Egypt, etc

2009-08-18T14:53:00.001-07:00

So I spent the second part of my spring break in Lebanon. One of my friends, Senna, is half Lebanese, so she was visiting family and brought a bunch of people with her. They all went like immediately when class let out, but my friend Samyra (whose mom and brother had visited her in Cairo) and I flew in a little later. Sadly, we missed it when they went to see the famous cedar trees (I mean, there is a cedar tree on the flag), but for the most part, all they really did was sit around and drink and smoke nargilah (spelling?), which is shisha in Egypt and hookah in the US. As it turns out, that was mostly what I did too, but it was pretty fun and I was a little sick of doing too much of that tourism thing.

Anyway, Samyra and I got in around lunch time and got picked up by everyone and the hired driver. We went to Beirut and got food near the American University in Beirut. Then we rented bikes and rode them along the corniche.

The bike rental place. I guess it's popular. Anyway, I really like riding bikes but I was wearing a skirt, which kind of sucked. And it was like not the best skirt I could have been wearing, as it got caught in the chain a few times and ripped a little bit. I still wear it though.

I think one of my friends who was traveling with a different group in Lebanon said that these were called the Five Pillars or the Five Pigeons or something. He said he was a little let down because the Lonely Planet guidebook really hyped them up, but I thought they were pretty cool. I wasn't really expecting anything though. It was sort of like Napoleon Dynamite, in that sense.

You know, I really thought I might have been so excited about being somewhere that wasn't all dry and desert, that I had sort of hyped up Lebanon, but Beirut still looks really wonderful, even in these pictures.

Afterwards, we went to Senna's cousin Mira's apartment. It had a really beautiful view of the city that I must have deleted because I am dumb. We had a delicious Lebanese dinner, and then got dolled up to go "bar hopping". We went to bars, but it was not a particularly hopping night, since I think it was like a Wednesday. But we did end up at this cute bar that played salsa and tango and a lot of people danced. I think the next day we sat around Senna's house and did nothing.

The day after that, probably, we went to Tripoli, which is a mostly Muslim shopping district. I don't have a lot of pictures because it looked like a lot of places in Cairo. Also, Senna's family is Christian, so Mira and her mom spent the entire time convinced that it was dangerous and that bad things might happen to us. Anyway, if I have something that is cute and from Lebanon, I most likely bought it in Tripoli.

I do remember that in Tripoli, we met up with our companion Kelsey, who had planned to go to Syria on her own (which did not end up happening) and she had the most delicious shawarma I had ever eaten. A lesson that I have learned but still do not follow: chicken shawarma is better. It's just that meat gyros are better, so I am always convinced that meat shawarmas will be better too. But it's not true. Trust me, I have tried it so many times. Anyway, I think it is cute that the Lebanese seem to serve french fries a lot, and to put them on their shawarmas. When we ate with Senna's family, her aunt would always cook fries. They were also better, because the only oil they seem to have in Lebanon is olive oil and it is the best olive oil I have ever had. In Senna's house, they had these big barrels of it. Apparently, on a previous shopping trip, they weren't aware of the big barrels full of olive oil, and so they bought some and it was definitely worse.

So anyway, I think we spent a few more days pissing around Senna's house. I should note that Senna's parents, although they live in the US, own a house in a little village about an hour outside of Beirut. So in addition to us being lazy, it was also kind of costly to hire a driver to take us into the city for a day, so instead we hung around. We played cards. We hung out with Senna's cousins. We drank birras (and cleaned out Senna's grandma's store's supply). We smoked a lot of the shisha. Someone bought a lot of delicious flavors of shisha and so we mixed and tried them out and it was great. Maybe one of the nights, we went to a fancy bar in a town outside of Beirut. Um... one of us got really trashed, but mommy and daddy, I assure you it wasn't me. They played ridiculous music. Oh do you know what the biggest hit in the Middle East appears to be?

This song [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSvrf84UjFg ] is one of those hits that is so popular that every club plays it and everyone cheers and the DJ mutes parts from the chorus so that everyone in the club can sing along to it. It is probably up there with the Habibi song that is playing in all of the taxi cabs.

Anyway, the next morning we were all hungover but we had agreed to go to Saida (I hazily remember someone comparing it to Alexandria? Maybe it was just me) with a different aunt of Senna's. The problem was that we had to get up at something like 8AM and some of us had thought it was a great idea to smoke some shisha and drink some beers (since you don't drink that much at bars because it is so expensive) before bed, so I don't think I slept until at least 4AM. I think a lot of us weren't planning on going after that night, but I wanted to see more of Lebanon, there was some guilt about standing up Senna's aunt and cousin, and there was supposed to be a two hour car ride during which we could nap. The car ride was actually like an hour long, but we had a tasty breakfast of konafah (I can't describe it but it is delicious and also really really sweet) and some Turkish coffee on the sea front.

