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.

Days 5-6 – Pyramids, Overnight Train, Aswan

The last couple days have been a bit of a blur. It feels like we’ve been here for a couple months, but it has only actually been a week. I think I’ve done more in this week than I have in any other week in my entire life. Not only did I travel 11 hours on planes to get from Boston to Cairo, but I’ve now taken an additional 15 hour train ride to get from Cairo to Aswan. I’ve finally learned the difference between Cairo time (our time + 7 hours) and “Egypt time:” and no its not as easy as switching time zones. Dr. Dennis always referred to time as “Egypt time” over the past week. Egypt time means that if you expect to leave somewhere at a certain time, that you shouldn’t expect to leave until another half hour or hour after the set time. This also held true with the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, which I will talk about later.

On Monday, we got to see a few more pyramids. We saw the first pyramid ever created, which was really cool. It wasn’t as big as some of the pyramids I saw earlier in the trip, but it was just as impressive. It was still massive, and just the fact that it was the first pyramid ever is awesome. The pyramid was called a “step pyramid,” because when it was built, the outside wasn’t smooth, but was instead left as is – looking like steps for different levels. In addition to seeing the step pyramid, we saw from a distance the bent pyramid. This pyramid starts at a large angle, and then about halfway up the structure, the angle changes to a more gradual incline. This is because when the Egyptians were building the pyramid, they were concerned that if they continued with the starting angle, the pyramid would become to large and heavy and be more likely to collapse. The third and final pyramid we saw on Monday wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Except that we got to go inside the pyramid. To go down into the pyramid, we had to follow a passage about 4 feet tall, so we all had to duck, which went for a couple hundred feet on a decline. Finally, when we reached the bottom we were able to stand up and check out the inside of the pyramid. It wasn’t the most spectacular or eye catching thing inside, but it was pretty cool how the Egyptians made the inside look nice and not just thrown together. I got a nice picture looking down the shaft that we walked down into the pyramid to give you an idea of how far we had to go to get inside.

Driving back to the hotel Flamenco I saw something that really put in perspective how poor and dirty Egypt, and specifically Cairo is. As we were driving we saw kids playing around in one of the irrigation canals. To give you an idea of how disgusting this is, the kids walk through villages that are covered with horse/camel/donkey crap. The air is extremely dirty and when it doesn’t smell like crap it has a musky smell to it. The irrigation canal is also lined with garbage down the sides. People don’t have anywhere to put their trash, so they throw it alongside the canal. Sometimes the canal will take some of the garbage with it, and sometimes the garbage forms almost a dam because of the amount of it. In addition to the kids swimming and the garbage, there are people washing their animals, and fishing in this same canal. This combination of things is disgusting. Not to mention the worst thing I’ve seen so far is seeing a couple dead animals on one of the “garbage dams” in the canal. This is how the people of some villages live, and there is no question why more people in Egypt are sick or dying at a young age.

After we returned to the hotel we had a couple hours to relax before boarding the overnight train to Aswan. While we were waiting in the train station, two trains arrived before ours did. These trains were something right out of some sort of horror movie. The front of the trains were just a dirt covered steel plate, with a couple miniature windows. As the trains came to a halt alongside us, there were people hanging out the window, yelling and shouting things at other people. The trains themselves seemed over cramped almost as much as the Boston MBTA gets during rush hour. Finally our train came and we boarded. It was like a scene straight out of the movie Eurotrip, with the train cars. It was nice because it had much more space than being crowded during an overnight flight. Me and Alex were in one room, and Ben and Sean were in a connecting room. We boarded at 8:15 pm, and we were set to arrive in Aswan at 8 a.m. – a 12 hour train ride. This is where the definition of “Egypt time” comes into play. Instead of arriving at 8 a.m., we didn’t even get in to Aswan until 11 a.m. It turned into a 15 hour train ride. Now considering this was a 12 hour ride, 3 extra hours might not seem like that much, but it is to the people who are cramped on the train and want to get off. Once we got to our hotel in Aswan everyone immediately flocked to the pool... yes there was a pool. The hotel was in an amazing spot, right on the Nile. We went on another Felucca around the Nile where we were staying. It was a lot warmer than the first Felucca we went on, as it was before sunset. On this felucca, we saw a bunch of tombs and sites that weren't too far from our hotel. There was an entire desert hill that had a bunch of tombs in it, and behind it started the Sahara desert.

