Egypt: not just pyramids

So our semester in Egypt is over and now we are leaving the historic country behind on our way to Europe. I must say that Egypt and Cairo definitely exceeded the expectations that I originally had of it; maybe because I didn’t really have any to begin with. I was so unbelievably busy at the end of last semester that I didn’t really have time to sit down and think about the upcoming trip. Between final exams, securing a coop position, and planning for our Eurotrip after the semester abroad, Egypt seemed to just be a prelude to Europe. However it was much more than that.


I feel like I adapted better than some people, taking in the atmosphere and new surroundings fairly well. Of course I got sick within the first few days, but so did almost everyone else. I think it is more of a mental thing then physical, so I got it out of my system. As far as adapting to the culture – the noise level, the lack of cleanliness or organization, the extremely polluted air – I think as easy as it was for me, it was an amazing experience. Of course I noticed some of these obvious differences in culture, but it wasn’t until a few weeks into the trip when I noticed some smaller differences that really shocked me. Our first couple weeks, we traveled to the pyramids, and temples, and tombs, and did most of the “touristy” stuff. Then we started classes. Although classes and service learning and other group events took up a lot of time, we still had chances to explore.

The best part about Egypt was…

No surprisingly it wasn’t the pyramids, or the temples, or just being in a new surroundings for over a month. It wasn’t the Fluids class (sorry Professor) or the trips to villages and smaller communities of Egypt. Although all of these things were also better than I could have imagined, the best part about studying abroad was the dialogues. At first I was skeptical about how they would go, if we would actually connect and have good discussions and make something out of the dialogues, or if we would just talk for a couple hours then go back to our daily schedules. They turned out not only to be interesting conversations with Egyptian students, but in the process we exchanged numbers and emails, and made friends with some of them. Going out night after night with the Egyptian students was a lot of fun. To be out with them made me feel more welcome in their country and I had a better time. Obviously we still stood out everywhere we went, being the only Caucasian people in every setting, but they would always be there to help us communicate or to just hang out. Some small things like people trying to “give” us items and saying they were free. Of course our first instinct is to take it and say thanks, but they would always be there to remind us: it’s not actually free. The people would just give it to you for free, before expecting to be paid for the item. For a couple of weeks going out with our new Egyptian friends made for a deprivation of sleep, but it was definitely worth it. We would go to multiple café’s or food places. We would sometimes go on felucca rides or get ice cream outside of town that we would have no idea even existed. Often getting back to the hotels around 2:30-3 a.m., I was exhausted, but it was still considered an early bedtime for Egypt. We would be falling asleep while young kids not even old enough for school, and entire families would be out walking around or downtown at the market.


A lot of differences I noticed within the cultures came from being out with the Egyptian students. Things such as: everything in Cairo being fully functioning at 3 a.m., or families being up late, or the ridiculous amount of café’s here – they made my experience so much more interesting. Just the other night we went to a facility to play soccer. (By the way, Boston or my hometown Pittsfield needs something like this.) The facility was ginormous; think of a college campus. It had fields and courts for every sport you could think of. There were at least five basketball courts, ten tennis courts, handball and badmitten courts, not to mention about eight Astroturf soccer fields. The place was chuck-full of kids running around. There must have been over 200 kids on the soccer fields alone. We got there at 9 p.m. and tried to start playing… tried is the key word. We started juggling in a circle, and before I knew it there was a circle of kids surrounding us about 5 people deep. I swear it could have been a never-ending juggle session. If we over-kicked it one of the kids would just kick it or head it right back into our circle. They were so excited that there were Americans there playing with them that they stopped playing to come watch. We couldn’t even get enough room to kick it around so we had to wait until the place shut down around 11:30 p.m. Luckily the managers realized we weren’t going to get any time to play so they let us play after most of the kids left. We played for two solid hours before they literally turned the lights off on us at 1:30 a.m. Once again, everything goes late in Cairo – in the U.S. soccer or most physical activity doesn’t go past 10 or 11, in Cairo 1 a.m, easily. The Egyptian students were pretty good at soccer. Well I guess pretty good is an understatement for some of them. Even though I realized how out of shape I am, it was so much fun playing, I had so much energy and just kept running all over just enjoying the experience.


Our last night we went out to Versailles, a café on Zamalek with a group of the students. We hung out and watched a European soccer game. One thing that will be good to get away from in Cairo is the smoke and shishah. For anyone who isn’t sure what shishah is, it is flavored tobacco that is smoked through a huge water pipe. If you live in Egypt, you smoke shishah. Everywhere they go they have shishah bars and café’s have it on the menus. As if the air quality and level of pollution in Cairo wasn’t bad enough, the shishah smoke definitely won’t help my health. Anyways, it was sad saying bye to all our Egyptian friends last night, knowing that we most likely will never see them again. Hopefully we’ll keep in touch, maybe via facebook or online somehow, but while it lasted it was an awesome time. They were some of the nicest kids I’ve ever met and I will always remember how good a time I had in Egypt because of them.



So I’ve come to the conclusion that Cairo is at least just a little bit different than Boston. Smoke everywhere, people everywhere, crazy driving that was somehow ordered chaos. It was all a culture shock, especially when we went to Estabul Antar and Ismalya, two of the poorer communities, where they didn’t even have running water. At the glass blowing factory in Estabul Antar, we did our service learning project. We interviewed the workers about their life, the community, and the company. We also took pictures of all of their products and put the information together on a website that we created for them. I worked with Alex on taking pictures of the products. Our original idea was to create some type of cataloging system so that they could keep their inventory organized. Unfortunately, they only made the glass objects on request, so they rarely had many different items in stock. Still, we got some really good pictures of the products and put the best pictures on the websites so that their work could be seen and known. Alex also took pictures of the workers and the brothers who run the glass-blowing workshop. I thought that taking the pictures and advertising their products was a great way to help them with their business. I would have liked to interview the workers as well, or taken pictures of the surrounding community, but we had a lot of people working on the service project so there was only so much available for each person to do. Also, I was really looking forward to playing soccer with some of the kids, but some of the members of the community didn’t like the idea, so we didn’t get to play. It was really disappointing because after reading about my experience at the soccer fields, I’m sure you can imagine how awesome it would be for the kids from a poorer community if we played with them. Overall, the service learning went well and I enjoyed helping them out.


In both places – Estabul Antar and Ismalya – it amazes me how widespread companies are across the world. Even though these communities don’t even have running water, they still sell Coca-cola at markets throughout the village. I wrote about this in one of my recent posts but I really can’t get over it. Garbage lines the streets, kids play soccer in sandals, young children wait in breadlines and other food lines, yet we are offered coca-cola when we’re helping the glass blowing workshop. Even in Ismalya: the market we went to was so dirty. It had garbage everywhere, with fruit and vegetable stands lining the middle of the market. They had old tubs with live catfish and other fish still squirming around. They even had entire carcasses and pieces of meat hanging from the ceiling of stands or lying out on tables with all the dirt from the ground getting circulated due to people walking by. Yet still, next door to that stand, was a stand that sold coca-cola (and also shishah, to reiterate from above that shishah is everywhere in Egypt).


As good as all of these experiences were, they came two weeks into our trip, after our tourist time. I can’t even begin to explain how cool all the pyramids, temples, and mosques were. Pyramids. The things we studied in fourth grade that were (and still are) the first image that comes to mind when I think of Egypt. I never thought I’d actually be able to see them, except in all the pictures that didn’t belong to me. I still don’t think it has completely sunk in that I saw them, stood on them, went in them and just stood next to them admiring them from a couple feet away. I realize that it is a big deal, but it doesn’t hit me like it was a big deal. Not to say I don’t already appreciate the experience we had, but it will become a whole other level of appreciation when I get home and realize where I have been. I think my favorite pyramid that we saw was Kephra – the middle pyramid of the three large ones that we saw on our first trip to Giza. We didn’t go in that pyramid, or even up to it to stand next to it, but it is the pyramid I associate with Egypt. Driving to Giza on our first day here, we turned a corner and all of a sudden we saw it. In the distance, the top of a pyramid stuck out in between a couple buildings like some enormous snow-capped mountain. The pyramid had once been coated with limestone and the limestone had eroded off the bottom of the pyramid, so from far away, it looked like it had been snow capped. Even though it was off in the distance, it was towering over the buildings in front of it; making it the most vivid image of a pyramid that we saw. In addition to the pyramids, the temples were amazing historical sites. I was astonished at how they dug up most of the temples and still managed to preserve the hieroglyphics and the carvings in the stone. My favorite temples were the first temple we saw, Philae Temple, and the Luxor Temple. The Philae Temple was HUGE, and had been relocated on to a different island from its original home in the middle of the Nile. The Luxor Temple was big as well. It had a row of sphinx’s outside the entrance, as well as a obelisk. We got to see the temple lit up at night, and the lights really had a cool affect on it. At one spot in the temple, there was a wall with a mosque on top of it. This was one of the best things we saw during our trip. Not knowing the temple was there, the modern city built a mosque directly on top of it. You can see the old street line and ground level about 30 feet above the temple floors. This really put it in perspective how old the temples were.


I have been in Europe for one day now, and already it has made me realize all of the things I adapted to in Egypt. When we were walking down the street last night, looking for a place for dinner, I realized that I was avoiding spots on the sidewalk that had water on them, fearing that there would be an air conditioning unit that would leak on me. It didn’t even occur to me that maybe it had rained earlier in the day. And of course the first thing I noticed in Greece was the clean air and the temperature. When we got off the plane I took a bunch of deep breaths and enjoyed the clean and cool air surrounding me. Amazingly, it was only in the 60’s and it honestly felt cold, but refreshing. After 5 weeks of 90-100 degree weather, it felt awesome to get off the plane to a cold breeze on an already chilly day. While we were exploring Athens, I kept realizing that I was walking in the streets. Apparently, in Cairo, I got used to walking on the streets because chances were that if you were walking on the sidewalk, you would break your ankle. Also, crossing the streets is a completely different story. We were crossing one of the main roads here, and Alex went across in front of the car. Me, Rod, and Sean stayed put thinking the car was going to fly by us, but then it stopped. I realized at that point in time that Egypt might be the only place where cars would split your groups in half – literally. We got used weaving between cars to cross the street, and when the cars stopped for our whole group, it took us a second to realize what was happening. As I said earlier, I knew I adapted to Egypt fairly well because I didn’t think that the cultural differences were such a big deal. As I experience Europe more and more, I think I will realize that while I was in Egypt I got accustomed to a completely different lifestyle.


Overall, I think that the program was an amazing experience. I liked the organization of the tours of the temples and pyramids, but I also liked the class, and how the group seemed to split up into multiple groups. At the beginning of the trip, both Professor Sullivan and Cynthia mentioned that we should expect things to be delayed or cancelled, and for our activities to happen on “Egypt time.” It took me a while to realize that they were actually very organized, and that the activities, and tours, and even service learning events were never finalized until the last minute. I always like knowing what the general plan for the week is, but Egypt was a nice change from the usual, and sometimes the day-to-day knowledge of what we had planned was the best. The experience I had in Egypt was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I will never forget it. The way I felt when I was there, immersed in the Egyptian culture was something I can’t even begin to describe. Also, seeing all the historical things in Egypt was so amazing that it wouldn’t do it justice for me to explain. Finally, to sum up the trip… Egypt was amazing.

Alex (not orsi), Egypt vs. Congo, & Soccer

It’s Thursday night and I have my final exam for Fluids tomorrow morning. I’m not to sure why I’m blogging right now other than the fact that I’ve just studied for about 6 hours and I’m not too tired yet. I guess the late nights and Cairo have rubbed off on me. I haven’t blogged in about a week and I have so much to catch up on. So much has happened, from staying in a hotel in Alexandria for $3.00 (US$, 15 Egyptian pounds), to going to an Egyptian soccer World Cup qualifying game, I’ve done a few out of the ordinary things. (I have awesome pictures that I'll post another time)


The last time I wrote, I mentioned that I was going to Alexandria. Well I went, and came back, and have been extremely busy since then (what else is new). We drove down Friday morning in the group vans to Alexandria, and we got there around noon. The first thing we did was go to check in to our hotels (or book them). We hadn’t looked into hotels at all, we just figured we’d wing it and find a place when we got down there. When we got off the busses, we went one street over and found at least 4 possible hotels to look at. We split up and a few of us went to each hotel and checked out the prices. We all thought our hotel had the best prices (50 pounds, 75 pounds – $10-$15), until one of our friends informed us that they hit the jackpot – or at least it felt like they did. They found a hotel for 15 Egyptian pounds, only THREE US dollars to stay over the night. It wasn’t the nicest hotel, but it was a hotel nonetheless. We got three rooms for 9 of us, and each room had 3 beds. Also, each room had a balcony that overlooked the Mediterranean. Yeah, crazy, huh? Anyways, the rooms like I said weren’t the nicest; they didn’t have any facilities, just a crappy old sink that I wasn’t expecting to use.