Then, since we were more awake, we went to some fort.

I don't know what the deal was with the fort. I also don't know why there wore those weird round rocks in the walls.

Locals hanging around because they can. Just like in Egypt. Probably didn't have to pay to get in either. Unlike us foreigners, who had to pay like $5 USD to get in. Interesting fact about Lebanon: they have their own system of money (Lebanese Lira I think it is) but they also use American bills, especially for expensive purchases. And if you had a big US bill that needed to be broken, it wasn't uncommon for them to give half the change in USD and half in Lira.

Um... then we walked to another fort or something. I think I was spending a lot of this time gossiping. Probably because Senna's aunt had a friend who came along to be a guide (she was probably more familiar with the area) and our friend Brendan thought she was really hot and so it was kind of funny how much he was trying to hit on her.

We then trekked through the markets and slums.

I thought it was really cool how they were all like stores of skilled craftspeople who made chairs and wooden clogs and stuff.

After that lengthy tour, we ate at a sort of restaurant and we had fresh fish and it was delicious of course. There were probably more fries, as well as many other yummy things. Lebanese food is really good. I mean, I don't mind Egyptian food, but it wasn't as good, and most of it is lame versions of Lebanese food. A creepy cat watched us eat. It was cute until we realized it was missing like half its face and that you could see it's teeth through the hole in its cheek.

This is a cart that sold bread that was shaped to hang on racks. In other words, the bread looked like purses, which I thought was pretty nifty.

Then we were driven to this statue and basilica and church. The sermons were held in a little cave that was sort of a church now. I think that Mary stopped in that little cave when she was going somewhere, and so it was sacred. I didn't take pictures because there was a service going on.

Anyway, we climbed up the statue.

I thought it was totally cool that the design in the stair railings had crosses and Jesus fish, and sometimes they had both.

Great views, eh?

This was a sign outside the cemetery. Speaking of signs, there was a great billboard that we saw around the city, which I didn't get a good picture of. Basically there were a lot of signs up encouraging people to vote in the 2009 elections, including one that had a picture of this beautiful woman and that said something like "It is beautiful to vote". So this one store had a billboard up that was a picture of a woman and it said "Who cares about elections?", with the implication that women don't care about elections, they care about shopping at Magma.

This is the big window in the basilica. Can anyone tell me what that thing means in the middle? The thing that looks kind of like that thing on maps that tell you which way is north (I forgot what it is called). It was a symbol that seemed to appear frequently, at least at this place.

So after this, we lazed around some more. At one point we took a walk around Senna's village.

I took some more pictures of the village, but not very many more, because then Kelsey and I decided that we would rather tan on the roof of Senna's house.

Actually that was our last night, and I liked being on the roof so much, I decided to sleep up there. It was really cute, except that I was eaten alive by bugs, and it was really cold when it was dark so I had like five thick blankets on me but then when the sun came up it became really hot really fast but there were still bugs. But still, it was nice.

So on our last day, we took a telefriq (tell-eh-freak), which is like one of those slow cable ferry cars that take you up high so you can get a great view of places like Beirut and like Cedar Point.

It took us to this sacred statue of Mary probably that one day was facing one direction and the next day had moved to face a completely new direction, which was a miracle. I didn't take interesting pictures. But my friends Brendan and Joey both bought a cheap version of Jesus Monopoly which was in Arabic. Apparently, instead of going to jail, you were sent to "go pray".

Then yet another one of Senna's aunts, who was a professor at the AUB gave us a little tour of the campus. It was much cuter that the AUC, but I was maybe a little biased with the frustration that comes with disorganization and poor administration and the need to go back and forth across campus to fill out a single form to unlock the ID card that lets you into the library. Also, it was really cute because all over campus, there were like little park benches secluded in the bushes on which couples were canoodling. It was a bit of a culture shock because that sort of thing you would just never see in Cairo. Usually not the couples and definitely not the canoodling.

The AUB had a new campus center that was built recently. Apparently it won a few awards. I thought it was interesting because all over the campus center, there were thin wires hanging like this. It looks totally wimpy now, but when it fills out with vines, I am pretty sure it will look really cool. It's kind of weird to think about design that is meant to utilize nature, but that will also require a few years to achieve its intended effect.

