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.