After the Felucca, we explored the surrounding area of Aswan, including the Suq, and we eventually found dinner. The suq is a bargainers market. Me and Al instantly loved the atmosphere. Some people get addicted to drugs or alcohol, we got addicted to bargaining. It was so cool to have something where there wasn’t a set price for anything. Me and Al talked one guy down from selling these weird hats from 220 Egyptian pounds each, to the point where he tried selling them for 5 pounds each to us. Eventually we just declined, because the hats were so ridiculous that the only reason we were considering getting them because he said they were one pound. Well this one pound he claimed was one “Nubian pound,” which doesn’t even exist. It’s just a way of trying to trick you, as we learned very quickly. We also went into one store that sold jersey’s, and ended up getting them for 45 pounds, 9 dollars. Granted they aren’t the best quality, but I would buy Egyptian soccer, or should I say football, jersey’s for 9 dollars any day. The craziest thing about the visit to the Suq though, was not the prices or the atmosphere, but was some of the people that worked there. In the jersey store we went into, the guy behind the counter had a full education, including a bachelor’s degree in architecture. This amazed me that with such a high level of education he was still working at a run down shop in a huge market. We talked to him for a while and he told us his intentions of going to graduate school to work on a project that he had been longing to do for a while. We mentioned to him that we were from Northeastern University and we told him that we’d ask our group leader, Dr. Dennis Sullivan, if there was anything that we could do to help him out. He gave us his full resume and cover letter and invited us back later for some coffee or something after dinner. We didn’t end up returning but we did check with Dennis, and unfortunately he said there was nothing we could do. This just goes to show that there could still be a lot of potential in Egypt as far as education goes that just doesn’t get a chance to evolve because of the lifestyle and the restrictions that the society has.

Even though Aswan seemed much cleaner than Cairo, once we stepped outside of the Suq on the back roads, we were back to reality. It smelled like the streets of Cairo and Giza, where all the camels and horses lived. After our adventures in the Suq, we found a nice restaurant on the Nile… literally it was floating on the Nile. They had some food translated differently than we spell it, so some of it seemed funny to us. Usually they would interchange the letter "p" instead of "b", so we could have gotten a "big hamporger." Even though this is very subtle, there were misspellings and different spellings of the same meals on every menu.

Days 3, 4 – “Old Cairo” and Rest Day

Today, Sunday, our 4^th day of the trip, we got a day off from the site-seeing and tourist stuff to relax and recoup. A lot of us had been sick at some point in the first few days, so it was a good day to recover and relax and as Dr. Dennis suggested – sleep. Yesterday we went to Coptic Cairo; also called Old Cairo. Ahkmed was our tour group leader for the day, and he took us to a bunch of different places like churches, temples, and a mosque. The first thing we saw was the “Hanging Church.” This gets its name because the church is actually held up by palm trees. Inside the church there was a lot of symbolism in the paintings and structures. There was also a place where you could look below the church and actually see the palm trees that are holding it up. The boards in the picture are for the floor we were standing on, but the palm trees are visible underneath it had held up the church.

After the hanging church we made stops at the Martyrdom of St. George, the Syria synagogue/temple, and finally at the mosque. The mosque we went to was the first mosque in all of Africa. It’s a place where people come to pray or to just relax when they are stressed or whenever they want. There is a call to prayer five times a day that is sung from the mosque. The call to prayer is similar to a hymn, and is loud enough for the surrounding city to hear (I have a recording of one of the calls to prayer). Although there are plenty of mosques in Cairo, so sometimes you can hear more than one. Anyways, these mosques are the most relaxing places on Earth. I can only try to describe how relaxing and soothing it is.