In Alexandria, we became tourists again, and visited some really nice places. The first place we went was Qaitbay Citadel. What is with it with Egypt and relaxing places: mosques, citadels, café’s – Egypt is a very relaxing country. The Citadel was like a fortress, with outer walls surrounding it on all sides. Being on the "cape cod" part of Alexandria as it seemed, the Citadel was surrounded on two sides by water. Inside the Citadel, there were 3 or 4 floors, with an uncountable number of nooks and areas to sit and relax near a window. Looking out over the Mediterranean with a cool breeze coming off the water was something that was found pretty much anywhere in the fortress. After the Citadel, we visited the catacombs. These were really cool even though there wasn’t much to see, and we couldn’t take pictures inside.


Our last scheduled stop of the day was at the library of Alexandria. Yes we went to a library, and it was awesome. The architecture of it was really cool. It was 12 floors high, with two floors above those that were used as meeting rooms. In addition to the main library, there were two other buildings that accounted for the entire Alexandria library campus. For the rest of the day Friday, we just relaxed and got dinner and enjoyed the Mediterranean breeze, even though the humidity made it seem hotter than Aswan and Luxor. After sleeping overnight at our hotel, we went to the beach on Sunday. We swam in the Mediterranean and were going to go downtown at one point before breakfast became a 2 hour fiasco.


Security has been enforced upon us everywhere we have traveled. As if we don’t stick out enough ourselves, our vans have the word "tourist" written on them, so the police usually stop us and give us an escort. I realized during one of these times when they were giving us an escort, that there isn’t really any method pulling over in Egypt. It took me a minute to realize that the policemen had stopped us right in the middle of a 3 lane road. They didn’t bother to have us pull over; they just assumed that the other cars would maneuver around us. Luckily they did, but as I looked out the back window, I just thought it seemed funny that we were "pulled over" in the dead center of a main road.


On Sunday night we had our next fun experience. We went to a soccer game. We saw Egypt play against Congo in a World Cup qualifying game. The atmosphere was amazing, with people screaming and singing and dancing throughout the entire game. At least half of the stadium was filled up with Egypt’s army (as fans, not in uniform). We got tickets for 25 pounds ($5) and we sat in the 1st row right next to the field – well as close as we could get. There was a border of guards (these in uniform with shields and helmets) surrounding the entire stadium. In addition to these policemen, and the 4 foot deep pit that surrounded the entire field to prevent fans from running onto the field, there were people sitting on the actual field just watching the crowd and making sure nothing was thrown. The security here was just as strict as everywhere else in Egypt. There was a group of about 20-25 of us, both American and Egyptian students. Nonetheless, they still created a gap between us and the rest of the Egyptian fans. At least it was just a few empty seats around us, unlike the Congo fans. If those fans didn’t feel intimidated, then I’m not sure what could intimidate them. They were surrounded on all sides by a wall of policemen (three guards deep), each with helmets, shields and a baton. I’ll just say I’m glad I was an Egypt fan.

The game itself was an unbelievable game to see. The crowd was fairly subdued during the first half as Congo led 1-0 at the break. However, the second half was a different story. Egypt scored two goals – one on a volley that was an absolute laser, and the second on a rebound that beat the keeper upper 90. All three goals in the game were awesome goals (Congo scored on a free kick from about 30 yards out). Overall the game and the atmosphere was so fun and entertaining that it was something I will never forget.


After seeing a soccer game, it made us want to play some soccer ourselves. Our Egyptian friends who brought us to the game, also found a sports club where we could play some soccer. *(By the way I’m writing a reflection post that will sum up everything I remember about Egypt, and this will be written about in there. Actually it will be verbatim because I’ve already written it in. I went to start this post tonight and instead I just started writing a reflection. I wrote about 1000 words before realizing I should probably write this post first. So, back to soccer…)* The facility we went to was ginormous; think of a college campus. It had fields and courts for every sport you could think of – and in excessive amounts. There were at least five basketball courts, ten tennis courts, handball and badmitten courts, not to mention about eight Astroturf soccer fields. The place was chuck-full of kids running around. There must have been over 200 kids on the soccer fields alone. We got there at 9 p.m. and tried to start playing… tried is the key word. We started juggling in a circle, and before I knew it there was a circle of kids surrounding us about 5 people deep. I swear it could have been a never-ending juggle session. If we over kicked it one of the kids would just kick it or head it right back into our circle. They were so excited that there were Americans there playing with them that they stopped playing to come watch. We couldn’t even get enough room to kick it around so we had to wait until the place shut down around 11:30 p.m. Luckily the managers realized we weren’t going to get any time to play so they let us play after most of the kids left. We played for two solid hours before they literally turned the lights off on us at 1:30 a.m. Once again, everything goes late in Cairo – in the U.S. soccer or most physical activity doesn’t go past 10 or 11, in Cairo 1 a.m, easily. The Egyptian students were pretty good at soccer. Well I guess pretty good is an understatement for some of them. Even though I realized how out of shape I am, it was so much fun playing, I had so much energy and just kept running all over just enjoying the experience.

My time in Egypt is winding down, and I’m starting to realize that I really don’t want to leave. The only thing that is keeping me set on leaving is that we have 17 days to travel across Europe – another experience that will be a once in a lifetime opportunity. In the last few days I have a final exam, then a couple free days which hopefully I’ll spend with a lot of the Egyptian students I’ve met, as well as all my friends from the trip. Sunday we meet to have a final dinner at Abdu’s and then we’re going to a park for a debrief. I guess the next time I post I’ll be wrapping up my time here in Egypt and be looking forward to Europe.


