The rush to the lazy

Hello again.



I really feel like I have been as busy as the city is and it has been tough to find nice relaxing free time to sit and do some blogging. For the most part everything has been go go go but on a "o ill do it later" type attitude. I have found that its very common to try to get to where you want to be here so that you can be there and not have to do anything. The rush to the lazy. For those of you who don't know, I am not a morning person. So far I have been hitting the sack around 12:30 and getting up about 6:50. I don't have class this semester until 10am but I will have to make the 8am bus everyday to make sure to be there on time. The traffic is really unpredictable and the trip can take between 40min and an hour and 40 min. Religion is way more prevalent here and I think it is rooted in the traffic. The deeper your religion, your faith perhaps you will be able to cross the street with out getting clipped by any of the speeding taxi's or the moped with 4 guys on swerving in between cars, trucks and buses honking non-stop to let others know he is coming up fast. That all being said, the morning this is a pain because unless you want to wait two hours to eat on campus at the half-Egyptian half Americanized places or the over prised cooperate America franchises you have to give yourself enough to hit up a deli or sidewalk shop before making the bus. At least its not cold here- at least respectively to home. We are running about 17 degrees average. For you crazy Americans and your F, that's about 60 or so. It would actually be really nice and most of my clothes are dressed to match the high winds on campus where not a variable I accounted for. The campus is out in the desert therefore there is nothing to stop the wind from gusting pretty hard.



Old Cairo



The other day we took a trip to Old Cairo and got to see some pretty cool looking buildings that where really important at one point or another and have lots of "history." I took some pictures. It was cool to look at, I gave out some ohs and ah's but that was about it. It was neat to stand next to walls that where 1,000 years old but honesty It wasn't super impressive. It was a wall, an old wall, but a wall. I see walls all the time. ( I do not want to hear any reference to these comments in reference to the pyramids- I have not seen pyramids before. I have seen walls)



We also saw some large and very cool churches. Church's here definitely wear the pants when it comes to churches in the States. or at least southern Minnesota. (That being said, the Mosques put the Churches to shame-architecturally) Overall it was cool but I didn't really care to much. I know this may surprise some of you but I didn't get a ton out of it. I did get some Molto though, nom nom nom. (its a bread treat wth some chocolate in it)





The campus- koshery el-omda



So far i have been on campus a couple of days and I am still lost. For the number of students the university has the campus is enormous. The buildings are all very nice and there a lot of water fountains around the grounds. It also has random patches of grass next to patches of irrigated sand with flowers and those are usually just next to sand. I still have no idea what buildings are what because they all have names that are hard to say and remember not to mention things are not labeled well. I should expect that though cause I'm in Egypt. On the way back from campus a group of about six of us got off the bus a little early in Zamalek and went to restaurant near the main road but a street back. It was a really cool place. When we open the door it was if a cloud of Sheesha smoke had just escaped. My meal was stuffed Pigeon with rice. The full meal was 25LE, about 5 dollars.





Horse back riding



Last night I got to go on a trip out to Giza to go horse back riding near the pyramids. It sounded like a really good idea and under a normal situation would have been a fantastic time however I discovered something about myself; I am allergic to horses. Honestly I am not all together sure that is what it was because I have been around horses before but I had a wicked reaction which made the trip rather un-enjoyable. Given that I am still glad I went because I got to See the Pyramids-sorta. It was more of a high class tease. Where we were riding was a little over a half mile from them and although we could see them, it was dark and they where in silhouette. It was still very cool to see their outlines and know that if nothing else so far had slapped me in the face with giant red, white and black Egypt first that moment was it.





-----------------

Today I went to the Campus again to get some more stuff done. I set an appointment to change my class schedule. If i get what i ant I will be in Arabic, a class on ancient Egypt and General chemistry 1 for 12 credits. There was another class I wanted to take but it is at the same time as my Arabic class. I also pulled out enough money to get by for food the next week or two, pay the dues for the Alexandria trip (Future blog and photos to come) as well has to have a opening amount for opening a bank account here. I really am in love with the Egyptian pound. Well at that most things Egyptian. With an exchange rate of 1-5.4 whats not to love.




The Nile trip

Tonight a bunch of us went on a Nile Dinner cruise. We where on a very large boat and they served a meal plus dessert and then had culturally appropriate live entertainment for the rest of the night. Some of the acts included but where not limited too a belly dancer as well as a guy with a Sufi like skirt that did a heck of a lot of spinning. They played music with it and the performers would walk around for everyone to take pictures with. Those who where lucky enough to have the Camera guy on board take their picture with the performer where also lucky enough to get suckered into paying the 30LE for a print of it; and they brought them out full size printed and in a nice "to go" folder so how could you really say no?

Hope your enjoying the posts- and questions or comments write on my face book group wall.

I also will have more pictures and videos ( videos are mostly of the performers) up as soon as I can.

Phil