Jewelry and Juice

So, a couple things to report:

1) There was a craft bazaar on campus yesterday and today organized by STAR (Student Action for Refugees) with some beautiful art, scarves, jewelry and other stuff being sold by Sudanese refugees (a lot of the stuff was made in Sudan, too). I bought a few gorgeous things yesterday - a wooden beaded bracelet and a gold scarf. I went back today for a painting (by a Sudanese refugee artist, and it's a gorgeous painting of two women and a man dressed in traditional clothing, but you can't see their faces), and ended up buying that as well as a woven/wooden tray that was made in Darfur. Theoretically I'm going to use the tray here for tea, and then give it to my mom as a present when I get home (don't worry, Mom, I'll get you something I don't use first, too) unless I like it too much to give up. It is really pretty. Apparently they're holding this bazaar every month, so there goes all the money I'm saving on cheap food and cabs... ^^

2) I finally made it to one of the fresh juice stands that are scattered around the city - there's one on my way home from campus. I got blood orange juice (2 LE, ~40 cents), and the guy just cut two blood oranges in half and squeezed them in an old-fashioned press... the juice was so amazing. I'm going back there all the time. Next time, maybe orange/carrot?

My Birthday and Other Fun Stuff...

So, this past Saturday was my birthday; 20 years old, no longer a teenager. Or, to quote my boyfriend, "Congratulations on two decades of epic win!!" On Saturday I had a few people over to my apartment, and we had food and played Uno. It was good fun but I forgot to take pictures. Sorry!

On Friday (reverse chronological order... I'm quite tricky), I went to the big fancy mall (City Stars) with a bunch of the girls from my apartment building. (I actually do have a few pictures from this excursion, just one or two, but I haven't uploaded them yet). It was pretty cool; we had Lebanese food, and smoked shisha (flavored tobacco smoked in a water pipe), and went to several stores, including Spinney's which I'm told is a lot like Wal-Mart (I'm not a Wal-Mart person myself... it was like Target except larger and not as well-organized). I also went to Starbucks there; even though there are several Western-style and international coffee chains around the city, I haven't seen many Starbucks, so I was jazzed to have a vanilla crème frappucino. I got carsick on the way back, though. The highway was almost a parking lot, but not quite, so we had a great deal of stop-and-go and an obscenely long drive. Still altogether worth it, though.

Also, I wanted to tell you guys about how I've found a favorite grocery store. It's pretty near my apartment where there happen to be, for some reason I can't quite fathom, about 5 markets of the same type right next to each other. My favorite is the one on the end, farthest away from where I cross the street, which I discovered by accident about a week and a half ago when I happened to be coming from a different direction than I normally do. I like it because the proprietor is really friendly and helpful, speaks a bit of English and laughs good-naturedly at my Arabic, and always seems so happy to see me when I come in. Also, today, I proved trusted enough (or something) to receive the number one can call to have the store deliver to one's apartment. Yay! Did I mention that they deliver everything here? Seriously... prescriptions, bottled water, groceries. I even got a McFlurry delivered right after I got here, when I was like... man, I could go for a McFlurry.

Also, I've already tried once to make pilaf from scratch and was not wholly successful (although I still ate it). I had some ideas for adjustments to make, and if it turns out well I'll post a recipe.

The Pyramids

Edit: I've added my pyramids and Old Cairo photos to my Flickr account since I posted this entry. I actually have more than are up there, if you're interested, but it takes forever to upload that many pictures, so maybe I can mail you a CD or something when I get home. The best ones are uploaded, anyway. ^^

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So today, I went to the Pyramids at Giza, and to Sakkara (which also has pyramids, but not as impressive). It was AWESOME.

So there are three pyramids at Giza, and it's hard to get into the Great Pyramid because they only sell 300 tickets per day, so we went inside the second pyramid instead (which apparently is often used instead of the great pyramid in photos, because it still has some of the facing limestone at the top and is more picturesque). It was really cramped in a lot of places - in some of the tunnels, we had to bend over double. I also totally stumbled on the way out and fell on my butt - I'm so smooth. Still, even though I was dripping sweat by the end, it was totally amazing. I was inside one of the pyramids! How cool is that? (They didn't let us take pictures inside)



Some of the group, including me and Sarah, broke off to go on a camel ride. I never realized how tall camels are... totally taller than horses, and like 90% joints. Seriously. It was mildly terrifying, but in a cool way.



We also saw the Sphinx, and were totally harassed by vendors. I actually started having a lot of fun bargaining with them to see how low I could prices (usually not low enough for me to actually think whatever it was was worth buying, although I did get a pretty scarf. And there's a singing camel I may get when I go back with Kel or Aunt Liz. It was just so kitsch I couldn't stand it.



After the pyramids we went to Sakkara, but by then it was already like 3 and they hadn't fed us all day, so we were totally starving and no one paid much attention. Then we went to a restaurant that was a lot of fun... there was this band that wandered around and they got me to get up and dance with them. Sarah apparently has pictures and video of me doing this, but I just have this picture of the band:



I have a ton more pictures, but I haven't uploaded them all yet. Sorry! I'll do it when I get the chance.

Back From Outer Space...

So, the internet is now in a state of mostly working most of the time, so I'm back posting. I've done a lot of cool stuff in the past week and a half, which, unfortunately, I don't quite have the energy to describe in detail this far after the fact. Here's the highlights:

I went on an "Old Cairo" tour with the other international students. We saw some cool churches and stuff like that (including the area where, supposedly, the holy family stayed for a month after their flight to Egypt). We also saw the oldest mosque in Egypt. It was all really cool and at some point in the near future I'll post pictures in my Flickr account.

I also started classes. In addition to the classes listed in a previous post, I'm auditing choir. It's a tiny choir, which I'm pretty used to because by the time I graduated IMSA our choir was tiny, and the director's clearly very very competent, and the other singers are nice. As for my other classes, they're good, except that Arabic is really really tough. My favorite class right now is Intro to Sufism.

Last night, Egypt won the Africa Cup, and that was quite an experience just because of the amazing outpouring of joy from the fans. People were yelling in Tahrir Square so that I could hear them in my apartment, and everyone was dancing and singing. It was cool.

To wind up the entry, I want to tell you about something I saw walking back from class today that made me happy. So you know how in the US people wear t-shirts that say things like "naughty slut" on them? Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but you get my point. So I was walking down Qasr al-Einy today and I saw a hijabi wearing a top that said "Nice, Sweet Girl" on it. I think that's a cultural difference I can pretty much get behind (please disregard the fact that for like 2 years, one of my favorite shirts said "I don't care if I'm late for class, he's wearing Abercrombie." I bought it 'cause the picture on it had this cool Roy Lichtenstein thing going on. Anyway, I still thought the thing with the girl was sweet).