Wadi Natrun

So we had another day trip today to Wadi Natrun, a popular pilgrimage site since before Christianity and a known stop in Jesus, Mary and Joseph's trip through Egypt. Wadi Natrun has since become the location of multiple Coptic monasteries, two of which we were lucky enough to visit.

Our first stop was the Monestary of St. Bishoy, named after a Coptic monk who supposedly carried Christ up a mountain while he was disguised as an old man. Despite the tradition of monks being burried in the cathedral in Cairo, St. Bishoy requested that his body be interred at the monastery and we saw more than a few Copts who had made pilgrimage to pray over his body.



The monastery itself was gorgeous - one of the greenest places I've seen in Egypt. We were given a tour by one of the monks who was kind enough to deal with all of our excessive questioning. It was interesting hearing how the monks live. The compound as a whole is self-sufficient with different monks assigned different labors such as farming, caring for livestock, and dealing with tourists. Despite the importance given to seclusion, the monastery has kept up with the times. Visitors of all faiths are always welcome and one monk's job is even running the monastery website.

We saw the long dry Martyr's Well, named after its waters were used to clean the monastery after a massacre, as well as the church housing two centuries old doors and an ancient pulpit preserved by the Edomites. With the advent of microphones the pulpit is no longer used, but it still stands positioned to deliver sermons to the masses. After the Church we toured the monks' austere cells and the old flour mill before sitting down to a lunch of ful. When given the choice to finish seeing the rest of the monastery or visit a second one, the group decided variety would be good for us, so we thanked our tour guide and loaded back on the buses.

The second monastery, The Monestary of the Holy Virgin Mary, was less accommodating. We weren't allowed past the church and the gift shop, but the entrance was still a spectacular view. I'm amazed at the architectural achievements of religious communities. All of the monasteries, even the ones we only drove past, were sprawling compounds of stone and crosses decorated with iconography of all types.



Our visit made me wonder what the recent Islamist victory in the elections will mean for Egypt's Copts. They're a significant minority, and an important part of the history of Egypt, but it's hard not to notice the religious lines that have been clearly drawn. I was surprised to find that many of the Muslim Egyptians who accompanied us on the trip, despite their many Christian (and Coptic) friends, were uncomfortable in the unfamiliar religious environment. It's a cultural division that would be hard to overcome under the best of circumstances, and those aren't the circumstances we're under today.

When we got back to Alexandria I did some shopping. In addition to a few clothing purchases (remind me to write a post about clothes someday soon), I also kept with the theme of the day and stopped by a Christian owned shop that sells a wide variety of Christmas paraphernalia. I bought some spray snow and some "surprise" gifts that you're supposed to shake up and throw on a table to get a surprise. I refuse to give in to my curiosity and see what that surprise is before the 25th. Being around all the Christmas themed bobbles felt like home. I wish it wasn't a waste of money to buy Christmas decorations, but it wouldn't be worth it when I'd only use them for one year. I'm not even going to be in my apartment for Christmas.

Speaking of which, for those of you who haven't heard I'll be spending my Christmas break (December 22-January 1) in Jordan. I'll write about it when I get back, but our itinerary already has me bouncing with excitement. We're even going to see the site of Jesus' baptism at Bethany beyond the Jordan on Christmas day. Since we're based out of a largely Christian town that day, I'm hoping there will be some festivities to share in, but we'll see.

Oh, and a food update: my new addiction is chocolate covered peanuts, just in case you were wondering.

That's all for now. I don't expect I'll write again before the new year what with travelling and all, but who knows. In case I don't, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! I'll be thinking of you while we're four wheeling in the desert!

ABCs and 123s

I failed my first exam last week.

Okay, that's not true. There was that one mishap with Calculus for Engineering majors back in 2006, but that's beside the point.

Before those of you who know how anal retentive I am about my grades start freaking out about me going off the deep end though, you should know it wasn't a real exam. It still upset me a bit, but this story has a happy ending. Let us start from the beginning.

The academic portion of the Flagship program is made up of three major components: three language classes at the center in Modern Standard Arabic, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, and either Arabic Literature or Arabic Media (I'm taking media), the internship which I have explained and for which we have to write a weekly report detailing what we've learned, and a direct enrollment course within Alexandria University itself.

