So I just wanted to say briefly that I have been getting some mail that has been sent to me, so the address that I posted earlier works for sure:
Agnes Traye
International Student
The American University in Cairo
El Tagamoa El Khamis
P.O. Box 74
New Cairo 11835
EGYPT
So you can send me things, like mail and I might be guilted into sending you things in return. Also, I might point out that it pleases me a great deal to receive mail, especially here. I think it took a week or two for the mail I got to arrive and I know that they opened one of the letters (because it came with a cute present). Another point: they don't actually notify you if you've gotten mail, so in the high hopes that you send me something, you should maybe let me know about it, so I know to check.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7904731.stm?lss
My roommates are all having IR-gasms. I'm mostly just a little freaked out.
My roommates are all having IR-gasms. I'm mostly just a little freaked out.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
On Thursday, my Art and Architecture and Engineering class went on a field trip to the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Hassan. I'll be honest. I didn't know what was going on half the time because I'm the only foreigner in the class, and I get the feeling that I was supposed to already know a lot about mosques, madrasas, and Sultan Hassan. I took a bunch of pictures of things because I thought they looked really fantastic and this is the first mosque I've ever been to. Anyway, Wikipedia says that the mosque was built in the mid 14th century. There is a mausoleum that was meant to house the Sultan's body when he died, but he got assassinated and his body was hidden so it holds his sons instead.
The other thing about Sultan Hassan is that he had something to do with Mamluks, which were like military slaves that could work up the ladder, as my architecture teacher told us. In another class, a different teacher said that Mamluks were Christian slaves converted to Islam and trained to fight because the Caliph at the time was scared of a rebellion from his other army, so he wanted a Mamluk army that would be like guarenteed loyal to him. But then the Mamluk army rebelled and he pretty much lost out. Anyway, I think Sultan Hassan had to kill his entire Mamluk army or something. But I guess he got assassinated anyway. I'm not sure. We don't talk about this very much in the class that we should be talking about it in. Also, I think Mamluks are eunuchs.
Some people in my class. I might also note that at this point, I was pretty peeved because being the only foreigner, I was the only person in my class who had to pay to see the mosque. It was kind of humiliating.
We talked about how that part that juts out is the entrance and how it juts out to make it stand out. You know, architecture.
The entrance. Those formations at the top are called stalactites. Or was it stalagmites? It should be stalactites though.
My teacher has this habit of asking us things like, "Do you notice how the architecture repeats? Why do you think that is? What do you think this was for?" I don't think it's enough guidance for where he wants us to go with our thinking, and so as a result, I feel kind of stupid, especially since I was still bitter about paying to get in. This was a market, by the way.
Hallways and high ceilings.
I'll be honest. I know this is very important, and someone told me what it was called and I immediately forgot. There are faucets all the way around it though, and a little palm tree in the middle.
I think it's really cute how the motifs that show up on the walls also appear in the tiled floors.
The guy who I think was leading the prayer was Asian. I told my friend about it and she said he was probably Chinese because there are a lot of Chinese Muslims, I guess. Anyway, it was kind of cool not being the only Asian in a space. Although, there were a lot of tourists coming in and out of the place, so I wasn't the only foreigner.
I really liked the lamps. I mean, from the first moment I saw hanging lamps outside the entrance, I think I was a little bit in love.
And there are so many of them. The mosque itself is of a cruciform shape with little arms that represent the four schools of Islam and each of the arms had high ceilings with a million of these cute lights. I bet it looks fabulous at night.
This picture has nothing to do with the mosque. Here is a cute kitten that followed Julia and me home when we got out of the cab from grocery shopping. It was cute because it had tried to bat our bags of groceries, and just kind of followed us to our apartment building. We were considering taking it to our apartment, but I didn't get my rabies shot, so it was probably not a good idea.
In other news, last night, a friend invited me to go see a jazz show in the Cairo Opera House Open Air Club. He forwarded me a text about someone's teacher's band playing. It was not a jazz show. It was more of a middle aged cover band, but it was pretty entertaining. They played a fantastic mix of Arabic songs, Spanish songs, and outdated but outrageously popular American songs. Hits included "My Heart Will Go On", "I Will Survive", "Viva Espana", and "Mambo Number 5". I thought it was a little sad though, because the woman singer had a fantastic voice when she sang in Arabic, but it didn't work out nearly as nicely when she sang in English. Anyway here are some pictures:
Classy. There weren't a lot of people in the audience. But the other thing that made this night a winner was the guy who sat in front of us (far left). He was old and looked like he'd be in the mafia or something, but him and his old friend to the left were totally into the music, clapping, waving their hands, high five-ing, shouting "Bravo!" after every song. It was excellent. About halfway through, it struck me that he sort of reminded me of my drawing teacher at Parsons, which made it just that much more amusing.