Then we walked around Beirut some more before catching a plane home to Cairo.

There was a lot of cool graffiti.

Anyway, the one thing I will say about going back to Cairo: Even though I loved Greece and Lebanon because they had better food and better scenery and better weather, and even though Cairo will never be my city because I will never be fully comfortable there (for social and economic reasons), both times I flew back there, it was still comforting to know it, at least to the point where at least I knew how things worked and that I had someplace that was mine and that I didn't have to be guided around like a stupid tourist.

2009-05-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Hello darlings. Sorry, I am a terrible person. Of course, I am back in the United States and enjoying things such as not covering my legs and pork. So mostly I didn't update anymore because the fan in my computer broke and when your laptop will only work for half an hour at a time, it is a little useless to spend it trying to upload pictures that take one hour to load. (As it turns out, it takes significantly less time to upload pictures in the US). Also, I am really lazy.

So anyway, I am now presenting you with the first part of my spring break: Greece.

Greece:
I went to Greece. The plan was that I was going to meet up with some Mohos who were also studying abroad. But about a week before I flew to Greece, we decided to go to Mykonos, one of the islands, and my flight was going to be like a little too late for me to catch the ferry, so I flew to Athens and then flew to Mykonos, like six hours later. My plane got in at like 6 am, so I took a bus into town. As it turns out, it was kind of cute, but also a bad idea because in Greece, stores don't open until noon or something.

So I just wandered the empty streets and window shopped and looked at shoes I couldn't afford anyway. It was really cute because sometimes, some middle aged woman with snazzy shoes would stop and also window shop.

Also, there were a lot of stray dogs all over Athens. Unlike strays in Egypt, Greek strays are really well fed and kind of bum around, sleeping in the shade, eating, and getting petted. Look at this lazy dog. I saw it at the Acropolis and I watched it sleep, get up, and then move somewhere like five feet away to sleep some more. So lazy.

Amanda (studied in Sienna) and Hannah (studied in Athens) outside the "lobby" of our ... cottage or whatever. In Mykonos, our other friend (also named Hannah) found lodging where all of us could stay and pay a fairly cheap price. The room came with a few pull out beds and a kitchen. Mykonos isn't a very big island, and I mean, as an island, practically the whole coast is beaches, but Mina Studio (the hotel or whatever you want to call it) was a two minute walk from a beach and it was fantastic.

Gorgeous. It's kind of depressing how my pictures kind of suck and don't really reflect how beautiful Greece was. The way the sun hit windows and how green it was. I mean, everything is green and beautiful compared to Egypt. And the water was so blue...

Mykonos is considered a huge party island and is really popular... We came off season, because in spring, it's still a little cool, and so everything was pretty empty.

I think it was the next day we decided to go for a walk along the tide pools and to find another beach. There was a beach on Mykonos called Paradise beach, and since that wasn't enough, there was another called Super Paradise. Because Mykonos was that great.

Another empty beach. We ate lunch there. Although we were looking for Paradise, we never found it.

Usually, I don't believe in taking pictures of scenery because they become kind of trite and are never as great as being there, but over spring break, I really got suckered into it.

Mykonos, the town on Mykonos, the island. Shopping, restaurants, expensive things. Oh, and clubs. We went to the club one night and it was ok.

There were little chapels like this all over the place. I thought it was cute because it was really inviting, but also I think it made religion a more personal experience. Also, I love how all the buildings are white with blue or green or red windows.

If I remember correctly (which I probably don't) I think Mykonos was called something akin to "Little Venice" or something because part of it is kind of flooding. Or it's right on the water now. I don't remember.

Ferry from Mykonos back to Athens. We had the misfortune on being on a ferry that picked up a million annoying Greek college students. They were all on the top of the boat, singing, smoking, pounding drums and using fog horns. I don't know what the hell was going on, but I was pretty incredulous that they could keep that shit going for a whole three or so hours.

The next day, everyone else left Greece so I had the day to myself. My plan was to go shopping and then go see the Acropolis. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell my bank that I was going to Greece, so when I bought this bag with my card, they locked my card. Then, I had the hardest time trying to call my bank to get them to unlock the card, so I gave up and spent the whole day at the acropolis. Fortunately, it gets you into like six different monuments, so I managed to keep occupied. Anyway, the Acropolis was pretty nice. It's got a really great view. I think I heard that no buildings are allowed to be built to be taller than the Acropolis, so there are like these islands of tall hills where the buildings just stop.

