupid American in two nightclubs. The point that really gets me is that Yamila asked me to stay with her -- she didn't want to be alone with Karim. Apparently she did.

A waste of a weekend. On the up side, now I can say I've seen someone get run over by a car. That's... a conversation starter?

another truck stop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

cairo, take two (part one)

Wednesday night we took a mini-vacation to Cairo for the weekend, since we technically are supposed to have three day weekends although we sure haven't seen many of those of late. Karim drove Chelsea, Yamila, and I to the city, which was about as entertaining of a drive as I expected -- bumping along the highway at 130 kilometers an hour, blasting techno and trance and various bad hip-hop songs, singing along and stuffing our faces with an impromptu McDonald's dinner. Drive-thrus in Egypt do not work like the drive-thrus in the US, and by that I mean they don't really work at all. All processes involved, like ordering and paying and getting food, were quite disorganized and inefficient, much like the traffic system. But we got our food (cheeseburger and an M&M McFlurry on my part) and scarfed that shit before setting off along the highway again. Yamila was scared shitless of Karim's speeding, but given my past experiences driving with BJ and Donny G and me by myself, he's got nothing on my own set of harrowing driving tales. Seriously, a dry asphalt road in Egypt is nothing compared to doing the Pass last Christmas during the blizzards.

Karim decided to race some cars as we were on our way, which was a bad idea on his part because his little VW Golf cannot hold a candle to the engine under the hood of a souped-up Mercedes, both Mercedes sedan and Mercedes tow truck. We lost to both. Apparently, Karim's car is about as efficient at accelerating as the Subaru Outback that my folks own, and though his pedal was to the floor all he could do as we were puttering along was smack the dashboard and shout, "GOD DAMNIT AZIZA, IMSHI, IMSHI!" which translates more or less as you'd imagine (imshi = go).

Our first night we spent in the apartment of Karim's friends, on the outskirts of Cairo in a suburb called Rehab (yes, that's what I think of the name, too). His friends are interesting people, one of which wound up playing a major role in our weekend events. The next morning we wanted to see the Pyramids, and after kicking Karim awake at eight thirty or so, we, the girls, bought a six-pack of classic Cinnabons at the Cinnabon store in Rehab and proceeded to eat two of them each. The guys working there clearly did not understand what we meant to do with those cinnamon buns, because they did not heat them up for us -- not that that mattered, mind you. I proudly/shamedly admit that I am the only one who actually finished both buns completely. Karim's friend Mohi got us lost getting our of Rehab, which is ironic since he was late for work and claimed he knew a shortcut. But I liked that guy -- he was entertaining.

The Pyramids of Giza are amazing. I learned a lot about Egyptian scams in the two minutes it took us to drive up the hill to buy real tickets from the real government vendor in the real ticket booth -- at least eight different men mobbed the car at different points, trying to get us to pay for various services. Tickets (real ones) cost only thirty pounds for us, since we are Egyptian residents in addition to being students. Wonderfully ineffective Egyptian security greeted us after checking the validity of our tickets -- we put our bags through an X-ray machine with no one sitting behind it, and walked unescorted through a metal detector that I am fairly positive was not turned on.

More scams awaited us inside the perimeter. Mind you, the Egyptian government takes harassment of tourists very, very seriously, and if anyone is reported to the tourism police who roam around on foot or on camel, they are immediately whisked away and most likely never heard from again. But that doesn't stop the enterprising young men who would occasionally stop us and ask to "see our tickets." For what, I don't know, and I never found out because I either never answered or I practiced my newly-learned Egyptian colloquial vocabulary and told them to fuck off.

But the Pyramids! The Pyramids are enormous. They are gigantic. They are behemoth. There are no words to describe it accurately. As I stood there I could barely comprehend what this massive pile of rocks signified -- its size didn't truly register in my mind until later, when I flipped through the pictures on my camera and realized that those tiny black specks next to the base were people. We only walked around the outside of the two nearest pyramids, since the last one was far and we were (are) lazy, and it was har neek (fucking hot). We also paid a visit to the Sphinx, which is... small. Very small. Not big and imposing like you'd imagine from the pictures and the hype, but tiny, especially compared to the colossal pyramids right behind it. It is also in sad shape -- by all accounts, it's rotting or wearing away from the inside due to pollution and rising groundwater, but restoration efforts have done more harm than good.

You're also not allowed in close to the Sphinx. It's guarded by an iron wrought fence, where guys sit just inside and tell you to pay them five guinea in order to come in. I don't know how they got there in the first place, but if you pay them you might as well light your five guinea on fire 'cause that'd be just as useful. Additionally, as Karim and I were walking up for a photo-op that he wanted, I glanced at a man wearing a nice black suit and James Bond sunglasses. He looked familiar. It wasn't until he said in a very surprised voice, "Iskanderani!" that I realized it really was our Special Travel Buddy, the man who escorted us through Sinai and put me and Chelsea up in a hotel for the night of Mount Mousa. I guess his job is to ride along with tourist buses from Alexandria to various destinations. He looked a little uncomfortable wearing such a fancy outfit in the hundred-degree weather. Har neek, and I was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt.

We took the afternoon to go to a little cafe in the building where Karim used to live, in Zamalek. Zamalek is a nice spot of Cairo that I missed last time -- there are trees, peace, and things seem tranquil and more relaxed than the rest of the hustle-bustle of the city. The juice we got was bad, but we did leave them some nice doodles on the paper they covered their tables with.

Afterwards, we took a felucca ride into the Nile to watch the sunset. That was beautiful and relaxing, and very delightful considering we ate at a delicious Lebanese restaurant afterwards. I succeeded in stuffing my face with food yet again, and went back to Karim's friends' apartment sated.

Two of his friends left for Alexandria that day, while one remained -- Kar Kar was supposed to take us to the opening of a club, but since that was two hundred fifty guinea entrance fee (fifty dollars US) we were not going to pay. Instead, we wound up just at a club called Latex, which is attached to the Hilton and is just as weird as its name suggests. We stayed until closing, when Kar Kar decided he wanted to pay a friend a visit before returning home -- we stayed out until five thirty am and I was very, very, very grumpy. Eff that shit, man. I wanted to go home two hours before, but no. I had no say. Whatever. I could go for maybe a few hours of sleep and then go out to see the city later.


TO BE CONTINUED.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW

the continuing adventures of the nonabsorbent towel

This past weekend I went to my roommate's house in the country. None of the Egyptian girls in the dorms, at least those on our floor, are from Alexandria itself -- they're mostly from the surrounding countryside, from little villages (I won't say towns) that dot the countryside between the coast and the only other big, important town in Lower Egypt, Cairo. She wanted to show me her home and introduce me to her family, and while it was a bit of a surprise that she wanted to take me there at that particular time, I figured I might as well do it and get out of the dorms for a few days. I was really not unhappy about dorm life in the States -- I absolutely fucking despise it here.

We took a taxi from the dorms to a bus station in Alexandria on Thursday afternoon, which was apparently not the brightest idea -- there is a mass exodus of everyone who works or studies in Alex back out to their hometowns on Thursdays, especially in the evenings. The bus station was like a bus barn, only much more enormous and packed full of people trying to hitch rides on the numerous microbuses that make the round trip a few times a day between here and the outlying areas. There was absolutely no room for us on any bus, so my roommate dialed in what I assume to be a favor from someone and got us three assured seats on the next microbus. It came in maybe half an hour -- in that half hour, no other bus to al-Dalingaat showed up, so by the time our ride appeared our part of the station was filled with other hopefuls. As the microbus pulled into the station, slowing down of course, people swarmed it. There was a literal mob surrounding the vehicle, as the sliding door was wrenched open and men crammed themselves into the opening in a desperate attempt to get home. There were a few ladies attempting to join the fray, but for some reason they were at the back of the line -- if I had been there, I would've used the elbows that God gave me and gotten to the head of the line. At any rate, the microbus stopped, the driver got out, screamed "TALAT BINAAT BAS" (three girls only) and threw all the newcomers off the bus. He spotted us, waved us in, and off we went.

We were dropped off more or less right in front of my roommate's house. It is a five story, pretty blue building with expansive apartments, a roof, a duck/miscellaneous fowl house, and an orchard, in addition to some goats and rabbits. The animal pens are disgusting, really -- I hate chickens anyway but those were evil demon chickens and I did not want to get near them. The goat area was full of bones and traces of blood, a generally scary place where I'm sure the goats had some pretty severe PTSD. The orchard was great, though -- there were guava and pomegranate trees, date palms, and some currently-nonproductive grapevines. I ate a bit of everything, excluding the imaginary grapes.

Our first meal there was the most delicious thing I have ever consumed. The ful and fresh bread were absolutely amazing, as was the mahshi (cabbage leaves stuffed with rice) -- screw everything else, I could subsist of those three home-cooked items for years and not get sick of it. My roommate's sister made our dinner and my god it was wonderful. She will forever hold a special place in my heart for her cooking abilities. That, and she reminded me a lot of my eldest sister, so I liked her anyway. All our meals were fabulous that weekend -- I will have wonderous dreams about it in the future, deprived as I am of any food with taste here in the women's dorms.

My roommate has an enormous family. There were at least seven children running around, and she had two brothers at least, in addition to her grandparents, cousins, and all the various spouses. Everyone lives in that one building, each family with their own apartments. We were on the second floor. The ground/first floor is where her grandparents live, I think, but it also doubles as the dining room and area for preparing food, so I guess it's sort of a social room more than anything else.

I slept under a mosquito net for the first time of my life and still came away with a total of fifteen mosquito bites, one of which swelled up into a blister almost immediately and proceeded to make my life miserable when it popped. I was also loaned a towel, which to my not-surprise was just as nonabsorbent as the other towel I bought here, which leads me to the conclusion that "fine Egyptian cotton products" are a myth, at least within in Egypt itself (export the good stuff, give the low-quality items to your own populace, amirite?).

Friday I awoke late, but not later than the rest of her family (nine thirty or so). I went into the bathroom and promptly held my bowels, because that toilet was easily the most frightening thing I've seen here in Egypt. I am of the belief that you can tell a lot about the governance of a country from the state of its bathrooms. Egyptian bathrooms are smelly, dirty, and generally not very efficient, much like the corrupt government. Anyway, I attempted to use my roommate's family's bathroom for the first time the night we arrived, and was scared away by the poo floating in the bowl that refused to flush. The next morning, it was still there, and it still refused to flush. The suction is not strong enough, I suppose, and solid items tend to just stick around, so to speak. Friday afternoon I returned to see if my luck had changed -- it did, sort of. Instead of one manageable poo there was an elephantine turd wedged in the bowl, one that I assume came from her father, and that made me... averse to using the restroom, as you might say. The next morning it was a pile of shit that would not go down. I don't know how they managed it, but dear lord, that was just the most awful thing to not crap for two days because of a terrifying toilet. You might say I'm a bit toilet shy.

Friday morning I met the members of her family who I hadn't met when we arrived. A guy I think is her cousin but could actually be her brother apologized for calling me not-American the night before, because I guess it's weird to see non-whites claiming to be Americans. He was a funny fellow, though, and I find it amusing when people can't figure out my nationality, so everything was all good. We hung around the house for the morning and early afternoon, and I listened to an Egyptian soap opera and the vehement anti-Semitic rhetoric being belted out from the nearby mosque speakers.

A word here, if I may. In Alexandria, and in Cairo, I have never heard any imams preaching anything anti-Semitic. In the countryside, however, it was clear as day. An interesting thing to note.

In the afternoon, we played Playstation with my roommate's cousin/brother, who then made us watch the Dark Knight and then took us out into their agricultural fields. We walked around for a bit, took a tour of the elementary school where my roommate's father teaches and where all the little spawnlings of her family go for routine government indoctrination, then returned to shoot the bull and get dragged around the neighborhood to be shown off to all the family friends. I drank more mango juice then than I ever have in my life (three full glasses) and since my brain was too tired to process any more Arabic I amused myself by marveling at the gaudy decorations and items that Egyptian houses seem to accumulate. I have always liked modern, streamlined, simple things that make a statement, and the trends in Egypt go exactly in the opposite direction. For example, my roommate's fiancee gave her a ring (not the wedding ring) -- it is gold, with a very large, awkward floral attachment covered in what looks like beaten silver. A very strange, flashy thing that looks to me something like I'd receive as a carnival prize.

As we were walking back to my roommate's house that night, she advised us not to walk in front of some men sitting in front of the auto shop next to her building, and instead walk on the road. Then she urged me to walk faster, faster! Not so slow, and no, don't look at the men. This was particularly irritating not only because I find this aspect of Arab culture personally offensive, but because it was so blatantly hypocritical -- my roommate spent the entire first night we arrived talking about how men in the country (especially in her village) were nothing like the rude, salacious men in the city, and how women in the country had none of the harassment issues that women in the city face. A case of the pot calling the kettle black?

Saturday morning I woke up earlier than the day before, way before any other family member. We ate breakfast quickly and left via microbus. From another small, country town we took a real bus back to Alexandria -- I promised in a previous post that I would not take a real bus, but there was no other way back to the city. And yes, for the record, buses are every bit as sketchy as I imagined them to be. My seat had holes in it that looked like a rat chewed through the fabric. What a rat would be doing in a bus, I do not know.

another truckstop on the way another game that I can play another word I learn to say

another blasted customs post another bloody foreign coast another set of scars to boast

WE ARE THE ROAD CREW