He's clapping here, if you can tell. Seriously, he was great. I think he did a few thumbs ups and fist pumps too.
Also making this a night to remember: electric violin (left) and purple star shaped tambourine (right).
I need to make it a point to go out and do weird things every weekend.
The other thing about Sultan Hassan is that he had something to do with Mamluks, which were like military slaves that could work up the ladder, as my architecture teacher told us. In another class, a different teacher said that Mamluks were Christian slaves converted to Islam and trained to fight because the Caliph at the time was scared of a rebellion from his other army, so he wanted a Mamluk army that would be like guarenteed loyal to him. But then the Mamluk army rebelled and he pretty much lost out. Anyway, I think Sultan Hassan had to kill his entire Mamluk army or something. But I guess he got assassinated anyway. I'm not sure. We don't talk about this very much in the class that we should be talking about it in. Also, I think Mamluks are eunuchs.
Some people in my class. I might also note that at this point, I was pretty peeved because being the only foreigner, I was the only person in my class who had to pay to see the mosque. It was kind of humiliating.
We talked about how that part that juts out is the entrance and how it juts out to make it stand out. You know, architecture.
The entrance. Those formations at the top are called stalactites. Or was it stalagmites? It should be stalactites though.
My teacher has this habit of asking us things like, "Do you notice how the architecture repeats? Why do you think that is? What do you think this was for?" I don't think it's enough guidance for where he wants us to go with our thinking, and so as a result, I feel kind of stupid, especially since I was still bitter about paying to get in. This was a market, by the way.
Hallways and high ceilings.
I'll be honest. I know this is very important, and someone told me what it was called and I immediately forgot. There are faucets all the way around it though, and a little palm tree in the middle.
I think it's really cute how the motifs that show up on the walls also appear in the tiled floors.
The guy who I think was leading the prayer was Asian. I told my friend about it and she said he was probably Chinese because there are a lot of Chinese Muslims, I guess. Anyway, it was kind of cool not being the only Asian in a space. Although, there were a lot of tourists coming in and out of the place, so I wasn't the only foreigner.
I really liked the lamps. I mean, from the first moment I saw hanging lamps outside the entrance, I think I was a little bit in love.
And there are so many of them. The mosque itself is of a cruciform shape with little arms that represent the four schools of Islam and each of the arms had high ceilings with a million of these cute lights. I bet it looks fabulous at night.
This picture has nothing to do with the mosque. Here is a cute kitten that followed Julia and me home when we got out of the cab from grocery shopping. It was cute because it had tried to bat our bags of groceries, and just kind of followed us to our apartment building. We were considering taking it to our apartment, but I didn't get my rabies shot, so it was probably not a good idea.In other news, last night, a friend invited me to go see a jazz show in the Cairo Opera House Open Air Club. He forwarded me a text about someone's teacher's band playing. It was not a jazz show. It was more of a middle aged cover band, but it was pretty entertaining. They played a fantastic mix of Arabic songs, Spanish songs, and outdated but outrageously popular American songs. Hits included "My Heart Will Go On", "I Will Survive", "Viva Espana", and "Mambo Number 5". I thought it was a little sad though, because the woman singer had a fantastic voice when she sang in Arabic, but it didn't work out nearly as nicely when she sang in English. Anyway here are some pictures:
Classy. There weren't a lot of people in the audience. But the other thing that made this night a winner was the guy who sat in front of us (far left). He was old and looked like he'd be in the mafia or something, but him and his old friend to the left were totally into the music, clapping, waving their hands, high five-ing, shouting "Bravo!" after every song. It was excellent. About halfway through, it struck me that he sort of reminded me of my drawing teacher at Parsons, which made it just that much more amusing.
He's clapping here, if you can tell. Seriously, he was great. I think he did a few thumbs ups and fist pumps too.