You have no idea how wonderful trees and grass look when you've just spent three months in the desert watching guys trying to grow grass because it is representative of the wealthy west.

And of course the Parthenon. In the picture that everyone has seen and takes anyway. My picture is different though, because it was under construction and so half of the thing was covered in scaffolding. It was awesome.

To the right is another temple but no one cares about it. It's kind of funny how that works. Anyway, at the end of the day, after doing essentially nothing by myself, I flew back to Egypt and got my card sorted out and packed for the next part of my spring break.

2009-03-21T08:14:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, my roommates and I went to Islamic Cairo and walked around a little bit.

There was this Ottoman or something house that was open for looking around, so we wandered around it and looked at the architecture.

Detailed tiled floors and ceilings.

Courtyards.
A grinding wheel or something.

A cool sitting room. I used to think that I wanted a rococo parlor, but I think I want an Islamic sitting room. I really like low couches and high ceilings and hidden cupboards.

In Cairo, stores are arranged in districts. We were walking around the shisha/minaret district, so all the shops sold shisha and shisha parts and/or those bronze things that are at the top of minarets. Apparently there is also a fire district somewhere, where they sell fire boots and extinguishers and stuff like that.
Walls.

Anyway, this weekend featured Taba Day, so we had an extra day off and so my roommate Mariya and I went to Alexandria. A lot of people call it Alex, but something about it seems kind of annoying and improper. It reminds me of this David Sedaris story in which he mentions his refusal to date anyone who shortens street names in New York (refering to Madison Avenue as Mad. Ave. for example). Anyway, I am a little bit in love with Alexandria and had a really good time there.

We stayed with Mariya's distant relative. She lived in a really really nice apartment. It was like a first world bubble. It was pretty fobby too.

We had planned on taking the 9:00 am train, but it was full, so we had to take the 11:00 train and got in around 2:00. The woman we were staying with had borrowed her neighbors driver and after we settled in our fobby room, we ate home cooked Indian food (so good) and sat around and watched real cable television with channels such as MTV. After my last major trip, which was fun but so densely packed, I was only interested in sitting around and wandering, so eventually, we took a cab to the corniche (waterfront) and enjoyed the view of the Mediterranean. No real pictures of it, because I don't believe in taking pictures of oceanic views. It was really cloudy. Also, it had been raining. It wasn't even raining that much, but Mariya and I were so excited because it never rains in Egypt.

After sitting on the corniche, we went looking for the souq (market) because it was supposed to have good jewelry or something. We found the souq:
But there was nothing there really worth buying. Lots of crappy socks, raw meat, live animals (for eating), bras, tacky clothes.

After all that getting lost, we worked up a good appetite, and found this restaurant called Hood Gondol. The tour book had recommended it, as well as our roommate Claire and Mariya's boyfriend, but had told us it would be hard to find. We found it eventually, and the directions we were given were not terrible, so I didn't think it was too bad. And anyway, it was well worth it:
It was seriously like the best seafood I'd ever had in my life. So fresh. When we finally found the place, one of the guys working there showed us these giant pots that had all of the food they offered, since they didn't have a menu. There was rice, potatoes, peppers, limes, blackened fish, fried fish fillet, clams, and fried calamari. The guy took a piece of fish fillet and offered it to us, and we ate it and of course it was good. Then he offered us clams, which we also ate. He asked us what we thought, and when we paused, he said "It's perfect, isn't it?" Seriously, it was so good and I just... am so sad that it isn't something I can have all the time. Oh, and it cost 65 Egyptian pounds for the two of us, including the cokes we got. That is roughly $13 USD.... for BOTH of us.

Then we went back to the apartment and watched the weirdest movie on TV. It was about "tough love" camps.

The next day, we had a rough itinerary of some things that would be cool to see. First we went to Fort Qaitbay, which was built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. It was really great. The view was beautiful and it was windy and I had packed along some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I had baked and so it was pretty excellent.
Egyptians don't have to pay very much, if anything, to get into touristy types of attractions. As a result, the majority of the people at Qaitbay were Egyptians. And so first, there were a lot of people stopped in really irritating places, taking pictures for their myspaces. Second, there was probably worse harrassment inside the Fort than outside it. There was one point where Mariya wanted to change her camera lens and about like a million 10 year olds ran up and were all, "Hallo? Hallo? What's your name?" and then a bunch of barely pubescent boys came up and were like "Hallooooo ;) Welcome to Egypt!" Ugh. Like I don't get that enough.
Apparently, that rubbly wall in the back on the left is part of what remains of the lighthouse.

