New Apartment

Yay, I got the apartment I wanted :) I can't even express how happy and relieved I am! yall I'm moving to Cairo FINALLY. More details to come....

Thanksgiving Weekend

Like I mentioned in my previous post, things have been a little crazy lately. This past weekend was no different. It all started last Wednesday as I headed to Cairo – gotta love working for an American company that understands the importance of not working on turkey day :)

Wednesday was Nisrin’s “surprise” bday party so I left work early to be there. May and I finished up some errands for the party after she picked me up from the train station. It was held at the Nile Hilton. It was a really chill place. Kicked it there for about four or five hours and had an intriguing conversation with Kent about the differences between a sweet potato and a yam. After we left there we headed to Abu Rami’s and got some chicken shawarma – btw if you’re in Cairo and you haven’t been here, you gotta go; it’s the best shawarma place.






After eating we headed to a café to chill some more. And that’s when Nisrin got her surprise. After a lot of conniving, May surprised Nisrin and picked up our friend Sarah S. from the airport and brought her to us. Nisrin, Sarah and I all went to Miami together and it had been a while since we’d seen each other. I have to say that from the look on Nisrin face, she was totally shocked. Now it’s about 4 in the morning and May is trying to get us all to stay up and watch the sunrise – thankfully we got out of it ‘cause everyone else was sooo tired. I was so exhausted that when we went and took Sarah to her hotel, I ended up sleeping there. Never get into a bed when you’re extremely tired and expect to actually get out of it before you catch some Zs!

The next morning Megan, Nisrin, Sarah and I got some breakfast from GAD – mmm…more chicken shawarma and fatire :) Afterwards we headed downtown and walked around for a few hours. It was pretty cool because I got to see more of Cairo. After getting some sweet potatoes off the street – over priced btw – and finding a taxi after about twenty minutes of trying, we headed back to Dokki to start working on Thanksgiving dinner.

Dinner was really good. It was a pretty nice size group of people – Sarah F., Angela, Megan, Nisrin, Sarah S., Kent, Tom, Simon, myself and a few other people. When I first realized that I wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving and Christmas, I thought it was going to be so difficult to be away from my family. But it really wasn’t that bad. I was with another family that I belong to and had the opportunity to share the day with them. It didn’t even feel like Thanksgiving to me until I got a phone call from my mom while I cooking some sweet potatoes. Apparently a lot of people back home think I’m never coming home – no worries I’ll be back soon!

Later I headed to a BBQ where another group of friends were hanging out. I’m happy I went ‘cause I was able to chill with some people I hadn’t seen in awhile. Rhea, for example, I hadn’t seen her in almost a month :( Harrison, Githanjali, Mustafa, Farzina, Miguel, Salman, Percy, Nader, Mazhar and more were all in attendance. It was cool to sit and talk with Nader and Mazhar for a while, something else I hadn’t done in a while, even tho’ I was totally freezing outside on the balcony!









Got home around 4am and crashed. Woke up to my cell phone ringing around 10am. I went looking at an apartment when I finally got the strength to get outta bed. After departing from Megan, Tom and Simon after looking at an apartment, I met up with Nisrin and Sarah as we searched the streets of Cairo for a duty free shop – much love to people who fly into Egypt! Later we meet back up with Tom and headed to Al-Azhar Park to see the sun set. Because of all the wonderful pollution Cairo has, all we saw was clouds with a bright light shining through. The Call to Prayer was cool to hear there as well.

We left the park and went to Khan el-Khalili (a market place). We stopped and grab some food. It was pretty descent kofta, grilled chicken and mac -n- cheese. We wondered about the bizarre and then sat down at the Egyptian Pancake House. OMG, the place has the best fateer. We split one that had bananas in it. Amazing. Dang, now I’m hungry lol.

Later Nisrin, Sarah and I ended up in Sarah’s hotel room pre-gaming for a night of clubbin’. It was really good to be able to chat with a group of girls like back at home. We ended up at this club called Space which was totally dead – Bling Bling was having a private party, so we couldn’t go there. We went in anyways and had a great time. It was techno night and I quickly needed to hear some hip-hop. Thankfully, the rest of the group agreed. After a lot of discussion and getting the manager involved, we got our hip-hop :) The club was mad far. It was about a fifteen pound ride and thankfully it wasn’t too bad getting a taxi back to Garden City and Dokki at 3:30am.