Also making this a night to remember: electric violin (left) and purple star shaped tambourine (right).I need to make it a point to go out and do weird things every weekend.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
My class list this semester:
1. Intro to Colloquial Arabic
2. Chemistry, Art, and Archeology (Sometimes I call this class my "chemistry and art class" and sometimes I call it "forgeries class")
3. Architecture: Art or Engineering?
4. Marriage and Family in the Middle East
5. Caliphs and Sultans in the Age of Crusades and Mongols
Anyway, I didn't plan my schedule very well. Both art classes are on the same day (although Art and Engineering is a lecture that is only on Thursdays) and both of my history classes are back to back. My Arabic class is at 8:30 issobh (morning), so I have to get up at 6:00 take the 7:00 bus to get to campus on time, four days a week. On Sundays (because the school week is Sunday through Thursday) I have to get to campus for 8:30 class, which goes for an hour, and then I have five hours of free time before my 2:30 class. In any case, classes are mostly pretty interesting. The Caliphs and crusades class is a little boring, but in Marriages and Families, we were just talking about feminism in the Arab world, which was really interesting. Did you know that there was a feminist movement after Napoleon's conquest of Egypt? One of his generals married an Arab woman, and she told all of her friends about how he was actually very chivalrous towards her, which led to a petion for Napoleon to make all Arab men treat their women the same way. Of course, some things happened between then and now, I don't want to bore you with details, but I thought it was still really interesting.
Today was the equivalent to Friday here, so some of my roommates and I went out to dinner in El Maadi, which I guess is like "American" town. I think a lot of ex-pats live there and so there are a lot of western chains, such as Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut. We ate at a restaurant called Lucille's, which Time magazine said has the best hamburgers. I got Tex Mex though, and onion rings. At this point, I will also mention that the first night I got to Cairo, we went to this really great Lebanese restaurant. The food was excellent, but the service was terrible. I think waiters recieve a guaranteed income, so they have no incentive to work hard. If I remember correctly, we had to ask for bread at least ten times before they brought it to us. Anyway, at Lucille's it was exciting because in addition to free refills on pop, the waiter was really cheerful and excited and he wore a leather vest. After dinner, we took a horse drawn carriage back to our apartment. It was so touristy, it was a little mortifying.
Half of Claire, the driver, and traffic. Did you think they drove the horses on the sidewalk? Because they don't. And because we're like the only horse drawn carriage on the road, we were like a huge touristy spectacle.
Anyway, here are more random photos.
This is a close-up of the view of the pyramids from our apartment.
The other night, we heard what sounded like artillery. But it ended up being fireworks. These ones we saw from our balcony, but later in the night, we went up to the roof of our building to watch fireworks in a different part of town.
Here are some more pictures of campus.
This is one of my favorite spaces on campus, that I've found so far. I like it because usually there is no one there. I like the asymmetrical steps. I like how there is no roof. I don't really know actually. But everytime I walk in the art building, I get really happy when I see this space.
My second favorite space, currently. What I really enjoy is the fact that this is a really bizzare hallway. It's got an open roof, ramps on the left and stairs on the right. I think maybe I like it because it just feels excessive, especially for just a hallway. Also, the open roof and sunlight makes everything look really cute.
I decided today that being able to take this picture made waking up at 6:00 issobh a little bit worth it. Because at 7:45, when the library isn't even open, there aren't a lot of people around and because the light is pretty fantastic.
A lot of windows have this sort of wood thing over them. I don't know what it is. I think it's like Islamic influenced or something? It's really pretty though, and I think it contrasts the other materials they use here very well.
Prayer space on the 2nd floor of the art building.
These pots are all over campus. I've got to say, they are maybe the classiest ashtrays I have ever seen.
A lot of my friends are doing fun things this weekend, but I think I'm just going to wander around and do readings.
P.S. Valentine's day is coming up. I wouldn't care, but Egyptians seem to be really into it. There's this one store on the street called the 26th of July. Once I passed it a week or so ago, and there were some cheesy red and pink things outside it, like what looked like a red feather bird cage. But the other day, on the bus, I noticed that the amount of cheesy Valentine's day gifts had drastically increased. And it seems that half the time that I buy random things, I get wished a Happy Valentine's Day. And when I bought my sunglasses, I got a discount because they were having a Valentine's Day sale.
1. Intro to Colloquial Arabic
2. Chemistry, Art, and Archeology (Sometimes I call this class my "chemistry and art class" and sometimes I call it "forgeries class")
3. Architecture: Art or Engineering?
4. Marriage and Family in the Middle East
5. Caliphs and Sultans in the Age of Crusades and Mongols
Anyway, I didn't plan my schedule very well. Both art classes are on the same day (although Art and Engineering is a lecture that is only on Thursdays) and both of my history classes are back to back. My Arabic class is at 8:30 issobh (morning), so I have to get up at 6:00 take the 7:00 bus to get to campus on time, four days a week. On Sundays (because the school week is Sunday through Thursday) I have to get to campus for 8:30 class, which goes for an hour, and then I have five hours of free time before my 2:30 class. In any case, classes are mostly pretty interesting. The Caliphs and crusades class is a little boring, but in Marriages and Families, we were just talking about feminism in the Arab world, which was really interesting. Did you know that there was a feminist movement after Napoleon's conquest of Egypt? One of his generals married an Arab woman, and she told all of her friends about how he was actually very chivalrous towards her, which led to a petion for Napoleon to make all Arab men treat their women the same way. Of course, some things happened between then and now, I don't want to bore you with details, but I thought it was still really interesting.
