School and Freedom

Fun Fact #3

Only 6% of Egypt's land is inhabited, and the vast majority of that is on the Nile! Everything else is desert! 

The past few days have been pretty crazy. I finished Survival Arabic with a delicious meal and a crazy car ride, started classes (on a Sunday!), and spent my Tuesday exploring in the general vicinity of Tahrir Square, before getting henna in Zamalek in the evening.

The AUC campus is essentially a resort with classes.

The whole school thing is turning out to be far more of an annoyance than I wanted it to be. Everyone is very friendly, but as with most universities it is not always enjoyable to wade through the bureaucratic stuff. I discovered on Sunday that the Islamic illuminated manuscript course for which I had done the most preparation (a pre-requisite at Lawrence, summer reading, and communication with the professor concerning my background) is a graduate level course. I was the only undergrad with three grad students who are working on theses concerning Persian painting, Turkish painting, or illuminated manuscripts. The two and a half hour class was quite interesting, but also well beyond my scope of knowledge and I felt entirely unprepared and in over my head. I dropped the class, which was quite disappointing, but I want to be able to explore Cairo and travel and have cultural experiences, and I would miss out on that if I spend all of my time on graduate level work in the rare books library. Dealing with registration on Monday was nuts, and Monday was the first day where I really felt a bit homesick with just a bit of "Why don't they understand me? Why is this so difficult? This makes no sense..," but I know that this is all part of being in a new place with a new culture, so I'm taking it in stride. I had ice cream after dinner last night, and that helped a lot.

Koshary is a mix of three shapes of pasta, lentils, chickpeas, fried onions, and tomato sauce. It's cheap and delicious.

We have Tuesdays off, so I went downtown with a few of my friends today to see Tahrir Square and the surrounding area. I was fantastic! It has a much different feel than the affluent, tree-filled area where I live. We spent a long time looking at street art from the Revolution, which is quite beautiful and interesting. It made me wish I could read more Arabic, but most of it was understandable without knowing what it said. We also ate the best koshary I've had so far and visited two perfume shops of varying quality. We concluded our afternoon in El Horriya, a wonderful and apparently Leftist café (the name means "freedom"), with some Turkish coffee and Egyptian beer.

Street art near Tahrir Square

I'm definitely becoming used to Egyptian things, like tardiness and crazy driving and the heat. My Arabic has improved enough that I can give a cab driver directions home and I understand when people say basic things to me. I'd probably say that the thing I find most unpleasant so far is actually when mysterious water drips on me from  above. This is pretty common in all parts of the city, and the water generally comes from window air conditioners above the sidewalk, but it can be a bit gross and surprising, especially because it is so hot and dry here.

I was pretty sure that I was not going to be one of those people who spends all of their time updating their blog, but now that I've realized that it takes all of ten minutes for me to post, and that I kind of enjoy reflecting on what I've done recently, I might consider making it a more regular sort of thing. So check back in a week for more updates. And before then, feel free to look at TONS OF PICTURES.