This direct enrollment course is a unique experience. We can choose any course in any department as long as it's taught in Arabic and then we attend the course like a regular Egyptian student. As you can imagine, this course is quite a challenge, both because of the advanced language necessary to comprehend the lectures and because of the differences between the American and the Egyptian education systems. To help us out, the program hires an academic partner for each of us, selected from the Egyptian students in the class, to meet with us two hours a week and go over the course material. My academic partners name is Dalia, and I'm lucky to have her because she goes above and beyond.

We're both enrolled in second year 3ilm al-lugha, or the science of language. More loosely translated, it's a linguistics class. I chose it because of my linguistics major at UT. I hoped that if I chose a class where I was already comfortable with the material, I could focus on the language. My background in the field is certainly helpful, however the class approaches the topic from the standpoint of Arabic rather than Language as a whole so I'm still learning a lot.

The real challenge I'm facing in the class is the methodology. Since before the time of the Prophet and the foundation of Islam, Arabic culture has put a heavy stress on memorization. Despite the veneration of language, most were illiterate and literature was passed down through oral tradition. Even the Qur'an wasn't written down until after the Prophet's death, hence the importance put on memorizing the verses that continues to this day. I assume, though I have only my own experiences to back up my assumption, that the influence of this custom has directly led to the importance of memorization in the various Arabic education systems.

To give you a better picture, we sit down in class every Tuesday, the professor comes in, we get out our notebooks, and then we begin to copy down her lecture verbatim. She'll usually read out a bunch of definitions, and then give some examples on the board for clarification. Class ends, and we're sent home to study. I was at a loss. Was I supposed to memorize every word that had come out of her mouth?

This is where Dalia's help was invaluable.

We spent our first few meetings basically recopying the lectures with more detailed explanations from Dalia. I expressed my worry, however, about the upcoming exams and what they would consist of. Was I just supposed to recopy everything I'd heard from memory? Not quite.

To assuage my fears, Dalia volunteered to write me a practice exam as long as I promised to study. And I did study, a lot, just not the night before our meeting. (I had other homework.) When she gave me the exam I thought it looked easy enough - a long list of terms to define and then two longer questions, the answers to which were contained in neat lists in my notes. Without the information fresh in my head, however, I wrote most of the definitions in my own words and was rewarded with a paper full of red marks and exes.

"You didn't study," Dalia told me. "But I did!" I insisted. It was no use.

She sent me home with my corrected paper, an order to study more, and an appointment to meet again for another test two days later. I probably spent more time studying than I should have. I do have other assignments to complete after all. But I was chagrined by my failure.

When we met again she gave me a similar test to which I churned out the answers verbatim complete with the same examples we'd been given in class. As she began to look over my paper, her smile got bigger and bigger. There were a few tiny mistakes, I forgot a dot on a letter or the appropriate preposition for a specific verb, but when she'd finished marking every answer correct she looked at me and gave me the best compliment I have received in Egypt so far.

"If I didn't know you were foreign I would have thought this was an Egyptian's paper."

So I can do this. If I put in the time.

Now that I have the system down, we've started studying in earnest. Despite only being paid to meet with me two hours a week, Dalia has set up an hour a day, every day leading up to the Christmas break, to study. "Isn't that a lot?" I asked her. "But the exams are in January!" she responded. She began studying for some of her exams months ago.

So, it will be a stress on my time, but I'm glad to have her help, and I always enjoy our meetings. There might be some personal differences, just like I have with many of the Egyptian girls, but our love for linguistics unites us. Even if we don't have a lot in common personally, we can always discuss Language theory and the differences between Arabic linguistics and its Western counterpart.

So I'm going in to meet with her tomorrow bright and early, 9:00AM on a Saturday. They told us when we enrolled not to expect higher than a C (or rather the Egyptian equivalent), but I'm hoping with Dalia's help to do much better than that. Only time and my study habits will tell.

Superb Substitution!

My must share lesson for the day was this: Cinnamon is as good as, if not better than, hot cider. At the very least a hot cup of it satisfactorily deals with the winter induced cider cravings I've been having. I bought it on a whim (along with a $1 cactus) and I have to say it's one of the better purchases I've made.

Oh yeah, and the elections went off without a hitch. Yay Egypt!

That is all.

Egyptian Food

Alright, I still don’t feel like going to bed or doing homework, so you’re getting a double feature the second of which isn't news at all. I've already told you about halawa, but I thought I'd share a few other interesting Egyptian food tidbits as long as I’m thinking about it.