There is a center courtyard type area with a gazebo that is open to the sky. During the day it is extremely hot though, so there aren’t usually people out in the sun. The courtyard is surrounded by pillars that extend for a long ways, with plenty of space to sit or walk around and relax. I loved the mosque, and the atmosphere it had. The mosque is very religious, so some of the women in our group were required to put on a gown that they provided so that they were completely covered. Also, there were dividers within the mosque so that the women could go behind them and pray separately from the men. A similar segregation during praying happened in the synagogue that we went to, because the women would sit in the balcony while the men would sit downstairs.

Later that night, after the day in Coptic Cairo, we went on a felucca (sailboat) ride on the Nile. This was also ridiculously relaxing. It felt nice to just sit back and be cooled down by a breeze while sailing down the Nile. After the felucca ride, we all walked back to the hotel, which was about an hour long walk, and then set out to explore our neighborhood on Zamalek a little more.

As I said, today is our recovery day. We leave at 3 pm to go to Abdu’s house for dinner. And then have the rest of the night off.

Day 2: Pyramids, Sphinx & Papyrus

The second day of our trip was probably one of the most experience-filled days of my life. We went to see the pyramids. Not only were the pyramids huge, enormous, gigantic, humungous, ginormous, mammoth, but we got to ride over to them on camels. That might have been one of the coolest things I’ve ever done. Riding across the desert approaching the pyramids on camels as a group of 40 people was one of the most surreal things that I’ve ever done. The camels were really fun to ride, and once I got the hang of it I felt like a pro; I even got to steer one myself.

I’m not too sure what was wrong with my camel though, he was burping a lot he must’ve had indigestion or something. His stomach was pretty much coming out of his mouth. Anyways, riding the camels was so much fun; sometimes we would be in a line, with one camel connected to the back of another by a rope. At one point one of the boys pulling the camels asked me if I would like a picture with my wife (Megan). Apparently wearing the same shirt means that you are a couple. Denis had us all wear our Northeastern Dialogue shirts, so Megan and I were both wearing the red Northeastern shirts that Karim made for us. Abdu is our leader and pretty much takes care of us while we are over here. Karim is his son, who helps us out too.

While we were at the pyramids we also saw the sphinx. I could not get over how huge the sphinx was. I got an awesome picture comparing the sphinx to the pyramid. It really puts it in perspective how big these pyramids are. The sphinx in the picture is 22 meters tall, and it is much less than a quarter of the size of the pyramids.

I got some great pictures of me and my friends near the pyramids that I’ll post online at some point. One of my favorite pictures is one where we make a pyramid, next to the pyramids.

Another picture I wanted to show though was of my friend Megan, who was standing about a quarter mile away from the pyramid at the time it was taken, so the pyramid is actually even bigger than it seems in the picture.

(Picture of Meg in front of pyramids... will update)

Seeing the pyramids was like something out of a textbook. I remember growing up as a kid, we’d always see pictures of the pyramids whenever we talked about Egypt. I never thought that I’d be the one taking that picture. They are the most amazing structures, and I can’t even fathom how they were built. It was said that it took 25 years to build the first pyramid (all the way to the right), 20 years to build the second large pyramid (middle large pyramid), and 15 years to build the third large pyramid (large pyramid to the left). All of these pyramids have over 1.5 million blocks in EACH of them. The middle pyramid is the largest at 14

2 meters tall. It used to be smooth, like the top triangle of it (which looks like snow on a mountain from far), but over the years it has worn away.