Around this part of the wall, which is a little less obvious to get to, there were a lot of secret couples. See that little niche on the left? There was probably a secret couple inside there too.
This was like, where the sewage went or something. It smelled foul, but looked cool.
There was a network of sort of secret passageways, in like, the bottom of the walls, which was also really cool.
And a mosque inside the big building part, which was also nice.

We walked back a little bit, past this cute boatyard, with really nice and brightly colored boats.

I thought it was really nice because even Egyptians were standing there, looking out at the boats, admiring the sea, or whatever.

Next we stopped in a cafe, which was nice and cute, until Mariya ordered a Greek salad, which ended up sucking a little bit. Then we took a cab to the Catacombs. We got lost looking for it, because we went down the wrong street. Then we had to pass this giant puddle of water in the middle of the road. You can't tell, but it really sucked and it was freaking huge. We managed to go around it... through a lot of gross trash.

As I already mentioned, kids here tend to be really annoying. Yes I am foreign. No I would rather not be a spectacle. But this girl. This girl really knew how to get to us. She just had to hold this puppy and we were all over it. When we finally continued walking, there were some 13 year old boys who started trying the whole "Hallooo. What's your name" thing, and we were like "Please. Don't even try. You don't have a puppy, you don't have a chance."

Finally we made it to the Catacombs. Only to find out that they would not allow cameras in. I snuck a few on my phone. But this was the only picture I have on my camera. Of course, a huge group of Egyptian men were also in the Catacombs and they were super obvious about the fact that they were taking pictures with their phones. So that was annoying. Also, they thought I was from Thailand and/or Japan. Also not cool.
Anyway, the Catacombs were excellent. There was this huge spiral staircase, that revolved around a cylindrical shaft, through which they supposedly lowered bodies. There was a room with stone benches carved into it, for the mourning families to have dinner parties in. There were a million holes for bodies. There were relief carvings of Egyptian gods wearing Roman clothes. There was a sacrificial altar. There were paintings of both Egyptian and Greek myths relating to the underworld. It was a pretty awesome place. Then we sat outside and watched some tourists come in and played "Where are they from?"

After the catacombs, we had time to waste, so we went to this restaurant at the roof of one of the super luxe hotels and ate fake Chinese food. Then we did what we always do when we have nothing to do: we sat on the corniche.
Then we went back, had more home cooked Indian food (still SO good) and caught a train back to Cairo. After Alexandria, Cairo sucks a little bit. Also the train ride was a little crappy because we sat right next to the bathroom. The bathroom that they probably don't clean. So it smelled really terrible. But Alexandria was totally worth it. It was beautiful and calming and my experience there was so relaxing and first world, it was a really nice change.

In other news:
Last week, I made some samosas and they were great. That was off topic, but I was really proud.

2009-03-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

Luxor: Another touristy place. First we went to Karnak Temple. We hired a guide, but sometimes I didn't really listen to him because I was daydreaming about what it must have been like to walk through the temple when it was new and big and the paintings were fresh. From what I understood, I think that over the generations, every new pharoh would add on their own little hallway or obelisk or whatever, so the place is huge and represents the legacy of many different pharohs.

There were lines of sphinxes lining the entrance walkway. I thought they were pretty cool because they were for Ramses and Ramses was really into rams, so they all have the head of a ram and the body of a lion and they're all hanging out with what is I think a representation of some pharohs. I also think the guide said that all of the little men statues were destroyed except for this one, which was supposed to represent Ramses. I'm not sure though.

I think this is another representation of Ramses as a Ram man.
Part of the main hallway or something. It was supposed to have a roof, but the roof collapsed, and it has like over a hundred giant columns.
Some of the beams and columns even retained their vivid paintwork.

Our guide, some obelisks.
Our guide again, a statue. The statue was roped off, but the guide was touching it anyway to show us how the detail in the knees and ankles and toenails said a lot about ancient Egyptian sculpture.

At this point, about like half of our group decided we were too burnt out to continue on to the Luxor museum. So while some people went to the museum, we sat around the giant columns and considered taking a falucca, but then ended up sitting and eating. After that, we decided to meet up at Luxor Temple, built for like yet another Ramses. I wasn't really feeling it though.
I think part of it was the sunlight. By the time we got there, it was almost sunset, so the light was pretty terrible. Also, I think I was still a little sick of the sightseeing thing and just wanted to sit and chill.

Apparently Luxor Temple is supposed to be really awesome when the sun sets because bats come out or something. So we sat around and watched people walk by while we waited for the sun to set. There was a tour group of middle aged women who wore matching bright orange shirts. Another interesting thing: in Cairo, things are pretty conservative, so women cover up and couples don't really do a lot of the PDA thing. But in Aswan and Luxor, almost everyone there is a tourist who doesn't really know much better, so there are all these people wearing tank tops and short shorts and I feel totally scandalized when I see them - especially when a girl wearing a tube top and short shorts is kissing her boyfriend who is wearing a wifebeater.
A blurry picture of how dramatic it looks at night. I still think it looks worse though.

Afterwards, we met some other AUC students for cocktails and beers and shisha and bad food and it was a pretty great time.

The next day, our hotel arranged a guided tour for us to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens and some other things. First we went to this temple:
I don't remember its name. Also, it might not really be a temple. This was the place one of the pharohs got mummified. But the interesting thing was that this particular pharoh was a woman, and every reference to her in this temple has been chiseled away by her son, because she sort of usurped the throne when he was a wee baby. I don't really know how we know it is her, in that case, but whatever.

Great painting jobs. The ceilings here are fantastic, and it's kind of amazing that the paint has lasted this long.

Then we went to Valley of the Kings. Of course.
They don't allow you to take pictures inside the tombs, so I can't really impress you with them. But. They were awesome. The first one we saw was Ramses IV and it might have been one of my favorites. The walls were painted white with carved and painted hieroglyphics. Farther into the hallway, the walls were covered in giant painted reliefs of slaves with their hands tied, and snakes that were meant to protect the dead and on the ceiling was the goddess who eats the sun every night and gives birth to it again in the morning. At the end were the broken sarcophagi of Ramses IV and also of Ramses V, who I guess was a lazy cheat and just tried to put his name on top of his father's and had himself buried there too.

We also saw Ramses IX, Ramses I, Ramses VI and Tut. You had to pay extra to see Ramses VI and Tut though. I heard Ramses VI was better, so I paid for that and it was ok. It wasn't as well preserved as Ramses IV, and that is kind of a big deal to me. Also there was the sky goddess again, and it's supposed to be the biggest representation of her in a tomb or something, but I wasn't impressed.

I had also heard that King Tut was overrated and it cost more, so I didn't pay for it. So we were standing around waiting for the people who had paid for it to see it, and I turned to one of my friends, with whom I just recently been talking to about getting a tattoo, and I said "Do you think it hurts to get a tattoo?" At this, this old woman near us like, turned to us and offered me her ticket. She said she had torn something in her knee and could not take the steep stairway down to the tomb, so she pretty much gave me her ticket and wouldn't let me pay her back for it. So. I saw King Tut's tomb. It's very small and deep inside, and there is only really one room with a full wall mural and his sarcophagus and one of his many layers of gold coffins. Also, his mummy is in there. He is kind of shrimpy, but it was really cool because I had never really heard conclusively where exactly Tut's mummy was. So it was an experience.

Then we went to Valley of the Queens. No pictures there either except for this one:
At this point, I was pretty burnt out anyway. We saw a tomb for some queen and her children. It was interesting because in the queen's tomb, the first room was full of images of people holding hands. Like gods holding hands with gods, queens holding hands with kings, kings holding hands with gods. It was very nice and full of love and happy emotions. Also interesting: also found in the tomb was a miscarried fetus, buried with the queen, in like a box or something. So that was on display and really fascinating. The tomb I would've really liked to see was Neferteri's. Apparently it is super well preserved and her tomb is beautiful, probably because Ramses II was totally whipped and worshipped her. But. As it turns out, it apparently costs 40,000 Egyptian pounds for a group of ten people to go see it. Of course, that is only 4,000 Egyptian pounds per person, but that is still about like $800 USD per person. So we didn't see Neferteri's tomb.

Afterwards, we freshened up and took a falucca, just for the experience. The experience was drifting aimlessly in the river while it was approaching sunset and getting really cold.

Then we ate dinner and half of us, who were not planning on staying another day in Luxor, left to take the plane home. There were some problems and in the end, after even more problems, we took a crappy train back to Cairo. Did you know that they probably haven't cleaned the train toilet since the train has been built? I didn't use it (which was difficult on a 12 hour ride) but my friend did and he reeked. Also, this was first class.

Anyway, it was really nice to get out of Cairo and do some things, as touristy as they may be. Next time, I want to just sit somewhere and eat. We have this Thursday off for some new holiday that was just declared, so that will probably be really nice and fun.