Fruit: is awesome. Mostly. It's all brought from street vendors who got shipments that morning, so it’s very fresh. You can only get what’s in season, but I’ve never been that picky. Oranges and bananas are cheap. Apples are going up in price. Mangoes were always expensive but Egyptian mangoes have this pleasantly spicy flavor that make it worth splurging on occasion. I just had my first Egyptian kiwi, the price of which I didn't check. It tasted like there was no sugar in it, and I don’t plan to buy one again. The dates are fresh, but I don’t like them until they’re dried so I usually buy them pre-packaged anyway.

Meat: is terrible. It's expensive and law grade. Most of my protein comes from eggs, which are cheap and readily available, fava beans, because they're super cheap and delicious, and peanuts, which are cheap for nuts but still not dirt cheap. When I do eat meat it's usually…

Shawarma: See the link for pictures and a detailed description. Because it's meat, it's a bit more expensive than other Egyptian staples, but it's delicious on a sandwich with some garlic mayo and veggies. I always do the chicken.

Koshari: is a favorite of mine. It's carb loaded: mostly macaroni, lentils and rice topped with tomato sauce, but the things Egyptians can do with spices are amazing and the fried onions make it perfect in all senses of the word.

I usually start my day with a plain yogurt and a piece of fruit and get Egyptian fast food, which isn't at all like American fast food for lunch. There is no shortage of food stalls serving shawarma, koshari, and ful (fava beans). I like my ful with humus, which probably comes as no surprise to those of you who know my eating habits. But for fast food it's relatively healthy. Of course, most of these food stalls serve "burgers" that really aren't and french fries too, but I steer clear of those. For dinner I do a variety of things, but in an attempt to watch my weight I've been trying to cook omlettes with some veggies on the side. There isn't a wide variety of vegetables here. If you order a salad you usually get a bowl of chopped of tomatoes and cucumbers. But I'm not complaining. Tomatoes and cucumbers are among my favorite vegetables, ignoring that whole tomatoes are really fruit thing.

Egyptian junk food is a whole nother beast. It's a good thing I don't like potato chips because they're everywhere in a bunch of weird flavors like tomato and pepper. Chocolate is coveted, but expensive. In addition to your regular old chocolate bars in plain, hazlenut, fruit and nut, and crunchy varieties, they also have many American candy bars like Twix and Snickers. I am of the opinion, however, that Egyptian Snickers are far superior to American Snickers. They're made here and they have far more peanuts in them. It's like eating a chocolate covered peanut bar more than anything. Delicious.

Then there's the biscuit category divided into tea biscuits and wafers. I was nearly addicted to wafers when I first got here. They also come in a bunch of flavors. I prefer vanilla, but there's also chocolate and strawberry and lime and probably some others I don't know about.

Ice cream is nearly a staple here. Alexandrian ice cream is unique, and any Alexandrian will tell you so. It's called gellati, like gellato, and it tastes a lot like gelatto to, which is dangerous for those of you who know how much I love gellato. I'm proud to report, however, that I haven't had any in more than a month. Watching the weight, remember? Also, any ice cream store (and there's one on every corner) serves rice pudding and sometimes custard, which is a nice alternative.

I suppose I should mention something about drinking in Egypt too. Bottled water always. Duh. But tea and turkish coffee are also staples. I was drinking tea like it was oxygen, but I've slowed down recently. At least I take it black, so I don't have to worry about the sugar. Egyptians think I'm crazy because here everything is extra sugar. Juice is also very popular. There are little juice bars lining most busy streets. I live by the most popular juice bar in the city, which is nice, but I try not to drink there too often because like I said, extra sugar. They even have something called Borio juice, which in America we would call Oreo juice except the Oreos here are off brand. Cafes also offer a plethora of shakes and cocktails, but at fifteen pounds a pop I've had one since I've gotten here. I'll stick with my two pound tea, thanks.

Sodas are popular, but diet is almost non-existent. They do have Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Diet Seven Up and Coke Zero, but they don't mean exactly the same thing as in America. Sure, they're still made with aspartame, but they're not zero calorie. It doesn't make much of difference - Diet Pepsi only as 6 calories and Coke Zero has two - but I thought it was funny.

