friends from italy

Today I again had nothing much to do, and again, it was a really good day. I almost wish vacation could go on for longer, but I miss having stuff to do. I'm sure that feeling won't last long once I get back to AUC, but that's how I feel right now.
My friend Stefana arrived from Milan today, with two of her friends from the university where she's studying. I met them at their hotel for lunch, and then we explored Zamalek.
I actually had a really difficult time finding their hotel, because google maps told me it was in two different places. Just when I had given up, I found myself on the correct street, right under the hotel sign. We went to a restaurant called Cafe Noir for lunch, which was pretty good, and a relief for them, after getting used to paying European prices for food all the time.
Then we set off exploring, and walked all the way from my side of the island to the Opera House, way on the other end. We saw a poster for a performance of King Lear, which I was sad to learn I missed, because I love that play, and would definitely have paid to see it, even if it was in Arabic.
About halfway to the Opera House, we decided to make our way to Cairo Tower, and see the whole city below us. It was past sunset by the time we got there, which definitely spoiled that plan a little bit, but it turned out okay. After buying our tickets and waiting in a ridiculous line for about half an hour, we decided to chip in thirty more pounds each as credit for the restaurant in the tower, and skip the long line. This turned out to be a good idea, because when we got back down, we saw people still in line who had been ahead of us.
While we waited, we chatted, or were chatted at by a group of Egyptian girls, about age thirteen or fourteen. They were very nice, and told us we were beautiful, and we told them they were gameela too. We had a bit of a language barrier problem, but I enjoyed talking to them.
The top of the tower was very very windy, and it was completely dark by then, but we got to see all the lights of Cairo spread out beneath us. The lit up feluccas on the river were really pretty, and it was amazing to see how far the city stretched in all directions.
When we finished looking, we went down to the restaurant, and had coffee and dessert, completely not thinking about the fact that none of us had eaten dinner. The chocolate cake was good, but the vanilla ice cream was kind of funny. We decided it tasted like funfetti cake, but without the funfetti.
We took a taxi back to the dorms so we could look up the new Harry Potter movie, in the hopes that we could all see it together while they were in Cairo, but it didn't look like it would work out. On our way back to their hotel, we ran into a friend who told us that it will actually be released in Egypt on Wednesday, unfortunately after they've gone back to Italy. (But I'll still get to see it! Yay!)
Tomorrow I'm meeting them early, hopefully sneaking myself into their free continental breakfast at the hotel, then we're off to Giza to see the pyramids! I don't think I'll ever get tired of them.
NaNo word count: 33110
p.s. I had a ridiculous NaNo session today. I've almost got my whole buffer back from where I lost it two days ago!

TGI Eid

That's how I feel right now. I have almost never been so ready for a vacation in my entire life. I'm sure there are exceptions to that statement, but honestly, nothing comes to mind.
An entire week where I will probably do no work except for NaNoWriMo sounds excellent. Just me and friends and a confusing hotel reservation and the Red Sea. Pretty sweet.
Unfortunately, my camera is still broken, so I won't even be taking it with me. When I get home I'll do my best to get it fixed, but there isn't anything I can do about it now, so I'm not going to worry. I will take my flipcam with me, though, and I'll vlog while I'm there. I don't know if I'll be able to upload the video, because the internet situation seems a little sketchy at the moment, but we'll see.
Currently, I've got about 6 mosquito bites, since my roommate has decided to start sleeping with the window open. I've closed it tonight, but it might be open when I wake up tomorrow morning. Plus, I'm sure the mosquitoes are already in the room since it was open all day anyway. But no resentment there. You're imagining it.
While I'm away in Dahab, there are tons of projects I could (and probably should) work on. Just to make a general list, I have three essays I should start, a take-home quiz for Arabic, and studying for my second Art and Architecture quiz. Probably not much (if any) of this will get done. And I'm okay with that. This week, being a tourist on vacation comes first.
NaNo word count: 18689
p.s. If you don't see any blog updates for a while, it will just be because of sketchy internet, nothing to worry about. Also, I'm not really planning on doing individual days of catch-up blogs, a week is just too long for that. I will write stuff down every day so I can catch you up when I get home, though. Promise!
p.p.s. I love this video so much, I'm not even going to offer any explanation for it: