time keeping fail

I am actually ashamed to write this in my blog. I overslept and missed the bus to school this morning, thereby missing my first day of work. Lovely.
I talked to my boss and it's all okay, but I feel really bad about it. I triple checked my cell phone alarm last night, but either it didn't go off this morning or I turned it off and don't remember.
That was a really great start to my day, as you might imagine, but luckily, except for a few low points, it did get better.
Art and Architecture was fun as usual, although I was disappointed to find out that the class trip to Saqqara and Dahshur is scheduled for the same weekend that the Mt. Sinai trip was rescheduled for. Since I paid for the Sinai trip, I'll definitely be going on that one, it's just annoying to know that I won't get to visit Saqqara and Dahshur with Professor Ikram. At least I've already been to Saqqara so I won't miss out too badly.
After class, I had taamiyya (falafel) for lunch, which was delicious and cost three pounds, which is why I love Egyptian food so much. It is ridiculously cheap and very very good.
When I finished my lunch, I went to the library to do some reading for class, where I saw this informative warning sign:

but i really really wanted to take notes with my quill pen!

At one point, I checked the time, and saw it was 2:15. "That's okay," I said to myself, doing some math in my head. "My next class doesn't start until 2:30." The math in my head went something like this: All the classes here are an hour and fifteen minutes. I had class this morning at 11:30, and it ended at 12:45. That means the next class started at 1:00, and ends at 2:15, so my class must start at 2:30.
Regrettably, while my math was correct, I neglected the fact that AUC makes no sense, and therefore there is no 1:00 o'clock class. I turned up half an hour late, for no real reason. Worse, I'd talked to my professor in line at lunch earlier. French the llama. It turned out alright though, because all we did was watch a youtube video that I'd already seen. The video is pretty interesting actually, even though it's really long. You can watch and learn all about web 2.0 here if you're interested.
Also, here's the famous video that went viral a few years back, all about how web 2.0 is changing the world and us:

In Arabic class, I turned in my paragraph, described some object, and made up sentences like 'the girl in the television is happy' and 'this man is old and tall'. I know, I'm practically fluent already, right?
After Arabic, I headed to the library to research more for my Dramatic Lit paper. I had only been in the library for 45 minutes when suddenly I noticed that it was really quiet and there weren't many people left. I knew that the library wasn't due to close for another four hours, but it still really creeped me out to have it be so empty when it's usually bustling and loud, at least on the ground floor.
I ended up finding a really useful book for my paper, and decided to call it a day in time to catch the 6:30 bus home. I tried to check the book out at a self-check station, but the computer told me there was a problem with my card, so I had to go to the front desk.
While the librarian was half way through checking out my book, and making me fill out information about my address (which is apparently what the hold on my card was all about), an Egyptian girl came up to the counter to ask a question. Instead of finishing up with me, which would have taken about 20 seconds, he went immediately over to help her, making me wait at the desk for ten minutes for my book to finally be desensitized and handed over. So that was fun.
I did get my book eventually, though, and went out to see AUC's campus in the dark for the first time. It was actually really pretty, and I wish I hadn't had to hurry to catch the bus so I could have snapped a better picture. This one will have to do:

the deadly fountain doesn't look so dangerous at night...

The bus ride home was made quicker because I had someone to talk to, since Maggie was on the same bus. When we got back to Zamalek, I ate some weird pasta from the cafeteria and went upstairs. Tomorrow is another day, the start of my second weekend so far this week. Should be fun, if I manage to keep track of the time.