And I almost forgot the bread! Probably because it's so essential. It's literally impossible for an Egyptian to have a meal without bread. The bread here is subsidized, so it's the main part of any diet. Flat bread is used like a spoon for most things, but rolls are also available. My favorite bakery makes rolls that taste just like Mom's. It's amazing. I try to stick the wheat flat bread though, health and all. I usually eat it with some cheese or olive oil and zaatar. My Egyptian roommate thinks my love for zaatar is crazy, because it's mostly a levantine thing and not found in Egypt at all. The box I bought at the local supermarket actually says "for the first time in Egypt." She didn't even know what it was when I opened it up, but I still feel Arab when I eat it.

There are, of course, a number of other Egyptian dishes, but I don't eat them that often and as such don't know much about them. Chicken Penne (not the pasta) is very popular. It's pretty much just breaded, fried chicken. My roommate makes it several times a week. Then there's mulukhiyah, which I can't stand. The taste wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the texture. It feels like you're eating slime, and the green color doesn't help.

The cakes here are pretty, usually covered in fruit and chocolate designs, lit with sparklers for birthdays, but the taste is nothing to write home about. They're pretty bland. I haven't tried many of the other pastries, but if I do I'll let you know. There's a crepe stand outside one of the food stalls I frequent. It's not Egyptian, but I did get a delicious chocolate banana crepe there to celebrate our sale to the American House of English last week. There's also a table of donuts, but I haven't tried any and my friends tell me they're hit and miss. The donut guy is more popular for his balah al-sham which are kind of like bite size, honey covered funnel cakes. I tried one of my friend's, but I've never bought a plate for myself. They're tasty, but not my favorite.

Speaking of honey, it's expensive. I used to have some for breakfast on my flat bread, but I've given it up in the name of cost effectiveness. On occasion I'll put some in my tea, but it's rare.

Alright, I'm finally getting tired, and I can't think of any other food tidbits to offer up at the moment. Hopefully I've given you a good glance into a day in the life of my ever growing stomach. People complain about Egyptian food, but I think it's wonderful. It's simple, but they've done a lot with what they have. As always, questions and comments are welcome. I know there were some problems at first, but I've opened up the comments section for anonymous postings. If you sign with your name though it will help me know how to respond.

Thanks for reading!

Internships and Insanity

So, I have a lot to report on at the moment, and it’s late, and I’m tired, but I have the next two days off so I’m going to write for you all anyway.

It occurred to me on Saturday when I went to yoga that I’d missed an important catch up post. My internship. An essential requirement of the program here is that every student participate in an internship to help improve their Arabic in an authentic workplace. Some students are working in charitable organizations, others with journalists or lawyers. Quite a few are doing translation work in the Library of Alexandria. Most of them aren’t doing much though, and are overall unsatisfied. I, however, am having the exact opposite experience.

I mentioned in a previous post that the American Center in Alexandria hosted an internship fair for us our first week here. The Voluntary Youth Service Initiative (VYSI), founded and run by a young Egyptian girl names Suzan who has since become a good friend of mine, invited a number of their partner organizations to come talk to us and recruit volunteers (i.e. interns). At said fair I talked to a number of organizations, but found myself drawn to Hayat Center, the first wellness center in Alexandria to holistically treat the mind, body, and soul. Do I sound like an advertisement yet? I’ve repeated that last phrase ad nauseum in Arabic, but I still like the way it rolls off the tongue.

Anyway, I picked Hayat Center for two reasons: the boss and the message. Hayat is trying to spread the word of what we would probably refer to as “new age” treatments. They offer classes in everything from yoga, meditation and tai chi to cupping and candle making and mind mapping and I could go on and on and on. The yoga classes by the way are awesome. They’re obviously much different from yoga classes in America, and a little expensive by Egyptian standards, but I get an amazing discount because I work there. I’m paying about $3 a class, but I would pay much more for the weekly escape and relaxation it offers.

Hayat Center takes great pride in its yoga, mostly because of all the courses they offer, it incorporates the mind, body and soul more than any other. The class usually begins and ends with meditation, and in between we do a mix of stretching and strength exercises, but nothing as official and the series’ you find in most yoga classes. Our trainer learned most of her yoga from books, so some of what I considered essential to yoga is missing, but at the same time I’m learning a variety of new poses and exercises that I’d never heard of before.

I wanted to work for Hayat in large part because I thought I might have a lot in common with the types of Egyptians who would take yoga, and it can be difficult to find Egyptians that we have a lot in common with. I wasn’t disappointed. The staff alone are some of my favorite people I’ve met in Egypt. The center is small, just the owner, his wife, and three female employees, but that means joining the center was kind of like joining a family. They’re all so genuine it makes me want nothing more than to sit down to tea and chat for hours every time I see them.