2009-03-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

Monday was the Prophet Mohammad's birthday, so almost everyone I know skipped Sunday classes and went traveling. I went with a group of people to Aswan and Luxor, both of which are super touristy places with loads of temples and tombs to see. I took a lot of pictures.

So anyway, first we went to Aswan. The air is much cleaner and we got in at like 6am, so we napped a little and then did the touristy thing. First, we ate lunch and walked through the souk (market). Then we went to the Tombs of the Nobles, which was on the West Bank (of Aswan). I guess there is also a Tomb of the Nobles in Luxor by the Valley of the Kings and all that, and I think there is a difference too. Like I think the Tomb of the Nobles that we went to was in an older kingdom or something.

We took a motor ferry across the river. Exciting!

I thought this table was cool because there was a notch carved in that was used as leverage when the people pulled the mummy from the falucca (boat) in the river outside the door and down the hill.Our guide, holding some bones that belonged to the family of the guy the tomb was built for. Not creepy at all.Some Coptic murals that clearly belonged to a different period.Monastery at the top of the hill. It kind of sucked to be unexpectedly climbing a mountain of sand and rock in a skirt, but the view was really great, and I don't think a lot of tourists go to this place in general, so it was nice and relaxing. I'm not posting pictures of the view, because they are never as good as being there and it just feels a little sad.

Oh-bah-deen (this means next, apparently), we wandered around a little bit, ate some ice cream, and then decided to take another motor boat to Elephantine Island. This was extremely exciting because first, as always, we had to barter a reasonable price for the boat. Once we had a good price, we got into the boat (a sailboat) only to be told that there was no wind and the boat couldn't go anywhere. So the guy waved down a motorboat and we transferred onto it. That was when we met this guy:
He was really nice, spoke really excellent Spanish, and sang a lot. Of course, this boat that we were on ran out of petrol and so we drifted in the middle of the Nile for like a half hour on the roof of this motorboat. So then a third boat had to rescue us and take us to the island. By the time we got there, the temple that we were going to see was closed and so we walked around the village, where our friend lived. In the village, we made another friend:This dog started following us and he was so sweet so I just had to pet him. And then he just followed us around the whole time. My friend Kerry named him Rabie which I think was a dumb name but somehow very fitting. Anyway, Rabie was really sweet but I guess he hates kids because people here think stray dogs are pests and tend to throw rocks and stuff at them. So whenever we walked by some kids and the kids were like "Hallo! Hallo!" like they always do to foreigners, Rabie would get in and try to defend us.

The village itself was pretty run down but a lot of the buildings were painted bright colors and/or had really cute contrasting windows.

After the Elephantine Island (this was a really packed day, by the way), we went to a sound and light show at the Temple of Isis at Philae. It was a little funny and melodramatic and overpriced. I have also decided that ancient architecture is really the most worth seeing in the morning with the natural sunlight. None of that over dramatic nighttime lighting from below for me.

Kerry, Novo, and Michelle on the motorboat to the island.Some giant wall with giant relief carvings. They look kind of dumb in pictures, but in person, they're like, really really big. It was also interesting because the two figures on the left weren't finished, and I don't really know why.The neighboring temple for the goddess Hathor. There was even a lame part in the sound and light show about how neglected Hathor felt next to Isis' big temple. Melodramatic.

Then we ate on a restaurant boat and smoked shisha and played dominoes.

The next day, we went to the unfinished obelisk, which, as the name might imply, is a giant, unfinished obelisk. Not that interesting. Afterwards we went on a three hour bus ride to Abu Simbel, where there is a giant temple for Ramses II and a smaller temple for his favorite wife (out of 50) Neferteri.
This is another Hathor Temple, because I guess she was the goddess of love and mothers and cows, so she had a lot of temples, but this temple also pays a lot of tribute to Neferteri. I think the giant figures are of Neferteri dressed as Hathor, and of Ramses II. There are smaller figures at the knees of all the statues, and those are supposed to represent the 12 children that Nefertari and Ramses had together.

I snuck a photo even though I wasn't supposed to. But this was one of my favorite temples. I am a big fan of well preserved temples with giant relief paintings.

Ramses II's temple to himself. Deep inside, there is a chamber that has four sitting statues of himself and some other gods. It's really cool because originally, on the days of Ramses' coronation and his birthday, sunlight would reach deep into the temple to light these statues. Except the one on the far left, because he's the god of darkness. It's on different days now because they had to relocate the temples uphill a little bit when they flooded Nasser Lake.

Also, in case you might not have noticed, it is really big. Those are cops sitting by the feet of the statue on the right. And on the left side, those piles of rocks are the fallen torso of the broken one. I was looking at the rocks, and noticed that his ear was like almost as big as me. I always wonder what it is like to be that full of yourself.

For a little baksheesh (tip), they let us hold the Key of the Nile, or whatever, and take pictures.

Then we went to a museum. I was burnt out, so I didn't care that much, but there was some cool stuff. You know how people don't usually touch things in museums? They don't really care so much about that here. In any given place, there seem to be a lot of Egyptians just taking pictures of each other with their camera phones. I bet it's to put on their myspaces. After the museum, we took a train to Luxor, but I think I'll make that a separate post.

2009-02-25T06:46:00.003-08:00

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.

2009-02-22T11:47:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-21T05:47:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-02-02T06:10:00.000-08:00

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.

2009-01-20T19:14:00.000-08:00

So I’ve been in Cairo for a week. We only just got wireless in our apartment and before that, we were only able to steal internet sometimes from somewhere mysterious. Anyway, Cairo is very nice and warm, but my immediate reaction is rather mixed. I think a lot of it has to do with the drastically different social norms, the language barrier, and the knowledge that it will be a really long time until I’ll be able to see almost everyone that I know and love. I’m having a lot of fun meeting new people, especially since, you know, I can make guy friends here because it is co-ed, but it still will take some time to get used to it.

One thing that I really liked immediately is that it kind of reminds me of Taiwan. I mean, I was in Taiwan when I was six so I don’t remember much of anything, but something about the tall apartment complexes with people who hang out their clothes to dry and the pollution and the way it smells and the really gaudy things in our flat just remind me of Taiwan. Speaking of our flat:
The couch on the right is my favorite. It's just a bunch of cushions and it's low and I really like it.

The view from our balcony. Between those buildings, we can see the Nile and some of the house boats on it. We also found out yesterday that in the far distance, we can see the pyramids on a nice and clear day, right beyond the minaret that you can barely make out in the smog (because it is kind of polluted here).

Our kitchen. There is a fire in the hot water heater for our sink.

My bed is on the left. I guess the headboards don't look that tacky, but really, they are. My flatmates, Claire and Julia, found a flat with reasonably tasteful furniture, but something about the furniture is just really fobby. I can't explain it, but something about it reminds me of the furniture I've seen in Taiwan and in Asian-American houses all around.

My little bathroom. We have two bathrooms, but this one is closer to my bed and it has a bidet that, in my experience, only has cold water.

Here is our bathtub. It is really small. There are no shower curtains and it is kind of gross so I kind of have to squat to keep water from getting everywhere. It was especially miserable when the hot water didn't work.

This happy peacock adorns the wall of our bathroom. It is super classy and studded with sparkly glitter. It reminds me of when I was in Taiwan, and I was six, and I really liked all the really tacky things like stickers and rulers with cats and peacocks on them because they were sparkly.

Anyway, I’ve mostly been settling in, buying things I need, and going to and skipping orientation. The president of the university started his opening address with a reference to Lake Woebegone, which I thought was really cute. I've been exploring the city a little bit and figuring out how to get places and back without getting lost. On the last day of my survival Arabic class, my teacher took us all around Cairo and New Cairo, which was really cute. She showed us some great places to get stuff like house supplies and fresh produce around downtown, then took us to dinner at Rehab, which is kind of building into a sort of suburban community. I think it's too small to be a city, but everyone who lives there is rich and commutes to work either in Cairo or at some New Cairo university, and there is a huge brand name mall and a huge food court with random western food chains. It is pretty bizarre. Also it is weird because there is grass there and I keep thinking about how it's such a waste of energy and water to grow grass in the middle of the desert. Anyway, after we ate dinner, my teacher took us to her favorite cafe in Nasr City, and we smoked shisha and watched Lebanese music videos for a couple of hours.

One last thing: my skype is goodbye.goldfish. I might send postcards, unless they're ridiculously expensive. Things here are pretty cheap, but things for tourists are really expensive, and I expect that postcards are always going to be deemed as the item tourists buy. Anyway, give me your addresses so I can maybe send you postcards. Also, if you are somewhere cool, you should get me something really cheap. And if you want me to get you something specific and cheap, you should let me know. So I have a lot of time to look for things and learn how to say them in Egyptian Arabic so that I can bargain and not get ripped off.