I quickly passed out when we got back to the hotel room – we knew trying to climb six flights of stairs wasn’t an option. The next day (Saturday) came all too quickly. Nisrin, Sarah and I went to Maison Thomas for breakfast and had some really good Mexican pizza. Sarah headed to the museum and Nis and I went on a mission to find a turkey. We did find one, but unfortunately when we got back to Nis’ the bird wouldn’t fit in the oven. Purvi to the rescue, ‘cause she let us come over and cook at her place. (There was a lot of rescuing going on the weekend, sah?!) Dinner was supposed to be served at 7pm, but the bird didn’t even get into the over til 6pm, so….Sarah, Nisrin, Kenny, Purvi, May, Luli and I chilled at Purvi’s til the bird was done – 10pm. Between this time, I left Zamalek and went back to Dokki to check out another apartment with Farzina. Unfortunately we missed the girls who already live there so I wasn’t able to see the place :(

Got back to Zamalek about thirty minutes before the bird was done. We all piled up and headed to Heliopolis for a Saturday Thanksgiving dinner. We had dinner at Nora’s. The place was amazing. We ate with formal dinning ware and everything – I can’t remember the last time I used a gravy bowl lol. It was a really delicious meal, even tho’ we didn’t eat til midnight.









Left Heliopolis and got back to Nis/Luli’s around 2am – early right? Not when you have a 6am train back to Alex :-O And of course I missed it. I was supposed to wake up Badr and he ended up calling and waking me up. After rushing to the train station – and happy the taxi driver knew what I was saying when I asked to be taken to Mahatat Atr – I missed the train and had to wait 2 hours til the next Turbini left – I have a feeling that they wouldn’t let me take any other kind of train b/c I’m a foreigner.

The minute I sat on the train, I fell asleep. I was straight comatose. Got to Alex around 10:30am. Went outside the train station to find some type of Egyptian Guards holding up traffic and then had to bargain with a taxi driving to get home – the driver was clearing trippin’ if he thought I was about to pay 10 pounds to get home; I was nice by giving him 5! After he tried to take me to Ibrahimeya instead of Camp Shezar about 4 times, I got home, hoped into the shower and rushed to work.

Now I’m stuck with the daunting task of moving to Cairo and finishing up some business in Alex. I don’t really see any of the “calm” days in the near future. I’m having a blast tho’.

Crazy Days

Life has actually been quite busy lately. Last Tuesday jump started it all. I had a pretty full day at work then right after helped out the advising center with a video conferencing event with this community college back in the states. Left there to go to an LC meeting and facilitate a presentation with Mustafa. It was a good session. The topic was challenging world perspectives. We focused on the perspectives that Arabs have about Americans and vice versa and talked about misconceptions that can be formed, the differences between the two cultures as well as the similarities and tips on how to constantly change a persons world view. It was a really cool session; I personally had some perspectives challenged on both the Egyptian and American culture.

Wednesday was another crazy day where I worked on this Civic Education manual. This is something I’ve worked on for the past month or so changing the formatting of the document into something that was presentable. I swear I started having nightmare about margin changes and color choices! It was definitely an experience I’m glad has come to an end. Thursday was just as hectic. After work, I headed to the villa my company uses as an additional location for classrooms. There I assisted in a session about studying in the U.S. Another American and I sat with some Egyptians who were interested in studying in the states and answered questions that they had. That lasted til about 7pm and then I headed to the train station to catch a train to Cairo.

I hadn’t been in Cairo for a weekend in almost a month. I headed downtown once I got off the train to meet up with Nisrin, Dody and Martina. We walked (and got semi lost) to this restaurant/bar and met up with Simon and Percy. Megan, Kent and Taher joined us later. It was really cool to just hang out with a large group of people. After chillin at the place for a while, we went to see the new James Bond movie in the most random theater. The movie was aight; I think I like Pierce better as a Bond. I had been to the movies here a few times, but this theater definitely gave me a new experience. People talked and were loud during a good portion of the film and some smoked in the theater. Needless to say, I have no desire to visit that particular establishment again!

After the movies, Nis and I headed back to her place where we proceeded to talk until 7am! Hadn’t had a night like that in a while. It was really great to be able to sit around and talk to a friend for hours on end. And Nis is one of the few people that I can talk to on a vast range of topics. She’s been around since ’03 so she has some historical background, has the AIESEC perspective and is a trustworthy female….what else you could possibly ask for!

We woke up the next day ‘round 1pm and headed to Lucille’s. Okay if anyone who decides later in life to come here and you love an American breakfast, you gotta go to Lucille’s. Even tho’ it’s pretty far, in Egypt terms anyways, it’s totally worth it. I went with, Nis, Purvi, Tom & Kenny. Afterwards, I headed to the SilverKey office and chilled for awhile. Later we attempted to see a movie but couldn’t get tickets. Instead we went to Purvi’s place and hung out. It was a real chill night. We sat around and watched Al Jazzera for a while (yea we’re cool, watching the news on a Friday night!) and played some “intellectually stimulating” games.