The owner, Mister Wesam Elgendy, is a successful engineer who lived in America for a couple years and started the center, I assume, as a side project for his wife Marwa. While he certainly believes in the message and is highly involved in the business end of things, when we want to schedule a class or refer someone to the center we always go through Marwa. Mister Wesam was the one I met at the internship fair, and his friendly and open attitude made me want to be a part of Hayat. You could tell just by the way he spoke about it how invested he was in the project, and that kind of enthusiasm always leads to good results. The center only opened a year ago, but it already seems to be flourishing. Our work there, in sha’ Allah, will help it flourish more.

My partner Emily (also from the program) and I are responsible for marketing some of Hayat’s classes to international schools in the area. We think we may have been chosen because Americans are naturally attractive to the international schools, but we’re happy to use our foreignness for the benefit of the center. We spent a few weeks with Mister Wesam writing, editing, and practicing sales pitches, in Arabic of course, and then we started calling up schools to set up meetings. We had our first one with the Alexandria House of English last week and I’m happy to report that they definitely want us to come teach their students yoga. We’re still working on getting them to implement a healthy cafeteria and/or offer speed reading classes, but for now we have our foot in the door.

It can sometimes be difficult to get together with Mister Wesam to work. He always makes time for us, but meetings would often get pushed back or rescheduled. At first we assumed he was just busy with work, but then Emily stumbled across an interesting Facebook page. As it turns out, Mister Wesam is running as an independent for the Egyptian parliament - elections to be held today. It gives me hope that someone so invested in the good of others is running. I hope he wins, but competition is stiff judging by the fact that each district has at least fifty candidates. His has eighty. Still, we’ll have to see what today holds.

On the topic of politics… well, there’s a lot to say, and I’m not even sure where to begin. As you might imagine with the number of candidates, the streets are plastered with signage. Banners hang across all the major streets and posters are plastered everywhere. One of the interesting things I learned from the posters is how they’re solving the problem of illiteracy. Every candidate has a symbol (Mister Wesam’s is the mobile phone) that voters can use to indicate their choice on the ballot. This should also help for those who aren’t very good at remembering names. Campaigning, of course, isn’t limited to signs and posters.

On our drive to the American House of English, Mister Wesam told us that he’s been spending most of his time going out to talk to the people of his district. One of the biggest problems facing the candidates is that they’ve had almost no time to campaign; it’s been something like a month and a half since candidacy was announced. Parties, therefore, have had an even bigger advantage than usual. If you remember, the Eid al-Adha celebration I went to was sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood and their Freedom and Justice Party. Hizb al-Nour, the Sufi party, has also been very visible. Last night there were vans with speakers strapped on top driving through residential areas broadcasting platforms. It’s all been very hectic.

As for the elections themselves, that’s why we have two days off of school. The University is definitely closed today, but since the elections will last two days the program has told us to stay inside for both of them. As I’m sure you’ve all heard, there have been a lot of demonstrations in Egypt over the last week or so. First and foremost, in case the fact that I hadn’t gotten to it yet didn’t tip you off, I’m perfectly safe. The protests tend to take place in very specific places, the potentially violent ones in even more specific places, and no one in our program is stupid enough to go looking for trouble. I saw a tiny and rather peaceful protest at the University when people first started demonstrating again (see below), but other than that I didn’t see hide nor hair of a protest until Thanksgiving. I can sometimes hear them from my balcony, but that’s to be expected as the usual marching route falls between my apartment and the Corniche.

Thanksgiving was fun though. As expatriated Americans, it’s no surprise that we organized a gigantic cover-dish Thanksgiving Day celebration. Since many of us have classes on Thursdays, however, and therefore would not have had time to cook, we had the party on Friday. In case you haven’t heard, Friday is protest day. What’s more, we were expecting upwards of fifty guests (we probably had more around eighty) and the only place available to us that could hold that many was a pair of apartments connected by a huge balcony situated on the above mentioned marching route. Oops?

Once we noticed this little faux pas we took precautions. There is, of course, nothing wrong with fifty foreigners being on the marching route as long as we’re inside, but we didn’t want to be coming or going during the protests. As such, the party got moved up from 7 PM to 3 PM, and then again from 3 PM to 1 PM, and then we were told to try to make it by 12:30 just in case. Friday prayers, which are usually the launching point for the demonstrations, take place around 1:00, but for a couple of hours after that we didn’t see more than a few small groups of ten or so individuals wandering down the street waving flags. Then came the commotion.

It’s really something to see thousands of people moving en masse, and we had a perfect vantage point from the balcony. I don’t have too many pictures, because even inside we didn’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves, but I managed to snap a couple (see above). It was entirely peaceful, as the marching routes usually are. When people have a goal (i.e. getting somewhere) they don’t tend to get restless or violent. The laissez faireness of it all caused some of us to dub it the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Muzaahiraat (Demonstrations) – credit to Laura Chen for the name. It really was like watching a giant parade right down to the banners, flags, and people shouting things from the backs of convertibles.

Just as the tail end of the crowd passed, the afternoon call to prayer went off and it was amazing to see everyone buying newspapers to use as prayer mats in the streets before continuing on their way. I’m not sure why I enjoyed the sight so much, but their ingenuity astounded me.

I don’t want to comment too much on the reasons behind the demonstrations. I’m not Egyptian, and therefore it’s not really my business. But suffice it to say for those of you who are curious that the country is much more divided this time than the last. I’ve talked to a good number of Egyptians who don’t agree with the protests at all. As I heard an Egyptian put it in a café last night, the people got their biggest demand, and now they’re trying to protest for the details on which not everyone agrees.

Whatever happens tomorrow, it’s going to be monumental. The first free elections in Egypt in more than thirty years. I hope you’re all watching, because this is one of those time periods that our children’s children will ask us about. I for one am ecstatic to be able to say I was here to see it all.

Catch-Up 3: Day Trips

This years program coordinators are really great about organizing events even when we don't have official breaks from school. So far this year we've taken two day trips on random weekends and have been promised many more.

Trip 1: Rosetta

About an hour from Alexandria in the Nile River Delta lies the village of Rosetta (al-Rashid in Arabic), best known as the city where archaeologists discovered the Rosetta Stone. We toured some old mills and the citadel where they display a replica of the Rosetta stone, then had lunch, took a boat ride on the Nile, and climbed a giant sand that filled my shoes with so much sand I swear I grew two inches. It was a nice day, but overall not too much to talk about.

Trip 2: Nelson's Island

About forty-five minutes from Alexandria off the coast of a city called Abu Qir is an island that's really more of a giant brown rock, best known as the site of a famous battle between Napoleon and the British. We took a boat out for a nice, relaxing day of sand and sun. A lot of people went swimming and I passed the time taking a break from Arabic by reading the Hunger Games. Great book, by the way. I tried to stay in the shade of our umbrellas, but still managed to get a sunburn. It wasn't too bad, and it did help my psoriasis, so there's always an upside. I had pictures from the excursion, but they seem to have gone missing. I like to think it's a conspiracy because photography was forbidden on the dock we launched from that happened to be right next to an Egyptian navy base. In reality, I probably just didn't notice my camera was out of memory.

I think that's all for my catching up. Of course there are all the little cultural things I've noticed or liked, but for now I'll leave you with this: I have a new addiction that goes by the name of halawa. It's an Egyptian desert of tahini (seasame paste) and sugar that's usually eaten on bread, but I'm quite content eating it with a spoon or, when I'm trying not to be a pig, with an apple. If you can find it wherever you are in the world I sincerely suggest you give it a try.

Catch-Up 2: My Apartment

The experience of getting my apartment here is definitely a story worth a post of its own. Robert, our director, spent his summer securing apartments and host families for us before we got here so that we could move in as soon as possible. Our first night in the city we stayed in a “budget hotel,” which in Egypt is… well, an experience. We were slated to meet our families and move in to our apartments the next day and for most of us that’s exactly what happened.

My roommates and I, on the other hand, were in a taxi headed to our apartment when we got a phone call from the realtor. The landlord, as it turns out, had taken our deposit from Robert and then turned around and sold the apartment. So we turned around and went back to the hotel. Staying another night in the hotel was not an appealing option, so instead we bunked with Kelly and Andrea, two grad students from the program who had a few extra beds in their apartment. I don’t’ want to go into too much raving detail, but they’re awesome, by the way.

We stayed at Kelly and Andrea’s for something like a week while Robert found us a new apartment. As anxious as we were to start settling in, we didn’t take the first apartment we saw. It was super fancy, a little on the expensive side, far from our friends, not on any tram or bus lines, and our Egyptian roommate, Salma, was far too ready to claim the gold encrusted master bedroom without any discussion.

