successful felucca ride

Today was a fail, and then an epic success. The first part of the day totally sucked, so I don't want to talk about it.
When I got home from class, after a very good NaNo session on the bus ride, I talked to my dad and sister on Skype, then met with Stefana and friends for dinner and adventures.
We had real reservations at Abu el-Sid, and walked over there, buying dessert on the way. For dinner, we split three entrees, and they were all delicious, although we couldn't finish them all. Stefana was very brave and tried all the unfamiliar food willingly, even the slimy green molokheya, which is one of my favorite foods here.
Then we caught a cab to the river, and found a felucca captain who promised to take us out for an hour for 50 pounds for his boss and "baksheesh for the driver" (tips for him). He played us music and even sang a little, and we ate our dessert and had a good time taking silly pictures. Then it was time to dance, apparently. I'm sure there are some terrifyingly awful pictures of me (and all of us) dancing with the boat captain that will eventually appear on facebook or somewhere. I can't quite decide if I'm looking forward to that or not. It was a wonderful boat ride, and we tipped him very generously.
We caught a cab home to Zamalek, and I can honestly say that it was the worst cab ride I've ever taken. He took us a very roundabout way (around the island twice) to drive up the meter (which was going super fast anyway), and didn't listen when I tried to tell him the right way to go, then got mad when I didn't know where we were. It ended up costing over thirty pounds for what should have been at most a ten pound cab ride. At most. If he had known what the heck he was doing, and hadn't tried to cheat us. But I've put it behind me. Deep breaths.
When we got back, I walked my friends back to their hotel and we hugged goodbye. They were very good huggers. It was really nice to hear them say that this was one of the best trips they've taken while studying abroad. I hope that's true, but even if it isn't, I had a wonderful time showing them around, and just hanging out with friends, and it was sad to see them go.
Tomorrow I have a quiz in Art and Architecture that I haven't studied as much for as I need to, so that's what I'll be doing all tomorrow morning. Hopefully I won't do as badly and I'm afraid I will. Wish me luck.
NaNo word count: 36753

dahab!

Wow, I really haven't blogged for a long time! Dahab was amazing, and although I did find internet, I didn't make time to blog while I was there, which I think was probably a good thing. I had a hard time relaxing as it was, so that little bit of stress off my mind helped, I think.
We left Cairo on the bus at 7:30 pm on Thursday and arrived in Dahab around 5 or 6 o'clock Friday morning. Even though the five of us had all our bags, we were too stubborn to take a taxi to our hotel, which was a bad idea. Dahab, at least the touristy part, is laid out in a giant line. We walked from the middle-ish, where the bus station was (far back from the beach) to one far end, then along the beach to the other far end where we eventually found our hotel. We were really really tired by then, but our room wasn't ready, so we had to chill on the beach for a while and watch the stray puppies play in the sand.
Our rooms turned out to be pretty nice, although they didn't come with toilet paper. Oh well.
That first day, we spent mostly by the beach right by the hotel, although we did walk back along the boardwalk street for dinner and to meet up with other friends from AUC. The best part of that night was definitely our thick shakes at a restaurant called Yalla. Basically, a thick shake is ice cream in a glass, served with a spoon and superfluous straws.
All the days we spent in Dahab kind of blended together, so from here on, I'm just going to give highlights. The best restaurant in town is Chinese, called the Three Brothers, run by three actual Chinese men, possibly actually brothers. The main server is nicknamed Baba, and he doesn't speak any English or Arabic, so to order, everyone has to point at the item they want in the menu. Then when it's time to pay the bill, he comes over and adds everything up on his pocket calculator. We ate there a lot, and it was always delicious.
After the first night, I woke up with countless mosquito bites on both my calves, which made the rest of the weekend much less fun. I would show you a picture of how many bites I got, but the camera's still broken, so that's a no go. Plus, it's kind of awful to look at.
For our third night, we moved from one side of town to the other, into a villa owned by the same hotel. It was amazing, and I would love to stay there again if I could be with a group of people that would make it more affordable. Since the kitchen was fully supplied, we got to go grocery shopping and cook dinner for two nights, the first time any of us had cooked in three months. It was amazing. We had spaghetti one night and chicken and rice the next.
The fourth night, another friend arrived and brought friends over with her that she had met at the bus station, telling us only that they were Tanzanian. This turned out to be not quite true, they were actually two Peace Corps volunteers visiting Egypt before heading home after their two years service. It was really interesting to talk to them, because I had never really considered the Peace Corps before, but they made it seem wonderful. I'm still not really considering it, but it's not a completely invalid option any longer.
By around the third or fourth day, I was going kind of crazy, what with staying in one place and not really having anything to do, not to mention the insanity that so many mosquito bites brings. Because of all that and a host of other stuff, I decided to go home early, which is why you're getting this blog post tonight (Wednesday) instead of on Saturday, when I was supposed to get home.
Long story short, I bought my bus ticket Tuesday morning, had a wonderful last day in Dahab, snorkeling the famous Blue Hole reef, and caught the bus at 10 pm to take me back to Cairo, where I arrived this morning. Now I'm really tired, so I won't tell you all about my bus trip home adventures, I'll just say that instead of a cab from the bus station, I took a taxi to the Metro with a guy I had just met, who's studying in Alex and had just gone to Dahab for Eid, and who was extremely helpful and gave me a pound for my Metro ticket, then got off in Tahrir square and took a taxi home to Zamalek, where I lazed the day away watching stupid television shows and skyping with my mom. Oh, and NaNoWriMo, which actually went really well in Dahab.
Here's my Tuesday vlog about my last day in Dahab, hope you enjoy:

NaNo word count: 29381
p.s. If anyone has any helpful suggestions about making mosquito bites stop itching or making me start being able to ignore them, please leave a comment! Or leave a comment with sympathy, and we'll see if that helps!

tuesday at the pyramids, take 2

Sarah and I slept in this morning, and then lounged around a little bit, until we were awake. Then we took to the streets of Zamalek so I could do my grocery shopping. And so we could eat brunch. We ate at Munch and Bagel, where I (again!) had the delicious turkey bagel sandwich. Someday, I will try something new, but that day wasn't today. Then we went to Alfa for groceries, and I bought apples and peanut butter and 3x5 cards. (Probable TMI warning: apparently you can't buy tampons in Egypt? What the heck? Not cool.)

After eating and shopping, we headed back to the dorm to relax for a little bit longer before heading off to our adventure for the day, visiting the pyramids for the first time for Sarah, and third time for me. I didn't mind at all though, it's not like they get less awe-inspiring.

I had toyed with the idea of taking a bus to the pyramids from Tahrir Square downtown, but eventually gave up that idea in favor of taking a taxi. The ride itself wasn't bad, but when we finally got near the pyramids, right before the hill leading up to the parking lot, two men jumped out in front of the car, forcing the driver to stop. It turned out they were trying to get us to hire a horse carriage or camels from them. They did this by telling us that walking around the pyramids was impossibly tiring, and we really shouldn't attempt it. I wanted to snap at them that I'd already walked all over the Giza plateau with Salima Ikram, so surely I would be fine. Also they kept calling me sister, which was really annoying. Finally, we convinced them to leave us alone (after ignoring them didn't work), and our driver took us up to the ticket booth (getting stopped once more on the way). We bought our tickets, and were in.

sarah's first pyramid!

I waited outside while Sarah climbed into the depths of the first pyramid. I was cheap, so I didn't want to pay for a ticket, or risk hitting my head again. We had good weather, so I didn't mind waiting in the shade and the wind for her to come back out.

big pyramid, tiny sarah

After the first pyramid, we walked over to the second, but didn't go inside. The policemen were trying to get us to come closer to the pyramid beyond the keep-out ropes, so that they could get money from us, presumably. We didn't go, despite their persistence.
Next, we walked over to the solar boat museum, got our booties, and went in. I love that boat. When we finished the museum, we walked a bit around the great pyramid, to see if the mastaba tombs I visited with Professor Ikram were open to visitors, but they weren't, as far as I could tell.
When we were walking away from the pyramid, toward the Sphinx, we got semi-assaulted by a group of babbling middle-school age Egyptian girls. They surrounded us, and I couldn't tell what they wanted. Eventually, one girl in a bright pink hijab spoke up, and said she wanted to take a picture with me. This was very strange. Why, why, why on earth would anyone want to take a picture with me? Let alone go ahead and ask to take one? She asked my name, and I told her, and then I asked for hers in Arabic, after which we conversed between my very bad and her very fast Arabic. Her name was Maha. One of her friends took the picture, with me and Sarah surrounded by eight or ten Egyptian teenyboppers. It was kind of adorable, if very weird. After the picture was taken, I took out my camera and asked if they would take another one with it. I thought the girl did, but I guess she was just being sneaky, because when I checked, it wasn't there. Sad.
After the picture was taken, the rest of their group, and a man I presume was their teacher, came up. I don't remember exactly what was said, but the teacher did invite us to come on their tour with them, which we politely declined. So they left, and we left, to walk down the road to the Sphinx, where another odd thing happened: someone else asked to take a picture with me. I don't know what was going on. This time it was a teenage boy and his friends, though, so I said no, because it was a bit creepy. He was polite though, and not a jerk, so I talked to him for a bit in Arabic/English. He asked where I was from, and I said California, and that I lived in Cairo. Then he called me beautiful, which was out of the blue and a step further in our relationship than I was willing to take, so I excused myself, and we headed down to the Sphinx.
Talking about it later, Sarah and I were wondering what on earth made these people want to take pictures with me. The only thing we could settle on was maybe my hair, since it is pretty out of the ordinary in Egypt. I was dressed modestly, and honestly didn't expect to attract any attention today. Shows what I know.
The Sphinx was sphinx-like, although we didn't get to spend very much time with him, because the best viewing spot was being shut down for closing time, meaning we had to force our way through giant crowds of people going to the exit of the temple near the Sphinx, because the guards telling us to get out didn't think to stop the flow of people going in first.

hello mr sphinx

Then we crossed the street and had dinner at that famous Egyptian restaurant, Pizza Hut. It was worth it for the view:

sunset behind the pyramids. at pizza hut!

We left the restaurant, and caught a metered taxi home, which ended up being cheaper than the 40 pounds quoted to us by the nice man who spoke to us outside. I would have been okay with going with him if he hadn't been so pushy. I think I've taken the advice 'always choose your taxi, never let your taxi choose you' to heart. Traffic on the way back was terrible, but we made it home, where a miracle happened. We didn't have exact change for the taxi, so I over paid by five pounds, and asked for change, fully expecting the driver to just shrug and drive away. But no! He produced a five pound note and bid us farewell. What a gentleman.
We walked to get gelato before heading back to the dorm, and saw this street sign for our road. Mohamed Sakeb. Everything else I've seen calls it Mohamed Thakeb and that's what the Arabic on the sign reads. So, I don't really know what is going on, but I know what to tell the taxi company next time, at least!

this explains a lot

Tomorrow I have to go to school, and take my Arabic midterm, which kind of sucks. I think I'll do alright though. I also get to drag Sarah along to campus on the hour long bus ride. I'm such a great host.

I will have a vlog to post here tomorrow, but I'm not going to stay awake while it uploads, so you'll just have to wait. Be patient.
[Here's the video! Please enjoy.]

NaNo word count: 3592

the arrival of the sarah

So, today was pretty much an uninteresting day, except for three things.
1) I am very definitely sick in some way, as confirmed by the four different kinds of throat soothers given to me by student health this morning.
2) I started NaNoWriMo, my story is going well, and I'm almost a full day's writing ahead of schedule.
and 3) I picked up Sarah from the airport tonight! Yay for friends from home!
Actually getting to the airport seemed like a big ordeal at the time, but looking back on it, it wasn't really that bad. I called a cab company to have a car meet me at the dorm, only to have the man on the other end inform me that he didn't know of any street by the name I was referring to. So that was really promising. The taxi did show up, though, and he took me to the airport for the very fair price of forty pounds. I lurked outside for a while, fending off the offers of taxi men to get me a car, and then I went inside to wait for Sarah. We'd talked on the phone a bit while I was still in the taxi, so I could give her the address of the dorm to write down on her visa, but other than that, we didn't really know where we'd be meeting up. (Sidenote: I also didn't know what terminal to direct the taxi to, and had to frantically call my friend Emily for help. Turns out it was terminal 3, which is directly adjacent to terminals 1 and 2. So I don't think it really would have mattered.)
Eventually, Sarah came out into the arrival lounge, and we found each other (and I got my hug) and then we went outside to bargain for a taxi. In the end, we paid 60 pounds to get back, although we had to share the taxi with another passenger (he sat in the front, though, so that was okay). Now we're back in the dorms, all settled in for the night. Tomorrow, if everything works out, we'll head to the pyramids, because what's a trip to Egypt without pyramids?
NaNo word count: 2768

egyptian museum and suuuupeeeerrnooooteee

Woops, late blog tonight. I'm here now, it's okay. (I know you were worried.)
Today I had two goals, 1) make my way to Alfa Mart to finally buy some food, and 2) go to the Egyptian Museum with Professor Ikram for my Art and Architecture class. Both were eventually accomplished, although the second one involved much more drama than it should have.
Emily and I guessed our way to Alfa Mart, and braved its frightening escalators (they don't start moving until you step onto them) in search of snacks, flashlights, and goggles. Well, the goggles were just for me. I'll take a picture of them for you tomorrow and post it here. They're mildly hilarious, but the best they had.
I bought bananas, shredded wheat, and Jif peanut butter. I didn't know they even had Jif here, but the fact that they did kind of made my week. [Disclaimer: I am not endorsed by Jif. Duh.]
After our wildly successful grocery shopping trip, Emily and I split up, her to pack for her trip to Dubai this weekend, and me to film the video that's at the bottom of this blog. More on that later.
At 2 pm, I met up with Kim to catch a taxi to the Egyptian Museum. We waited for another girl for a while, but she didn't show, so we left the dorms and started walking, expecting a taxi to solicit us at any moment. This was not what happened. Traffic outside the dorm was completely stopped, and we walked almost 5 blocks before we saw any cabs at all. The streets were also filled with school children, which was strange because I hardly ever see any kids at all. At one point, we thought there might have been a car accident, putting together two and two from the stalled traffic, the crowds, and a persistent siren whose source we couldn't exactly determine. It turned out to be the sound of the horn of a nearby McDonald's delivery motorcycle. Apparently, in Cairo, McDonald's holds the same precedence in traffic that an ambulance does elsewhere.
Eventually, we did find a cab though, and he agreed to take us to the museum for 10 pounds, which is a little bit more than it should have cost, but not enough more that either Kim or I cared. On the way, he pulled over to get another fare, but that didn't take too long. Eventually traffic cleared up, and we made it to the museum in about 25 minutes, a drive which I've never seen take more than 15.
We figured out how to get past security, with lots of help (thanks Vince!), and Professor Ikram met us at the front steps, and got us into the museum without tickets thanks to her handy psychic paper. Or something.
The museum was ridiculously crowded and hot, and we had to run through it, from exhibit to exhibit, because that's the way our class travels when following Professor Ikram. Everything she showed us was interesting, and it was equally fun watching other tourists try to hear her lectures instead of what their own tour guides were saying. When our class trip was done, Kim and I stayed for a while to explore a bit more and check out the tiny gift shop. All in all, I don't think I saw even a fifth of what's on display in the museum, and I definitely plan to go back. One interesting thing I did see was a chunk of the sphinx's beard that had broken off and was then found and eventually ended up in the museum. In a corner. Behind a forklift. This might help you get some idea of the sheer number of important artefacts the museum holds and how well they are 'organized'.
When we left the museum, we tried to catch a taxi back to Zamalek. One man offered to get us a cab, whose fare, he said, would be 50 pounds. Way too much. We turned him down and tried on our own, only to find that taxis didn't want to go to Zamalek, at least not for 10 pounds, which was all we were willing to pay. We kept walking, and eventually ended up at a metro station, which we used to cross the busy street underneath, and found ourselves by the old American University campus. We finally caught a taxi, and miracle of miracles, the driver actually knew where our dorms were. I cannot tell you enough how impressive that was. I've never taken a taxi home before that didn't need to be given directions, so this was amazing.
After that highlight of my day was over, I lazed around for a while, then went down to the cafeteria for dinner, where I met Maggie and Geoff. We hung out for a while in the garden, and I read A Midsummer Night's Dream for my Lit class, which was just as good as I remember it, and a whole lot funnier.
Then I went back upstairs and edited my vlog. I said I would explain so I will. This week's vlog is mostly dedicated to SuperNote, a competition held by youtube superstars Rhett and Link. It's kind of hard to explain, so click here to watch their video about it if you're interested.
Suffice it to say, lots of this video is just me trying to sing one long note in one breath. Pretty boring. There's a surprise at the end for anyone who's curious what life in the Zamalek girl's dorms sounds like, though. Stay tuned.

And that's it for today. Except for the extremely silly skype conversation I had with my little sister a little while ago. It consisted mainly of us laughing hysterically and trying to hold silly faces to convince the other one that the video chat had frozen. It was one of the funniest things we've done in a while. Unfortunately, I was laughing too hard to get any screenshots of either of our faces. Sorry. I love you, Erin!

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:

tanis and bubastis

I woke up this morning without any clear idea of how the day was going to go. I knew two things for certain: 1) I had no more water, and 2) I needed to be downtown by 8:00, which left me no time to go buy some, except at the cafeteria, which was closed. That was it.
In the lobby, I met up with two other students who were going on the Tanis trip and we shared a cab downtown, where luckily, we found a McDonald's, and I bought a water bottle for the day. I still didn't have any food, but my lovely friend Kim, ultra-prepared as she was and always is, let me eat the extra banana that she had brought with her. Thanks Kim!
Actually, we were joking about Kim being so prepared all day long. In one purse, she had a giant water bottle, her wallet, mobile, iPod, book, and probably more, as well as hand sanitizer and a mongoose. I'm not sure about the mongoose, actually, since I never saw it, but she did say it was in the zipper compartment, so I may never know for certain.
Also while we were at McDonald's, I stole toilet paper from their bathroom, which turned out to be my one concession to being prepared for the day.
Once everyone had arrived, we drove in the bus to the new campus to pick up the students who lived there, and then we were off to Bubastis, an ancient site in the middle of the delta. Here's the map of our trip:

The site of Bubastis is actually in the middle of the modern city of Zaq-a-ziq, so everywhere we looked we could see cars and apartment buildings, but that was okay. Originally, the site was a temple, although the monumental structure is completely gone now because like a lot of other sites in Egypt, it was torn apart for its limestone (which was then used to make quick lime for mortar), leaving the granite facing stone lying all around. If you look carefully, it's still possible to see how some of the temple was laid out, which was pretty amazing.

a colossal statue of a goddess, reconstructed

what most of the site looked like - granite blocks everywhere

a row of granite cobras with no heads
(this is why kim needed her mongoose)

you can see the outline of the hypostyle hall in the columns

monuments are great, because i can take
pictures of soldiers and not get in trouble

a well where the holy family stopped on
their journey through egypt, according to legend

After we explored Bubastis, we used the unfinished visitor's centre's scary scary bathrooms (thank you McDonald's!) and headed for Tanis. The drive was about an hour and a half, and we had a police escort the entire way. This was a little annoying, because I think we were drawing enough attention to ourselves already, what with the huge bus, that we didn't really need a squad car and a motorcycle with both their sirens on to announce our presence. The drive went really slowly, because we had to pass through lots of little villages on the way. It was interesting to see another part of Egypt outside of the big city that I've gotten used to. Well, that is, when I could stay awake. The professor lectured a lot during our drives, and he had one of those soothing documentary type voices and it just put me straight to sleep. I did manage to get a few pictures, though.

COWS!

donkeys and a motorcycle

We arrived at Tanis around 1:30, and after the professor talked for a bit, explaining where everything was, we got to wander and take whatever pictures we wanted. The site was very different than what I expected, but still very interesting. Like Bubastis, it was full of granite blocks either left behind from previous constructions or moved to the site by the government for safe-keeping. Here's what we saw:

first, adorable puppies. don't worry, i didn't touch them.

awww

a broken colossus of ramses the great, about 10 ft tall

another broken colossus of the pharaoh
- the queen is just visible behind his leg

the royal tomb of psusennes the somethingth - originally, the 'top' was
at ground level, and everything you see here was buried.

ancient egyptian sprite bottle - so much litter everywhere!

sorry, i don't remember what this means
it's probably horus/the pharaoh, though

broken columns

pretty sure this was the inscription on the cover
of my hieroglyphics textbook

hieroglyphs inside an opened tomb

inside a tomb - the granite sarcophagus

is it? could it be? the well of souls? yes. (no.)

who is that mysterious man in the distance?

Just as I ran out of water and was dying to get back on the bus, we did, and the air conditioning was probably the most beautiful thing ever. Then the drive back to new campus took three hours, and another hour to get back to downtown and catch a cab to Zamalek. Yay for Egypt traffic, again. Our cab driver was nice, though, and even admitted he didn't know where we were going, but was happy to follow our directions instead of just driving around randomly. As soon as I got into the dorms, I bought two big bottles of water and some dinner, and I'm not feeling so tired and dehydrated anymore.

So, that was my trip, and although I didn't find the ark of the covenant, I've concluded that going to Tanis was a good idea. It was a really long, really hot day, full of lectures and driving and big chunks of rock, but I'm glad I went. Even if it ate up my last day of the weekend and I have to go to class tomorrow and talk about Antigone and The Shipwrecked Sailor and pretend I know Arabic. That's okay. I went to Tanis.

exploring zamalek (and beyond!)

I live on an island. I've never lived on an island before, and it's a little strange knowing that my dorm is no more than ten blocks from the Nile river in any direction. It does make it a nice place to explore, though. I haven't gotten lost yet, and I don't plan to, but I know that if I do, I'll definitely be able to find my way back home.
Tonight I ventured farther than I had gone before, in the company of three friends: Maggie, Jen, and Amy. We were looking for dinner, specifically a restaurant that Amy had heard about from one of her friends, the general location of which had been pointed out to her from the bus. How hard could it be to find, after all? One restaurant, sure to be packed with Egyptians breaking the fast seemed sure to stand out.
All Amy really knew to look for was a certain bookstore, located on 26 of July Street, which is also, somewhat confusingly, known as 15 of May Bridge. We found the bookstore with no problem, but the restaurant seemed to be invisible. We wandered for a bit, and found a really interesting scarf store, which was unfortunately closed.
After about ten minutes, we decided to look elsewhere, when a man across the street yelled to us, "Abu al-Sid?" I had heard of a restaurant named Abu al-Sid before, and knew that it was roughly in that area of Zamalek, so I shouted back, "Aiwa, fein?" (Yes, where is it?). Upon which, he came across the street and opened the door we had been standing in front of, pointing to a tiny plaque on the wall, which stated the name of the restaurant. D'oh.

the hidden door (not my photo*)

(And that is as far as I got in my blog for tonight before being willingly dragged off to another adventure in downtown Cairo. Be patient, I'll get there.)
Anyway, dinner was completely delicious. I tried koshary for the first time, which is a traditional Egyptian food made up of noodles, lentils, beans, rice and other carbs, mixed with spicy tomato sauce. My friend Amy ordered some traditional Ramadan drinks, and was nice enough to share, so now I know that tamarind something-or-other is definitely my favorite Egyptian juice.

Our waiter and his boss at Abu al-Sid were big jokers, kidding us all the time about what we were eating and how much we paid. The boss took our money and check, counted it, and said very seriously, "No change," then walked away. We didn't quite know what to do, but then we saw him laughing in the corner as he counted out our change to bring back. Hilarious.

this restaurant comes highly recommended!

After dinner, we wandered a bit more, and explored the nearby scarf shop, where I made my first real concrete purchase in Egypt, of a turquoise scarf which I am currently wearing wrapped ridiculously around my head. I promise, there will be pictures soon. The bookstore nearby was also nice, and had a huge English and huge French section as well as Arabic. I didn't buy anything, but I'll definitely be going back.
Here's a map of Zamalek, just to show you where we were and how far we walked. It probably took ten minutes to walk from the restaurant back to the dormitory.

dorm = O, restaurant = X *

When we got home, I came upstairs to write my blog, expecting to do some homework and go to bed. Instead, I typed for a bit, then got a text message from my friend Geoff (who also goes to UCSB, you can find his blog here) inviting me out to downtown Cairo with a group of people for drinks at a hotel bar. (Since it's Ramadan, and since Muslims aren't technically supposed to consume alcohol at any time, most of the drinking in Cairo is done by foreigners in hotels. Way for us to live up to the stereotype.)
Somehow, after I had 'dressed fancyish' and met up with my friends in the lobby, we crammed 5 people into one black (read: unlicensed) taxicab whose driver promised to take us to the hotel for 10 pounds. This seemed reasonable, since downtown really isn't that far.
Unfortunately, traffic was horrible. It was as bad as I'd ever seen it in Cairo, and that's saying something. Apparently one of the bridges off Zamalek was shut down, so we had to take an alternate route. As if that weren't confusing enough, one of my friends struck up a conversation with the driver about Hitler, since we saw a picture of him on a billboard. A very interesting conversation ensued, as the driver spoke Egyptian Arabic, and my friend spoke only Modern Standard. Eventually, this disintegrated into an argument about traffic and cab prices, and the driver let (read: forced) us out a few blocks from the hotel. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I gave him an extra pound or two for putting up with us.
The hotel was very pretty and secluded, and we took a rickety elevator up to the 10th floor bar and balcony. Geoff ordered a Stella (Egyptian beer) and a shot, and then I tried to order a Stella. The bartender was having none of it, though. He insisted that Geoff had already bought my drink, there was no need for me to pay twice. My Arabic definitely isn't good enough to talk my way out of that one, so I just paid Geoff the money so he could get himself another. The beer wasn't very good, and the one bottle lasted me the two and a half hours we were there.
There were tons of other AUC students there, both Egyptian and study abroad, all ostensibly there for one girl's birthday, but since no one I talked to seemed to actually know her, I think everyone really just came to drink. We played some games, like Never Have I Ever and Animals, and thereby cemented the traditional loud and drunken (or at least very strange) reputation of American college students firmly in the bartender's and waiters' minds. We had fun, though, so I don't think it really mattered.
Eventually we moved outside to talk more, and smoke, for some. Eventually the smoke was getting to me, and when a few other students from Zamelek got up to leave, I went with them.
I thought the adventure was over then, but it definitely wasn't. Only about twenty feet out the door of the hotel, we spotted a cart that we thought was selling french fries. It turned out that they didn't actually have french fries, but said they could get some if we waited, which we did. While we waited, they offered us all sorts of drinks, and eventually free samples of the sugary fried dough dessert they were selling. Those vendors sure knew what they were doing, and they smirked when we bought a tray for 5 pounds immediately after trying them. We waited about ten minutes for the french fries, and when they didn't arrive, we left, trying to avoid eye contact with the vendors. It worked, and we escaped and caught a white (licensed) cab back to Zamalek, safe and sound.
Here is a map of Zamalek and downtown Cairo, showing where we were:

sorry for the blurry writing. hotel = A (i think that's where it was, at least)*

*(thanks to google maps for the maps, and queenpud for the picture of abu el-sid)