Today was the equivalent to Friday here, so some of my roommates and I went out to dinner in El Maadi, which I guess is like "American" town. I think a lot of ex-pats live there and so there are a lot of western chains, such as Baskin Robbins and Pizza Hut. We ate at a restaurant called Lucille's, which Time magazine said has the best hamburgers. I got Tex Mex though, and onion rings. At this point, I will also mention that the first night I got to Cairo, we went to this really great Lebanese restaurant. The food was excellent, but the service was terrible. I think waiters recieve a guaranteed income, so they have no incentive to work hard. If I remember correctly, we had to ask for bread at least ten times before they brought it to us. Anyway, at Lucille's it was exciting because in addition to free refills on pop, the waiter was really cheerful and excited and he wore a leather vest. After dinner, we took a horse drawn carriage back to our apartment. It was so touristy, it was a little mortifying.
Half of Claire, the driver, and traffic. Did you think they drove the horses on the sidewalk? Because they don't. And because we're like the only horse drawn carriage on the road, we were like a huge touristy spectacle.Anyway, here are more random photos.
This is a close-up of the view of the pyramids from our apartment.
The other night, we heard what sounded like artillery. But it ended up being fireworks. These ones we saw from our balcony, but later in the night, we went up to the roof of our building to watch fireworks in a different part of town.Here are some more pictures of campus.
This is one of my favorite spaces on campus, that I've found so far. I like it because usually there is no one there. I like the asymmetrical steps. I like how there is no roof. I don't really know actually. But everytime I walk in the art building, I get really happy when I see this space.
My second favorite space, currently. What I really enjoy is the fact that this is a really bizzare hallway. It's got an open roof, ramps on the left and stairs on the right. I think maybe I like it because it just feels excessive, especially for just a hallway. Also, the open roof and sunlight makes everything look really cute.
I decided today that being able to take this picture made waking up at 6:00 issobh a little bit worth it. Because at 7:45, when the library isn't even open, there aren't a lot of people around and because the light is pretty fantastic.
A lot of windows have this sort of wood thing over them. I don't know what it is. I think it's like Islamic influenced or something? It's really pretty though, and I think it contrasts the other materials they use here very well.
Prayer space on the 2nd floor of the art building.
These pots are all over campus. I've got to say, they are maybe the classiest ashtrays I have ever seen.A lot of my friends are doing fun things this weekend, but I think I'm just going to wander around and do readings.
P.S. Valentine's day is coming up. I wouldn't care, but Egyptians seem to be really into it. There's this one store on the street called the 26th of July. Once I passed it a week or so ago, and there were some cheesy red and pink things outside it, like what looked like a red feather bird cage. But the other day, on the bus, I noticed that the amount of cheesy Valentine's day gifts had drastically increased. And it seems that half the time that I buy random things, I get wished a Happy Valentine's Day. And when I bought my sunglasses, I got a discount because they were having a Valentine's Day sale.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Classes started yesterday. Real classes, I mean. During orientation, I don't believe I ever thought about how other students attend AUC, so yesterday, when there were like a million Egyptians, I felt overwhelmed and out of place. Also, it was super crowded and I don't really like big crowds of people. Making it even worse was the fact that I hadn't tried to find my classes beforehand. It would have been really smart of me to do so, but for some reason, I thought it would be easy to find a building that my schedule labels as "HUSS". As it turns out, HUSS is another name for the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall and the building that my schedule lists as BEC is formally called the Abdul Latif Jameel Hall. I understand that Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Hall should have a nickname, and I don't really have a problem with the name "HUSS", but seriously. Where does it come from? Like the School of Science and Engineering is called the SSE. It's nice and logical and easy to find. But BEC? I just don't get it. Anyway, here are some pictures of the new campus.
I'm not sure if you can tell, but the traffic here is insane. It's kind of funny, but I think it would be petrifying if I was actually driving myself. Also, there is this complete disregard for traffic laws. If you're at a red light, but there are no cars coming from the left or right, you can just go straight, until a car comes and honks at you, at which point, you can keep going, but the guy behind you will have to stop. I'm not sure if you noticed, but in the picture above, the bus is driving on a two lane highway. Yes, that middle lane of cars is probably illegally straddling the lane markers, but no one here cares.