By the way, I keep telling myself that I need to enjoy the time and experiences as I have them. I keep catching myself looking forward to other things and not letting my current experiences sink in. Well I’ve changed that. Although I still: can’t wait to go to Europe, can’t wait to move into my new apartment, can’t wait to get onto the coop track again, can’t wait to get some American food I’ve been craving (specifically hot wing pizza from Fat Daddy’s); I know that I’m having the time of my life here in Egypt, so I won’t overlook it.

Fluids, Fluids, Fluids (& Cafe's)

This week has been a more relaxing week with not as many group activities happening. Professor Taslim more than made up for the time with a lot of work. We had homework due Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, which all took at least 3 or 4 hours to do. We also had our second test today. I can’t believe that we’re ¾ of the way through Fluids and that we only have 4 classes left before our final a week from tomorrow. We have learned so much information in the past three weeks that it’s been a complete blur.

Last weekend we went on a tour of Islamic Cairo, and we saw three different mosques. They were much different than the first one we saw, but they each had their own features that made them special. The first mosque we went to was open, but we could walk around the top of it and look down into it. This was really cool, and even though it wasn’t meant for praying on top of the ceiling, it was a nice spot to look around the mosque. We could even look down into a much smaller neighboring mosque. It was one of the bigger mosques in Cairo, and there was extra space around the actual sanctuary area of the mosque, which allowed for a more secluded environment. The second mosque we went to wasn’t as open and had a lot of twists and turns to get to the main worshiping area. At one point in the mosque, one of the people who lead the prayer performed his ritual for us. He chanted and sang in Arabic and then read the inscription that went around the wall of the entire room. It was really cool, when performed this, it was almost like he was in a different world. The third and last mosque we went into, the citadel, was the most different out of any I have been in. It had a large open area in front of it, with a fountain in the middle. Then you could go inside and it was extremely decorated. Most mosques are open and plain, but this one was packed with drawings and artwork, and Sean even mentioned that the way it was structured made him think of Grand Central Station. The walls had balconies on them that made it look like the outsides of a building were just surrounding the area we were in. When we went outside of the citadel, we got an overview of the entire city of Cairo. It would have been even better than it was if it wasn't for the smog everywhere. Yes, the picture is not full of fog, it's full of pollution and just dirty air. It's really gross if you think about it, I'm already looking forward to coming back just to lie outside and breathe in fresh air.


We went out with the Egyptian students a few more times this week. On Sunday night we went to a café in the market that has been there for over 250 years. The king of Egypt and a lot of people high up in society would go there frequently back in the day. We were in a back room where there were pictures and antiques from back when the café opened. We hung out at the café for a while before going to get ice cream and eventually coming back to the hotel. When we were driving with Omar, one of the Egyptian students, I was asking him about whether there were police in cars anywhere or just on the corners and just about general stuff. He was saying that there were very few cop cars and those that were out were just sitting on a side road somewhere. He was also saying that he has 4 licenses, in case he loses one because they don’t keep any type of driving or license records here. He also has never taken a driving test (don’t worry he was a much better driver than anyone of us in this city would have been). He told us about all the beeping that goes on in Cairo and how there are patterns to the beeping that mean different things. There are friendly beeps, versus, angry get out of my way beeps, and then beeps just to let you know that they are behind you or on the side of you.

The city of Cairo is honestly “the city that never sleeps.” Sunday night we went out to the café, and as we were leaving around 1:30 a.m. there were hundreds of people still just sitting around hanging out near the market. I was amazed to see little kids running around and even parents out with there babies or entire families. As we left the streets were still crowded and when we got ice cream and were relaxing near the Nile, we saw motor boats leaving and cruising around the Nile playing music and stuff. Every night that I’ve been out in Cairo, there has never been a place that closed before I wanted to leave. Everywhere I’ve been even if I leave at like 2:30 in the morning is still packed with people. Granted, Cairo could also be called “the city where everyone sleeps in,” because nothing opens until around noon except in the highly populated areas.

Monday night we had our second and final dialogue with all the students, and afterwards we all got dinner and went on a felucca. It was a lot of fun hanging out with a bunch of the students from there, even though we had gone out with a few of them before. After the felucca, a small group of us that had been going out a lot went to another really cool café for a couple hours. Monday and Tuesday consisted of a mix between hanging out at the café’s and doing a lot of homework. Wednesday was all studying though, as I reviewed for the Fluids test for about 6 or 7 hours. Today I just got back from class and now we have the afternoon to relax before going to Alexandria for the weekend. We leave tomorrow morning and we are going to be staying over Friday night and coming back Saturday. It will be nice to see yet another different area of Egypt and I’m sure it will be exciting.

Stabl Antar, Glass Blowing, and Arab League

It’s been about a week since the last time I blogged, but it’s been a more relaxing week then the first few. We did our service learning, had our first test, had a dialogue on Monday night, and watched the Champions League Championship, Manchester United vs. Chelsea at one of the Café’s on Zamalyk. For the service learning, I helped with the glass blowing workshop. There were about 12 of us who went, and we interviewed the workers about the community and their company. I specifically worked on taking pictures of their products and creating a type of inventory system. This was tough, because most of their products are made upon request, and so there wasn’t more than a couple of each item. We ended up splitting them up into four groups to categorize their products on the website: table sets, such as coffee, tea, and wine sets, ornaments, perfume bottles, and the manager’s specialty, animals. He made all kinds of glass animals from camels to crocidiles. These animals could be shaped into either ornaments or perfume bottles.

The surrounding area of Stabl Antar, where the glass blowing workshop is located, is a huge culture shock when we drove through. The community was even worse off than Ismalya. There was no running water in the village, and because of the food shortage here in Egypt, there were a ton of people in breadlines. I was really looking forward to going to the community, because Dennis encouraged that we talk to the kids in the surrounding area and to even play soccer with them. He had said that it would definitely make an impact on them and that it would be good to do. Unfortunately, after our first visit, when we were talking to some of the younger kids, the parents complained to the glass blowing factory and said that they didn’t want us talking or playing with the kids. It was really tough because I know it would make the kids day if we played with them, but because the parents didn’t understand why a group like us was in their community, they wouldn’t allow it. We were watching the kids playing soccer right outside for a while, and they kept signaling us out to join them and play. It was torture saying that we couldn’t even though we were just waiting around watching them for some of the time.

One thing that I couldn’t get over from the service project was how widespread brands like coca-cola are. I was mentioning how this community had no running water, and there were lines for food. There is garbage everywhere, along the sides of the roads, and in the middle of the roads (and by "roads" I mean dirt paths that are wide enough for a car, but there are so many bumps that it took us close to 30 minutes to go one mile, we could have walked through the village faster). With all these terrible conditions of the community, there is still coca-cola being sold at every stand or market. Even when we were helping out the glass blowing workshop, they offered us a drink, coca-cola. It was really strange both in Stabl Antar and Ismalya last week that they would have a brand name like coca-cola considering the condition of the communities.

Monday evening, we had our first dialogue. We met with a bunch of Egyptian students, about are age, and broke up into groups and had conversations with them. It was really cool to meet people who were the same age and were interested in talking to us. We talked about a bunch of topics, including the stereotypical images of Egyptians that Americans have and vice versa. By the end of the dialogue, we got a lot of the student’s emails and phone numbers and we’ve met up with them a couple nights during the past week.

One time we met up with the students from the dialogue was for the Champions League game. We went to a café that was down the street from us, Café Versailles. I always knew and assumed that soccer was absolutely huge over in Africa, but I never imagined it was this big. We’ve been to Versailles before, and there are usually around 25-50 people between downstairs and upstairs at the café. During the game, there were about 300 people there, crammed into the café. There wasn’t a single table open by the time halftime rolled around, and they started just setting up extra chairs in the middle of the café instead of putting them at a table. Not to mention the atmosphere, it was one of the best games of soccer I’ve ever seen. Not only was the worst player on either team 100 times better than the best player in the MLS (other than Beckham), but it was an awesome game to see. Regulation ended at a 1-1 tie, and overtime was scoreless, so they went into penalty kicks. They ended up tied after the first 5 rounds of pk’s so they had to go shot for shot until finally Manchester United won on the 7th round of shooting.

Yesterday, we had our last day of classes for the week (remember Friday is their weekend here). After class we went to both the US Embassy as well as the Arab League. The US Embassy didn’t seem anything special to me, but the Arab League was awesome. We sat down and met with the leader of the Arab League for two hours where we could just ask him any questions we had. To make a comparison, the Arab League is like the UN of Arabic speaking countries. We asked him things from all different topics, and at the end, he brought us into the main hall where they held all of their major meetings. It was an awesome experience considering how important he was to Egypt and the other Arabic countries.

Classes, Canal, and Ismalya

So it is now Saturday night, and we have class tomorrow, I think. I’ve been so screwed up with the days lately that it’s hard to keep track. In Egypt, the days are technically still the same (just 7 hours ahead), but they celebrate their weekend on Friday and Saturday, instead of Saturday and Sunday. So even though it is Saturday night, we have class tomorrow morning, on Sunday. It was nice to finally have a couple days to ourselves. We have been constantly moving since we arrived here on the 1^st. Friday and Saturday were both free days, at least for the engineers. However, Friday we spent all day working on our homework due Sunday, so it wasn’t that free. It only took about 4-5 hours though to do the 8 problems, which is quicker than usual. Unfortunately that pace will probably slow down as we get into the thick of the course. As of now, we are already a quarter of the way through the course after just one week of class. It is insane how quickly we are able to cover material. I also never realized how beneficial it is to have such a small class. With only eleven students, plus since Professor Taslim is such a good teacher, I am learning more in this class than I have in most other classes in school. Learning more might also be due to the amount of real life circumstances that our work can apply to. Just the other day in class, we modeled the High Dam. It was really a cool problem, we used approximate dimensions and applied loads and calculated how much force was on the dam. It ended up being a ridiculous number, like 222*10¹⁰ Newtons of force. That is equivalent to 250 billion TONS of force on the dam. So far, I’m really liking the Fluids course because it has so many real life applications that I can relate to, such as the amount of pressure that needs to be applied to the sides of the pool to keep the water from breaking the walls.

As far as our service project goes, we chose what we were going to do for it today. I am going to be going to Stabl Antar, to interview the people who work in the glass blowing shop, and to take pictures of their products to post them on the website that we are creating for them. On Thursday, we took a tour to Stabl Antar and to the glass blowing workshop. We saw first-hand how they make the objects. The things they can make by glass blowing are amazing. We watched while he made a glass perfume container with a name engraved. They just heat up the glass to extraordinary temperatures and it allows them to alter the shapes of the glass by doing exactly what the work sounds like – by blowing into the glass. Also, there were some boys playing soccer just outside of the shop, and Professor Sullivan encouraged us to play some soccer with the kids, so I’m looking forward to that when we go back on Monday.

Since we had our first free weekend this weekend, without too much work or places to go or see, I have gotten a lot more organized. I finished my Yacoubian Building paper on Wednesday, and so I just had Fluids homework at the end of the week. In addition to work, I got a lot of other things set. I set up a couchsurfing account, so that we can look into places to stay for when we go to Europe. I also realized that I was not too smart in setting my start date for work for the 30^th of June. I don’t get back until the 26^th, and then I have to move that weekend, so I took care of setting my start date for June 7^th instead. Hopefully that will give me a week of much needed recovery after two months of traveling around.

We are all getting into the class schedule now, and we have more of our own free time, so we’re starting to do a lot more on our own and not in a huge group. The more we are on our own, the more I’m getting used to not having a cell phone. I really couldn’t imagine not having any way to contact other people. Granted I’m making due with the hotel phone calls to other rooms (if I’m lazy and don’t feel like walking there) or with other people in our group having cell phones, but it’s still nice to feel comfortable without one.

One thing that I’m really disappointed about is that I’m not getting to learn Arabic while I’m here. If there is something that I’ve really appreciated since I’ve been here, it is being able to learn and speak another language. I’ve never really been in a situation where it would be needed, so now that I am, it really makes me wish I had learned a “real” language (not Latin, even though people say it’s more helpful than any other language). It would just be nice to be able to talk to people in their first language, because not only does it seem more respectful, but it would just help to improve my Arabic, as well as broaden my social skill base. Even without Arabic class though, I’m definitely getting by without a problem. Most people here speak fairly good English, and the little Arabic that I do know from our “survival course” has come in handy.

Today, was probably one of the best experiences of my life. We had the day off except for a dinner at Abdu’s again at 3:30 pm. Since we were going to Abdu’s, we had access to the vans for the day. Instead of relaxing (did you honestly think we would relax while we’re on this once-in-a-lifetime trip?) we organized and went on a day trip to the Suez Canal and the surrounding Ismalya area. As soon as we stepped out of the van, I felt the most uncomfortably out of place that I have since I’ve been in Egypt. Ismalya was “the real Egypt.” It was like a village that you normally think of when you think of Egypt, but seeing it in person was just amazing. We walked around for a little bit, and then walked through a market area. This was the markets that you read about when you’re a little kid studying foreign countries such as Egypt. Walking though this market, we stood out like extremely white American’s in an Egyptian village – oh, wait. Even though the whole group wasn’t there, there was still a solid number of us (me, Alex, Sean, Rod, Chris, Emily, Molly, Joyce, Sonja, and Ted – so 10 of us). It was so cool how authentic this market was. As soon as we walk onto the street, the first thing we see is a little store to the side that has entire cow carcasses hanging from the ceiling. Yes, of course there is a picture. The aroma of the market changed from strangely disgusting to some of the greatest smells in the world, to the most disgusting smell in the world, and back to strangely smelling. After we passed a few of these meat selling places in the market, we passed all the vegetable stands and fruit stands. The market had some of the best smelling fruit that I’ve ever encountered. If I hadn’t been able to see where the fruit was coming from or the flies all over it or just knowing the environment I was in, or who I was buying it from, I might have considered buying some. After the fruits section of the market, we came to the fish section. I have never seen so many fish. There were just tables and tables full of fish. There was even one bath-tub full of these creatures that seemed to be a cross between eels and catfish. And yes, they were still alive and squirming around in the tub. I’m not sure who in their right mind would buy something living or even that looked like that, but then again, I thought about exactly where we were.

We got towards the end of the market street, and there was just a heaping pile of trash. It wasn’t just trash though; it was a mix between garbage and sewage. Yeah, you guessed it, it didn’t smell too good. There were a lot of things in the market that you’re just not used to seeing. There was one guy on a motorcycle with a block of ice tied to the back of it. And not like the bags of blocks of ice you see in ts just a legit block of ice. You could see it melting as he tried to get through the crowds in the market. Also, I think people were as surprised by us, as we were surprised by the area and culture. I felt really bad and almost disrespectful to take pictures of the area because of how dirty it was, but when people started taking pictures of us as we walked by on their camera phones, I didn’t feel as bad.

After we left the market we walked down the street and checked out the rest of the area. Just outside the market we stopped and Emily and he supermarket; it waMolly got a sugar cane drink that they let us try. It was very sweet, and was the definition of fresh. We actually watched him stick the sugar cane plant into the machine and 30 seconds later we were drinking it. The surrounding area of Ismalya had a very relaxing atmosphere and seemed silent compared to Cairo. There wasn’t too much traffic, so there wasn’t a lot of beeping or even general noise. I guess it was also 10-11:30 am on their “Sunday,” so there probably wasn’t too much open or going on. While we walked around, we saw a couple really cool mosques, and churches. One thing about Ismalya, is that everyone was extremely nice and friendly. We were walking down the street and we passed one lady who smiled and waved, and when she realized we were just tourists she came over to talk to us. She ended up being fluent in English, French, Italian, and Arabic. We were admiring one of the churches and she told us that she attended it and could bring us in to show us. She ended up introducing us to the pastor and he let us walk around the church and see inside the church, which was a Coptic cathedral. We had a nice conversation with him just about where we were from and that we were on a study abroad program. He wanted a picture with us, so he got one with us in front of his church and asked us to email it to him.

We walked around a little longer before meeting back at the vans and heading to the beach. We thought it was going to be really strange to go to an Egyptian beach; that was until we pulled up at a beach resort. There was a nice beach on the Suez Canal, which I was extremely skeptical about going in (I didn’t just FYI). It was really cool to see the canal and watch the flow of cargo ship after cargo ship gliding through the desert. We were on an inlet of the canal and there was a hill of sand between us and the actual canal, so it looked like the ships were literally floating throw the desert. All of the people at the beach were extremely nice and friendly. Molly was talking to a lot of people for a while and pretty much had a photo-op. This photo-op then carried over to Alex because he was wearing his Baraka soccer jersey (from a Zamalek football team).

The ride back was actually just as entertaining as the trip itself. We got a full out police escort back to Cairo. They said that being American’s pretty much made us VIP, so we had 2 trucks/vans full of police officers with AK-47’s in front of us and behind us. There were benches in the bed of the covered trucks, with 6 officers in each truck. I honestly felt like we were the president or something with all the protection we were getting. The security around us cycled too, since it was a 2 hour ride. They would bring 2 more trucks in and they would sound their sirens and slip into our line, and then the older two trucks would back off. It was so intense, at some points for the trip they were just blaring their sirens and people would pull over for us. At one point in the trip they even stopped us at some sort of checkpoint. We were stopped for a few minutes before they let us continue, but then they held the traffic behind us so that we would be the only ones on the highway. After a couple minutes they started letting more cars continue, but it honestly was like we were VIP’s or extremely important or something. We finally got to Abdu’s for dinner, which was some amazing Egyptian food. The first time we went to Abdu’s for dinner I wasn’t feeling well so unfortunately I didn’t eat. This time I more than made up for it though.

This upcoming week is going to be a pretty busy week, not like the rest of the trip hasn’t. As I mentioned we have class tomorrow morning, on Sunday. Then we have no class Monday, because we are going to be working on our service projects all day. Monday night we have a dialogue with other students from AUC. I guess we just go and meet, talk, and get to know other students that go to school in Egypt. Tuesday through Thursday, we’re back to classes with our first test already on Tuesday. We’ve only had 4 classes, but as I mentioned we’re already a quarter of the way through the material, so we have one of our two midterm exams. Hopefully, since we will have tomorrow off, I’ll be able to listen to or maybe even watch some of the Celtics game. It’s only going to be 10:30 pm our time, instead of 3 am our time, which is usually when the games are on. Even though it’s going to be a busy week, I’ll try to keep you updated if I get the chance.

So just finished my first 2 days of classes for Fluids. I think we’ve covered 2 weeks of class in two days, granted they are four hour classes. I have already taken about 16 pages of notes, in addition to doing a homework assignment which surprisingly didn’t take more than a couple hours. I guess I’ll have to enjoy it while it lasts, I expect it to get much tougher as the semester rolls on. So far I’m really glad that we have Professor Taslim for a teacher. He seems to be really down to earth and I like the way he interacts with us when he teaches. He also answers all our questions when we have them and doesn’t sidestep around them with a bunch of useless information like a lot of professors do. In addition to Fluids, we also are starting up our service project for our International Affairs class. Right now we are visiting the sites that we will be potentially working at, and we’re going to help them set up websites and other things to help their businesses. Today we visited a knitting shop and a rug shop, although the rug shop was a huge misunderstanding and they just tried to get us to buy rugs. I don’t think they needed much help, they already had a website that was being updated but were just looking for more clients or people to buy their product. We go to see a couple more places tomorrow – a glass blowing shop as well as another knitting place. The past few nights I’ve been eating really well. We’ve found a bunch of different places to try out, whether they’re in guidebooks or just by ear from someone else. I think there are as many café’s here as there are restaurants alone in America. The café’s though, are almost like restaurants, with waiters and multiple floors, and free wireless at every one. Even at places like Cinabon and McDonalds (although I still haven’t eaten there yet and I refuse to except for an ice cream once which I craved) serve you like a normal restaurant.

I just wanted to throw that picture in because we're not traveling as much anymore since we're starting classes. I took this picture on the way to some of the places we've visited, and I thought it was really cool; there is a nice green field followed by like a forest of palm trees and in the back you can see the outline of the top of a pyramid.

As for the internet situation here, it’s still in shambles. I tried for a couple hours today to get a good signal before I finally went to one of the café’s. Luckily there is an internet café right across the street so that I can upload pictures. All the other internet that I have connected to is too slow to upload pictures. I actually won’t even be able to post this blog tonight (I type it in word because of no internet then copy it online) because I reached my maximum quota for the day! There isn’t supposed to be a quota, we get our own usernames and passwords and should be able to use them from 8-11 every night. Tonight though, I used my username and password and it kicked me off after 30 minutes. Then I used Al’s name and password because luckily he can bum it off the neighbors across the street. That also kicked me off just now right in the middle of my conversation with dad (sorry dad). And unfortunately I can’t call him back. Oh well, they should get it figured out eventually, and if not I can always go across the street for a couple hours, even if it is inconvenient. I feel so out of the loop without internet and knowing what is going on in the world. Even on the day when I was at an internet café all day, I was reading the same news at 6 pm that I had been reading at 7 am, as if nothing new had developed. Then I realized that that specific timeframe, from the east coast, where most of the news and at least our country’s things develop, was midnight – 11 am; of course nothing new had developed. Okay, well I was actually just going to jot down a few notes but I started to ramble, so I’ll keep you posted again in the next few days. Bye.

Also, I actually just came to the internet cafe for a couple hours and updated my blog, so everything is up to date except for the most recent entry which I still have pictures to include.

Days 8-10 - Luxor

The past three days we spent in Luxor, after being in Aswan for two days. On Thursday, we had a 6 hour excursion that started with us leaving the hotel in Aswan and ending up in Luxor. We made two stops at a couple temples. This was the beginning of our temple marathon. We saw 6 temples within the three days we were in Luxor. They all are structured similarly with a huge wall that is covered in carvings and paintings of the king that erected it. They also all have columns and walls that are covered from top to bottom in hieroglyphics and stories. Some temples contain more statues than others or have different structures that identify with the king and how he thought at the time. The temples all blend together for me. Don’t get me wrong they are amazing but there are only small things from each temple that would distinguish them. You’ll notice that there are a lot of similarities when you see the pictures.

When we got into Luxor, our hotel was once again on the Nile, and the pool was a floating pool on the Nile. It was by far the nicest place we have stayed on the trip – we were living in Luxor(y). The hotel keys weren’t keys, they were the cards with the magnetic strips, and when Cynthia was handing them out I remember hearing one of the kids say “oh we’re in a real hotel now.” The hotel on Aswan was pretty cool, as each room was actually a hut, and all the huts were connected, it was more of a motel; but the hotel in Luxor was still the nicest. That evening I attempted physical activity for the first time since I’ve been to Egypt, and I went on a run. This was tough considering it was still high 90’s degrees out even at 7 pm. I went with Peter, Sonja, and Ruthie, and I have never heard so many comments directed toward people in general in my life. Since obviously when the girls are running they are just wearing running gear and aren’t completely covered, they got a ton of comments. Even though Luxor is the biggest tourist destination that we’ve stayed at, people were shouting and kept asking them things. It was almost amusing how much people would yell as we ran by.

The entire stay in Luxor we woke up early; usually we left the hotel between 6:30 and 7:30 am, which means we would have to wake up even earlier. The second day in Luxor, we went to the Valley of the Kings. This was really cool; there were 42 tombs of all the past kings, and we had time to go into four of them. The tombs that I went into were King Ramses III, King Thutmes III, King Ramses IV, and King Tut. I thought the best tomb was that of King Ramses III, the first tomb we went in. Me, Al and Sean did our own thing and separated from the group and checked out a few of the tombs on our own. It’s nice not going around in a group of 40 and just doing our own thing for once. The walls of the tomb of King Ramses III, were lined with hieroglyphics and paintings and carvings just like the walls of the temples. It was to another degree though, and all of the stories carved were of the King buried at the end of the tomb. The only tomb where the mummy was preserved was in King Tut’s tomb. His tomb was very small, because he died at such a young age; he was only 20 years old. His sarcaphogas was also shown still in the tomb. Apparently they are buried in multiple sarcaphogas’ with the innermost casing being solid gold. Only the outside casing was displayed, and the solid gold casing had been moved to a museum. Unfortunately, cameras were not allowed in any of the tombs, so the only pictures I have were of the Valley of Kings in general.