pay the cabbie the right price or take evasive maneuvers

This has just been the best weekend ever. Honestly, I got my work done, I got to be as lazy as I wanted to, and I got to hang out with my friends. I wish all my weekends could be like this.
My friend Geoff and I made plans to go visit the pyramids at Saqqara, which was an adventure, because it was the first real time I'd gone tourist-ing around Cairo without being part of a huge tour group. Both ways are fun, and both definitely have their advantages and disadvantages. For example, school tours cost more, but remove all the hassle of planning transportation and everything else.
Geoff and I caught a black taxi outside the dorms, told the driver where we wanted to go, and when he agreed, we got in the cab. We didn't bargain for a price, because it's really not necessary until the end of the ride. Plus, we'd spoken to a nice lady at the front desk who told us that a fair price to Saqqara was thirty pounds, so we figured we knew what we were doing. Haha.
First off, the taxi driver let us know that we'd have to hire him for the ride back too, because there weren't any other taxis to hail in Saqqara. This part turned out to be true, so I'm glad he mentioned it, instead of just taking our money and leaving us stranded there.
Secondly, he didn't actually know the way to the Saqqara pyramids. Go figure. No one in Egypt will ever tell you they don't know where something is. I have it on good account that if you ask an Egyptian for directions to the Egyptian consulate (which is imaginary), they will give them to you. In gloriously imaginary detail. Our cabbie pulled over a few times to ask for directions, and didn't really get much help until a nice old man came over and explained it to him. At this point, we'd been driving for an hour (the trip should have only taken half that), and we'd made 5 u-turns. U-turns in Cairo are scary. Generally they involve crossing about 3 lanes of traffic, pausing for a moment, then swinging right back out into the lanes going the other direction. Eventually we made it, though.
Our tickets into the pyramid site were 30 pounds each (yay for discount student tickets!), plus an extra 2 pounds for the taxi, don't ask me why. Our first stop was a new museum, dedicated to Imhotep, the architect who designed the step pyramid at Saqqara for the pharaoh Djoser. It was actually a nice little museum, very well laid out, and with lots of cool stuff, including Imhotep's actual wooden sarcophagus. So that was cool.
When we were done with the museum, our taxi took us up the hill to see the tombs of nobles near the step pyramid. We went inside a few, and thwarted the attempt of a man to get us to give him tips for pointing out things that were in plain sight. No, thank you, I can see it for myself.
I would have pictures of the tombs to show you, except it was at this point that my camera decided to fail me for the first time in its life. When I tried to turn it on, it beeped four times, and the message 'lens error, restart camera' appeared on the screen. Restarting didn't do anything, until Geoff suggested that maybe it needed a time out, so I left it alone for a little while.
After seeing the tombs, we visited the actual step pyramid of Djoser. It was pretty impressive.

step pyramid

scaffolding = apparently they're still working on it?

 The temples and building surrounding the pyramid area were interesting too, but we didn't have much time, so we didn't explore them as thoroughly as we might have. Here are some more pictures, though:

the fence matched the pyramid!

we stole pictures of this camel while its owner was gone.
if he'd been there, he would have made us pay for them.

guardian cobras on the temple wall

there are a lot more trees outside cairo than inside

We got back from Saqqara around 5:00, and paid our taxi driver 70 pounds, which we figured was a reasonable price, accounting for the price there and back and a little extra for the time he spent waiting around. Apparently, he disagreed, because as we headed into the dorms, he actually got out of his cab and started to follow us. We skedaddled, and I don't think he hung around for very long.

It made me feel bad, though, because I honestly think that was a fair price, especially since he got us lost. If I find out that it wasn't fair, I'll do my best to make it up to another cab driver another day.

I meant to get together with some more friends and go out to dinner, but it didn't work out, so instead I ordered in by myself. Pizza Hut delivered my small cheese pizza in about 20 minutes, and somehow their delivery guy managed to slip past me to the guard desk, even though I was sitting outside waiting for him. It worked out, though, and I even got change from him, which is practically a miracle. No one in Egypt likes to give change, which really sucks when all the ATMs here only give out 200 pound notes.

my delicious dinner

Guess how much my dinner cost me? For a Pizza Hut pizza, delivered by motor bike, in Cairo. 17 Egyptian pounds. For those of you not fluent in Egyptian currency, that's less than four dollars. Yeah, I'll probably do this again.
I don't know if you're getting sick of me posting music by the same people over and over again, but I'm not, so I'll probably continue in this vein until someone asks me to stop. That said, here's another hexachordal song, this time a cover of The Magnetic Fields' All Your Little Words: