Tuesday, September 14, 2010

lazy tuesday

Well, today was just as fun as a barrel of monkeys, after the monkeys have been in there for a while and got bored. (How fun can a barrel of monkeys be, anyway?)
I woke up this morning around 10 am, after falling asleep almost immediately after I posted my blog last night. It was nice to just wake up, not be jolted out of sleep by a cell phone alarm.
I had plenty of homework to do today, but ended up putting it off like any good college student. Don't worry, it did get done, just not while there was still daylight.
My goals for the day (besides homework), were to call housekeeping to get my room cleaned for the first time in three weeks, and to do my laundry. Originally I planned to seek out the dorm's laundry service and pay for them to do it, but we had some Arabic/English confusion, so I wound up just doing it myself.
Getting housekeeping to come to my room turned out to be easy, since my neighbors called them up, and I just took advantage and asked them to clean my room when they were done. They were kind of scarily efficient, and it took less than ten minutes to strip my bed, put on new sheets, polish all the wooden surfaces that weren't cluttered with my stuff, clean the mirror, and mop the floor. Four ladies worked at one time, and their supervisor (I guess?) stood out in the hall and made me sign papers saying that I had called housekeeping for the first time and that the room had everything that I was promised. (I didn't check 'lampshade', though, because my overhead light is still just a bare bulb. It doesn't really bother me, though.)
My floor proved to be dirtier than I had ever thought possible, with dirt tracked in from the Cairo streets, and lots of long hair. Wait, long hair? Whose long hair? My invisible roommate's? Creepy... Anyway, I was really glad to check housekeeping off my list of things to do, and I rewarded myself by watching a few episodes of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I am eternally grateful to Mr. Stewart and his associate Mr. Colbert for ensuring that their shows are viewable all around the world, not just in the United States. (I'm looking at you, Hulu and Netflix. Make it happen.)
I met my friend Emily for lunch, which was really nice, since we hadn't seen each other in a while. We walked a few blocks to a street food place which she had heard sold really good falafel. Both of us have kind of fallen in love with falafel since we've been here, so it was a really good choice. The way the shop was set up was a bit confusing, since we had to pay a man who then wrote our orders on a slip of paper for us to give to the cooks, but we figured it out eventually. The falafel was delicious, and I definitely plan on going back there soon.
After lunch, I decided to be productive again and do my laundry. The third floor washer was busy, so I made my way up to the fourth, then the fifth, where I finally found an empty washer. Of course, right after closing the door and starting it, I realized that this was the demon washer that had no handle to open the door again. When my laundry was done, I had to call Emily to ask for her fifth floor resident expertise to get my clothes out again. Luckily, we succeeded, and I went back down to the fourth floor to find an empty dryer. This dryer actually worked, unlike the third floor one, and my clothes were clean and dry and warm and the process only took three hours. Whoopee!
Unfortunately, there were some casualties. Since the washers are small here, and I had a lot of dirty clothes, I washed all my pants, and a few shirts that I knew I'd want to wear again soon. I don't know why, but somehow this ended up with my two lightest shirts in the wash with a new pair of jeans. All things considered, it could have been much worse, but it still makes me a little mad. Shoulda, coulda, woulda.
top and left are my newly light blue shirts.
bottom right corner is a very white pillowcase.
At some point after my laundry was completed, I realized that I was no longer in possession of my cell phone. I think I left it on a washer or dryer somewhere, and after checking with the front desk and finding out that housekeeping found a phone earlier today, I'm pretty sure it's safe. Unfortunately, housekeeping is gone for the day, and has taken my phone with them. Apparently that's how lost and found works in Cairo. It's not so much a place as a state of mind.
Eventually I got all my homework done, including reading The Libation Bearers (again), the most boring and plot-empty Greek tragedy ever written. I managed not to fall asleep, though, so I'll at least have something to talk about in class tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, it is going to be busy. Not only do I have class for five hours, I also have tons of business to take care of, like buying textbooks and switching into (and out of) classes. Should be fun. I'll let you know how it went tomorrow, and I'll post another Luxor and Aswan blog too. Thanks for reading and commenting!
Oh, and edit to add: I've had this song stuck in my head for the last four days. You're welcome.

1 comment:

  1. I have always loved this song. Thanks!

    Aunt Julie

    ReplyDelete