After the valley of kings, we went around the mountain to the Hepshepsut Temple. This temple was structured differently from all the others we went to. Hepshepsut, being a female king, wasn’t going to be buried in the valley of the kings, so she created this temple on the other side of the mountain for herself. This temple has three different levels, and isn’t as deep as most temples or doesn’t contain as many carvings and hieroglyphics, but looks awesome. It also contains a lot of statues on the outside of the temple next to the columns. After Hepshepsut’s Temple, we went to see the Colossi of Memnon. These were absolutely gigantic statues that are about as tall as the sphinx, 23 meters.

Later in the day, after relaxing all afternoon at the pool, we went to the Luxor Temple. This temple was probably my favorite other than the Philae Temple. The Luxor Temple had a ton of hieroglyphics and paintings, as the other temples did, but it had many more statues than most temples. It was also right next to the Nile, which made it in a really cool location. We had the same tour guide for all of Aswan and Luxor, Michael, who was awesome and extremely knowledgeable about all the temples and the stories behind them. Also in Luxor, we met up with Dennis’ friend Melinda, who currently has her own archeological dig in Egypt. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to see it because it was a current dig, but she came all around with us while we were in Luxor and acted as a second tour guide. It was really cool because all the things Michael told us were meant for tour groups, while Melinda mentioned things that you normally wouldn’t hear. She even tried to talk to us engineers about the water table underneath the temples and how they pumped out water and pumped in cement in order to preserve the temple even longer. One thing she mentioned specifically about the Luxor Temple was that over the years, as the ground level got higher and higher, the temple became buried and people built a mosque over it. I thought this was really cool, and as you can see in the picture the ground level was where the doors to the mosque were at the time. It’s amazing to think how much they dug down to find this entire temple, and how they preserved all of the statues and walls as much as they could.

During our last day in Luxor, we visited yet another temple; the Karnak Temple. This temple was the biggest of all the temples we had been to. It had two separate axes, as well as contained a lake within the area of the temple. Instead of one king building this temple, there were many generations that worked on it. As many as 10 kings contributed to the building of this temple, which is why it was so large and why there were so many walls dedicated to different kings. That evening we went to the Luxor Museum which housed many ancient artifacts from the Egyptians as well as a couple mummies. It also had an ancient wood coffin that was still completely intact and had just been found within the past year.

Unfortunately, we got back to Cairo this morning on time after the overnight train. I guess we didn’t account for the train being on time, so we are homeless until about noon. We got in at 6 a.m., so for the past few hours, we’ve had our crew spread out at internet café’s throughout the city. Good thing there are free wifi café’s about every two feet in Cairo.

Another thing I haven’t talked about yet that I’ve been noticing since Day 1 is the security everywhere we go in Egypt. On EVERY block there is a police officer in their booth with an AK-47 or some other type of machine gun. Whether it’s right outside our hotel, or in downtown Cairo, every corner you turn you’re met by a policeman with a gun – pretty intimidating, but awesome. While we were at the Valley of the Kings, I got to sit down and get a couple pictures with the officers. Of course, after the pictures they wanted baksheesh (tips), but it was definitely worth giving them a couple pounds (equivalent to 50 cents) for the pictures. In addition to all these policemen, the government seems to think that we are a large group of American students, that we need a body guard at all times. They take turns going everywhere with us and are dressed in suits. This picture was from when we were at the step pyramid, and he was just standing back waiting for us. Also, even when we went to Abdu’s for dinner that one night near the beginning of the trip, he would drive over with us and stood outside on the street waiting for us the whole time we ate dinner. After the night of the felucca when we walked back, he walked with us and every policeman on the side of the road was at his service. It was almost like a secret service guy, where he would have control over all the police and they would get up and stop traffic for him. It is also probably influential that he has a huge bulge from an automatic weapon under his suit.

So today all we have planned is relaxing and a free day. Later tonight Dennis might bring us to downtown Cairo and show us around the American University in Cairo (AUC) campus so that we can find our way around when classes start tomorrow.

Day 7 - Aswan

Today we traveled around Aswan. All the places we went to see were relatively close by. The first stop we made was at an unfinished obelisk. We were told how they made and put up the obelisks all over Egypt. An obelisk is a huge stone, shaped like the Washington monument that is shaped and then transported by boat along the Nile. From the Nile, the obelisk was then transported to the site where it was going to be erected. While it was lying down, the Egyptians would carve all the hieroglyphics and stories into it before they put it up. To get it into the vertical position, they would fill a hole with sand and put the base of the obelisk in the sand. Then as people pulled up on the top of the obelisk using ropes, they would slowly empty the sand until the obelisk was in the upright position. This wasn’t too exciting to see, but to see it half done before it was put in the upright position put it in perspective how large these stones are.

After the unfinished obelisk, we went to the Philae temple. This was one of my favorite stops during the trip so far. The location of the temple was amazing, situated on an island in between the Aswan Dam and the High Dam, and we had to take a motorboat to get to it. The temple was actually originally located on an island about a quarter mile away from the current island it was on. The original island is now completely underwater, so to transfer the temple from island to island, they broke it down into 40,000 pieces, each weighing about 10 tons. Then they shipped it over and reconstructed it on its current island. This was the first temple we’ve seen on the trip and it was amazing. The hieroglyphics and carvings into the walls of the temple were so detailed and they were everywhere. On every column, and every wall, and every ceiling that still remained, there wasn’t a blank spot (that was restored correctly).

In addition to the Philae temple, the High Dam was an engineering masterpiece. As we were driving across the damn, all the engineers were in awe. The other people weren’t too sure what was so special about the dam, asking things like “What is the big deal about the dam?” Structures like this make me like civil engineering that much more. In the picture of the High Dam, it starts where the huge monument with four vertical pieces is. We are at the halfway point of the dam, and the picture is of just the left half of the dam. It has 3 roads, ON THE SIDE OF THE DAM. The side of the dam was too large to go down vertically, so they made it at about a 20 degree angle. That is so ridiculous. Below is another picture of me on the back of the dam, with Nasser Lake in the background. The High Dam can hold water to 181 meters above sea level. That is about 20 times the height of our house. The dam volume is also 42 times that of the Giza pyramid. So if you thought the Giza pyramids were big, imagine the High Dam.