After going to see the pyramids and the sphinx, we went to the Egypt Papyrus Museum. Here they showed us the process of making papyrus that had been passed down from their ancestors. It was really awesome to see how a plant can become paper on which the colors will never fade over time. As we were waiting outside of the

Egypt Papyrus Museum for our rides, we saw another building under construction that had a ton of scaffolding in front. Doing masonry once, it really caught my attention that the scaffolding is just a bunch of wood tied together by some rope. I would never go up on it. I took a few pictures so hopefully I’ll get to show my old boss at some point and show him the way they build up the scaffolding in Egypt.

After the Papyrus Museum, we went to a buffet for a late lunch and then did our own thing for the rest of the day. On the way, we witnessed one of the times of prayer for the Muslims. As we were driving away, a huge group of people congregated to one spot on the side of the road, and just dropped to their knees at the same time. This prayer happens 5 times a day, including at dawn, dusk, and a couple other times. It was weird to see this as it happened because I’ve never seen anything like it. At the buffet we really experienced eating a lot of Egyptian food for the first time. It was good - better than I was expecting. At night we walked around and explored some more, and got to know the area.

Today I got accustomed to a lot more of the Egyptian culture that I wasn’t expecting. We saw the same things as on Day 1, but we were also in a lot of different places today, so we saw even more. When going to our lunch I saw a ton of people fishing in a river that had garbage all down the side. Either the garbage was just collecting there, or some people were burning it, but either way it didn’t seem exactly sanitary. It really shows how dirty the people of Egypt live and how dirty the whole city of Cairo is. I also got accustomed to everyone trying to help me and ask me for tips. It seemed like everywhere you went, someone was trying to sell you something, or they would help you out and expect a tip. Even though we were tipping the group of boys that led the camels to the pyramids at the end of the trip, they insisted on asking for money.

Day 1: Travel & Tour of Zamalek

So right now I'm sitting in the upstairs of a Cinabon, relaxing after 2 1/2 days (including a 7 hour time change) of travel and adventures so far in Egypt. We left Logan at 4ish on Wednesday (US time), and arrived in Frankfurt Germany at 5:30am (11:30 US time). We had a four hour layover, and although we had both dinner and breakfast on our 7 hour plane ride, we got more food. I was so messed up with what time it was, because to me it was 12:30am (still night) when I ordered a couple cheeseburgers at McDonalds. It wasn't until after Sean told me that it was morning in Germany that I realized why the lady looked at me weird when I didn't order breakfast. After a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt, we had another 4 hour flight to Cairo. We finally made it to Hotel Flamenco in Zamalek at 5 pm Thursday (Cairo time). Just arriving in Cairo and driving to the Hotel was a complete culture shock. The flight into the Cairo airport was my first time arriving to an airport in the middle of the desert. It was amazing to see Cairo from the airplane. The city of Cairo, as well as the surrounding city's are in the middle of the desert, and there is a distinct line where the city starts, which was interesting to see from the plane.

During the drive to the hotel I noticed that on the roofs of houses (if they were finished) were two things: satellites and garbage. It seemed like almost every building was under construction, with scaffolding everywhere. But the roofs that were finished had garbage all over them. Not necessarily trash, but just junk. Also, I couldn't get over how many satellites they had up. It seemed like there were 2-3 satellites for every floor.

After arriving we unpacked and settled for an hour before taking a tour around our neighborhood. We ate at a nice pizza place on our first night (Maison Thomas) - I guess we were hesitant to jump right into Egyptian food. On the tour I came to notice more things like the lack of traffic lights (I've seen one so far), and stop signs (I've haven't seen one yet). It is a free-for-all when driving. I will never complain about city driving again (until I get back and get stuck in traffic most likely). In addition to the roads being a free-for-all, and the beeping every 2 seconds, which I assume is to just let people know you are there; there is a ton of people that just walk/run through the streets. I saw one person jump out of the bus while it was still moving and run through the main street, which I wasn't accustomed to, obviously. I also saw cabs that had 8 people in them, with some people on others' laps. I'm not sure how common that is but I thought it was pretty funny. Finally after exploring the area and being up for 30 hours except for a quick nap on the second plane ride, it felt nice to pass out for the night.