The next day was the craziest of all. Nis and I woke up sometime at 9:30a and 10:30a respectively and headed downtown to meet up with Megan, Pam, Brian, Tom, Purvi and Simon. We left Pam and Brian’s place and took a trip to the City of the Dead and Garbage City. City of Dead was formed back in the sixties when a bunch of people came to Cairo and had no where to go, so they ended up living in the tombs located in this huge cemetery. The City has a really pretty mosque which has an amazing view of Cairo. Tho’ I didn’t get to see the completely spectacular view cause my fear of heights would only allow me to go so far up the building.

We ventured to Garbage City next. It’s the place where all the garbage from Cairo goes and people sort it. There’s a shit load of garbage there (no pun intended). It’s crazy that some of the people there had better cell phones than I did. Most of the people there are Coptic Christians and there’s pork there! It was kinda nice to for once see a pig hanging instead of a cow or lamb. Going through Garbage City you get to this area where there’s a lot of different churches. The churches were built in the mountains that the stones from the Giza pyramids were taken. The sides of the mountain have different images of Jesus and the disciples carved into them along with some scriptures. It was really beautiful. This one church had sitting for about 1,000 people. The alter had several biblical paintings. All pics of the last supper had Judas missing. There were two other churches that were basically built inside caves of the mountain. I was really happy that I got to go there. Stupidly I left my camera in Alex L cause I never really do anything in Cairo that warrants the need of one. Luckily Pam, Megan and Purvi did!



After getting some food, Nis and I began a journey around Cairo. First we headed to Radio Shack to get some equipment for a presentation that Luli had to do the next day. Then we headed to the Ramses Hilton to purchase tickets to a movie. After we dropped by Salman, Miguel and Kent’s place to chill for an hour. We really needed that time to just hang cause we were so tired. It was good to see all of them plus Githanjali and Mustafa (sad how that was the first time tho’) and met a new trainee Farzina.

We headed to the movies afterwards. We saw The Departed. It was a really good movie and I got to see it in a nice theater compared to Thursday night! Once the movie was over, we went to Dody’s for a BBQ. It was a good-bye party for Pam and Brian as well as a cook off between Kent and Tom. Great food surrounding by good friends. There was grilled chicken, lamb and veggies. Plus Pam scored some bacon (which was marked Haram! Pork!) and we got some beverages from Drinkies. I don’t even know how many people came thru. I was able to talk to Kaitlin on Skype…I need to get Skype when I get back, it’s awesome.



I got to sleep around 2:30am and proceeded to wake up at 6:10am. I meet up with Mustafa and we went to pick up Oznor, a CEEDer from Turkey. We all got on a microbus and headed back to Alex. It was a bad ride back home. People were arguing over the price which was basically a difference of two pounds! I got home around 10:15 so I was already late to work. Showered and got dressed and was at work by 11am. Work was rough. Tho’ I am glad that I went cause I found out that I am officially staying on with the company for another two months. And that I gotta move to Cairo as soon as I can. So now I’m looking into places to live.

I got home yesterday totally exhausted from the past week and this weekend’s activities. I got home around 5pm and by 6pm I fell asleep while reading a book. I didn’t even wake up til 8:45am this morning minus a phone call from the roomie and the cat loudly meowing. Which sucked cause I ended up washing most of my work clothes and didn’t hang them up to dry b/c I was asleep. It was fun trying to figure out what to wear this morning.

This week is gonna be just as random. I’m heading to Cairo Wednesday for Nis’ bday and Sarah Sommerfield is coming to visit from Turkey for a few days. Plus it’s Turkey Day this week! I can’t wait to have some turkey. Egypt just keeps getting better :)

LUXOR

I think one of the things that has helped me pass the time here is the fact that I started traveling. I decided a while back to go to Luxor with my friend Megan and her fam and it was what I was looking forward to during all of October. And it was well worth it. I had such a great time. At first I thought that only going down to Luxor for two days wasn’t going to be enough time to get everything out of it that I wanted. Little did I know that I would leave having seen everything that I wanted.

The last full week of October was the end of Ramadan and the Eid so I didn’t have to go to work. I ended leaving Alex Tuesday afternoon and hung out in Cairo til it was time to leave for Luxor. I barely made it to the train station on time but thankfully I made it there about 10 minutes before the train was taking off (the train system here is almost the only thing that runs on time here)

We took a sleeper train down to Luxor. We left at 8pm and arrived at 6am the next morning! Not my average ride between Alex and Cairo. Upon arrival we headed to our hotel which was so nice. I was actually surprised when I walked in. Tho’ all I really had to compare it with was the hotel I stayed at near the Red Sea during an AIESEC conference and the hotel was a military hotel.

After getting a somewhat late start, we headed off on a day of exploring. Megan’s parents had taken care of all the arrangement for the trip and had gotten us a mini bus to take us everywhere on the first day along with a tour guide. So here’s what we did Thursday and Friday (the pics are in order of where we went):

Thursday:

Colossi of Memnon – this was really cool to see. These are two statues that stand about 18m high and the remains of what was once the largest complex on the West Bank of Luxor.



Deir al-Medina/Temple of Hatshepsut – this was so amazing. I remember my roomie telling me about it and you can’t really know how awesome this place is til you visit it. It’s partly rock cut and partly free standing.



Valley of the Kings – man, there are so many people buried in this place tho’ I only got to visit 3 of the tombs. This place is considered to be the place of death because the nothing that grows on its cliffs. It was the final resting place for the royalty and the first to be buried was in 1504 BC. Talk about being someplace where some history has taken place.


Valley of the Queens – of course theres gotta be a place for queens and of course it’s not as nice. This is the place where queens, princes and princesses were buried and goes back to the 19th and 20th dynasties (still haven’t figured out when that is!)



Temples of Karnak – now I felt like I had been to places with historical significance with the other sights, but this place just blew me away. This landmark is soo huge that it can fit 10 cathedrals in it! And the art work and the architecture were so amazing. It was really great to see that something like this was able to survive centuries especially since it seemed that the Nile overtime destroyed a lot of the stuff that used to exist. The Temples of Karnak is a spectacular complex of sanctuaries, kiosks, pylons and obelisks dedicated to the Theban gods and the greater glory of the pharaohs. What I really liked was the Avenue of Ram-Headed Sphunxes. This walkway lead between these temples and the Luxor Temple a few miles away. Tho’ most of it is destroyed now.



Luxor Temple – this is smaller than the Temples of Karnak but are still breathe taking. We went as the sun was setting and omg it was the perfect time to go. The lights that illuminate the temple at night brought such a remarkable look to the whole structure. And those of you who are familiar with my camera knows that it doesn’t really like taking pics at night so hence the lack of pics of this temple!



After seeing all of this we all went back to the hotel and some of us (like me) crashed for awhile. Later, Megan, Simon and I headed out and explored the town a bit.

Friday:

Luxor Museum – I have to say that this is the best museum in Egypt that I’ve seen so far just because of the documentation that they had. I got to see some beautiful statues that are incredibly huge. Also got to the see two mummies that were unwrapped! Ramsis I and Ahmose I. It was really odd to see these mummies especially without the wrappings. Boy did Egyptian know how to preserve some bodies. It’s like looking at a starved body with charcoal paint all over their bodies. And these people were short….I liked that part!



The rest of the day I hung out with Megan’s parents and aunt while Megan and Simon went back to the Temples of Karnak to explore some more. We went shopping throughout the town. And then went on a boat ride to Banana Island, had some bananas and tea and then headed back to Luxor to watch the sun set.



It was such a great two days. I had so much fun. Plus it was cool to be with Megan’s parents who had only been in the country for less than a week and are unfamiliar with the customs in Egypt (and still used to converting pounds into USD to see how expensive it is!). I was able to use all the Arabic that I’ve learned thus far. And I was haggling with people and getting good prices on items. People kept thinking I was either Egyptian or Nubian. I swear I kept hearing “Hi cousin” “Hi sister” the entire time I was there. “Cousin, I’ll give you special discount. Only for you, because you are my cousin!” It was interesting yet weird at the same time.



This one guy kept trying to talk to me and I kept walking past his shop. The last time I did he was trying to get me to come in and then proceeded to say “Cousin, I just want to smell your money!” at which point Megan and I started laughing uncontrollably. That definitely was a new line…at least he was very upfront!

Later we went and ate all together as we waited for some time to pass before we had to head to the train station. It was a pretty good meal. I really like chicken shawarma. Tho’ the meal was a bit interrupted by the presence of some cat on cat orgy porn going on….

The ride home was fun, tho’ the train people change the sits into beds way too early. We ended up ordering two bottles of wine – red and white – with some beer and everyone got someone buzzed.

We leave Luxor at about 9pm on Friday and arrived at 8am the next morning. And yay, I arrived sick! The train did such a great job of keeping the compartments cool that I ended up getting sick from sleeping in air conditioning. A fever, some chills, congestion, and a messed up knee and poppin’ ears which messed with my balance. But I guess it was all worth it even tho’ I’m still a bit sick.

What’s next? Sharm, Dahab,and hopefully the Black Desert and White Desert.
Only two months left…