The apartment we finally moved into a week later is much more my speed. With the plaid couches, bulky wood furniture, and shelves full of World's-Greatest-Grandma knick knacks it looks a bit like something out of a seventies sitcom, but it's located on a tram line that runs straight to the university and is only five blocks from the Corniche. We’re also within easy walking distance of at least nine other apartments affiliated with the program which makes getting together to do homework or hang out a lot easier.

Much like the situation with the master bedroom in the first apartment, Salma mad sure to claim the only bedroom with air conditioning, but my American roommate, Leila, then insisted I take the bedroom with the balcony. I love said balcony. It’s like a sunroom, because it’s walled in by sliding windows. There is the downside that Leila and Salma are always wandering in and out of my room to hang their laundry to dry, and when the wind gets really strong it sometimes rattles the doors and wakes me up, but it’s all worth the tiny glimpse of ocean I can watch while drinking tea.

In case you hadn’t figured it out by now I’m living with two girls: Salma, an Egyptian engineering student from a small village in the Delta, and Leila, a fellow student from UT. I feel blessed by my living arrangements. Leila and I mesh really well, probably because she’s so easy going, and while Salma and I have our differences she’s always willing to help when we have language questions, and I can’t deny that I get along with her better than most Egyptian girls. She’s very down to earth and has a number of endearing qualities. For instance, she watches reruns of Um Kalthoum concerts every night on television and has this dependent streak born of living so long with her family. The running list of things she has asked us to do for her includes: lighting the stove, turning on the air conditioning, plugging in the space heater, ordering takeout, flushing the toilet, starting the washing machine, opening a bottle that was not stuck in the first place, unwrapping a tea box, and explaining the use of a shower curtain. Fascinating, isn’t it?

Our second month here, however, we did get a chance to see what Salma’s life was like before the apartment. She was kind enough to invite us to visit her family in her home village of Mahmoudia for an engagement party. It was a fun weekend, and a beautiful glance at Egyptian country life. Her mother is an engineer and her father a lawyer who owns a kitchenware store. She has three sisters and a brother – two younger, two older – and she’s the only one who lives away from home. They were spectacularly hospitable, and I felt much more welcomed and at home than I had at the last wedding I went to.

The last thing I should probably mention about my apartment is the internet, and why it took me so long to get this blog going in the first place. Internet companies in Egypt suck, and my land lady… oh! My land lady!

So, side note: My landlady is this sweet old lady named Doctor Hurriya. She bought this apartment for her son to live in, but he recently moved to New Jersey for work, hence why we’re living here now. Unlike most landlords she lives right next door, which is really convenient when we need something. The power went out once a month or so ago and she brought us over a candle. She even offered to let us use her car if we needed to go anywhere, but I don’t intend to take her up on that one. My only complaint, and it’s a tiny one, is that she doesn’t really like to speak Arabic with us. She lived in America for ten years getting her doctorate, so while she has a heavy accent her English is perfect and even when she tries to speak Arabic with us she usually slips back into English anyway. Considering some of the problems other students have had with their landlords speaking English is a downright gift.

Anyway, back to the internet.

So I started the process to get internet in the apartment the day we moved in. It took a few days for them to install the telephone landline (they don’t have cable here), and then Doctor Hurriya told us that she’d worked it out with the technician so we just had to call the company to turn on the net – except she’d ordered us the same net she had which wasn’t fast enough to do more than check e-mail. She didn’t seem to mind going back to order the faster one though. So in a few days she knocked on our door to give us the receipt and ask if the internet was working. And it wasn’t. And so started the month long routine of calling the company, being told the problem was fixed, waiting a few hours for the internet to come on, and then having to call them again. Doctor Hurriya tried to help us, she was on the phone with the internet company as much as we were, but the language/age barrier was a problem. While I had figured out what the problem was, I couldn’t explain it in Arabic. And when I explained it in English to Doctor Hurriya, she didn’t understand the technology well enough to explain it to the company. In the end Doctor Hurriya called an engineer to come out to our apartment and take a look, because I obviously didn’t understand what I was doing if my explanations didn’t make any sense. It was for the best though, because his bill wasn’t too high and he was able to reach the same conclusions I had, but then call the company and explain them in Arabic. It was a source of great frustration for the month, but at least the internet is working now – if still too slowly for you tube downloads or video chat.

And so concludes the story of my apartment.