The library. What you see is like a nice shady shell full of holes to sit in for a real building that has big glass windows. The other day I was in the library with some people and we saw this guy cleaning the windows from this giant three story ladder. The ladder was so tall that there was an extension thing from the already really tall ladder to make the guy go higher, and he had to wear a harness and have a metal hoop that allowed him to lean totally off the ladder. It was bizzare and frightning.
This is what I thought the campus looked like when I took this picture, during orientation. But really, you need to imagine this courtyard packed with stylish, rich arabs to get a better representation of it.
Dorms. New Cairo and New Campus are about 45 minutes away from Zamalek, where I live, on a good day. This means that they must be about 35 minutes away from downtown Cairo. Either way, I feel kind of bad for the people who live in the dorms on campus. They're pretty swank and I believe they are the first people to ever live there (there is even this really nice courtyard with blue tile fountains and a flat screen television), but I think it's pretty isolated and difficult to get into town to explore the city. On the other hand, they don't have to get up at 5:45 for an 8:30 morning class, four days a week. You also might notice how it is influenced by pueblos and stuff like that. I think the new campus is really cute becauase the architecture is this crazy fusion of pueblos and Mexican archetecture, contemporary architecture, and Islamic architecture and motifs.
Like you can see here, there are a lot of blue tiled walls, which is a reference to Islamic architecture. Also there are a lot of archways on the other side of campus. I don't think I took enough pictures to illustrate what I am talking about.
Here is a random ceiling of a random building. I've been seeing a lot of really cute courtyards within academic buildings, but I haven't been bringing my camera because my bag is kind of small.
In other news, I think my mailing address is:
Agnes Traye
International Student
The American University in Cairo
El Tagamoa El Khamis
P.O. Box 74
New Cairo 11835
EGYPT
But I don't know how reliably I'll be able to get mail. Claire and Julia told me that their friends who got packages last semester basically got boxes with everything valuable removed from them. So maybe don't send me expensive things. Maybe just start with cards or something, I don't know.
I'm not sure if you can tell, but the traffic here is insane. It's kind of funny, but I think it would be petrifying if I was actually driving myself. Also, there is this complete disregard for traffic laws. If you're at a red light, but there are no cars coming from the left or right, you can just go straight, until a car comes and honks at you, at which point, you can keep going, but the guy behind you will have to stop. I'm not sure if you noticed, but in the picture above, the bus is driving on a two lane highway. Yes, that middle lane of cars is probably illegally straddling the lane markers, but no one here cares.
The library. What you see is like a nice shady shell full of holes to sit in for a real building that has big glass windows. The other day I was in the library with some people and we saw this guy cleaning the windows from this giant three story ladder. The ladder was so tall that there was an extension thing from the already really tall ladder to make the guy go higher, and he had to wear a harness and have a metal hoop that allowed him to lean totally off the ladder. It was bizzare and frightning. 
This is what I thought the campus looked like when I took this picture, during orientation. But really, you need to imagine this courtyard packed with stylish, rich arabs to get a better representation of it.
Dorms. New Cairo and New Campus are about 45 minutes away from Zamalek, where I live, on a good day. This means that they must be about 35 minutes away from downtown Cairo. Either way, I feel kind of bad for the people who live in the dorms on campus. They're pretty swank and I believe they are the first people to ever live there (there is even this really nice courtyard with blue tile fountains and a flat screen television), but I think it's pretty isolated and difficult to get into town to explore the city. On the other hand, they don't have to get up at 5:45 for an 8:30 morning class, four days a week. You also might notice how it is influenced by pueblos and stuff like that. I think the new campus is really cute becauase the architecture is this crazy fusion of pueblos and Mexican archetecture, contemporary architecture, and Islamic architecture and motifs.
Like you can see here, there are a lot of blue tiled walls, which is a reference to Islamic architecture. Also there are a lot of archways on the other side of campus. I don't think I took enough pictures to illustrate what I am talking about.
Here is a random ceiling of a random building. I've been seeing a lot of really cute courtyards within academic buildings, but I haven't been bringing my camera because my bag is kind of small.In other news, I think my mailing address is:
Agnes Traye
International Student
The American University in Cairo
El Tagamoa El Khamis
P.O. Box 74
New Cairo 11835
EGYPT
But I don't know how reliably I'll be able to get mail. Claire and Julia told me that their friends who got packages last semester basically got boxes with everything valuable removed from them. So maybe don't send me expensive things. Maybe just start with cards or something, I don't know.
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