Early Entry - Friday, August 29, 2008

Today went well enough, given that it was our first day on the pledge. We started with the placement exams at 10, for which I was on time and, amazingly enough, well rested. I think I did well on them, though the translation bit from Arabic-English was kind of difficult. But almost as soon as everyone was finished with the tests we had to sign the pledge, almost without time to think. I guess it’s better that way, but whatever. At any rate, the transition into Arabic has merely slowed/complicated our abilities to converse, because most of us know enough to actually communicate what we need in Arabic in some way. Basically, every interaction from my mouth (or anyone else’s, for that matter) into the ear of an Egyptian is fine, but it’s the other way around that tends to get confusing. Basically when they hear us say one thing well they expect us to be fluent, and therefore babble to us accordingly. However, I’ve been finding it quite comfortable to be among the other Americans when we walk around the city, because I blend in less with the Egyptian locals and therefore don’t get looked at like a moron when I speak poorly.
After exams, we were done for the day, so I led a bunch of people to the place along the Corniche that Mona and her sister brought Phil and me. It is absolutely gorgeous, whether by day or night. We relaxed there for an hour or so, then returned to the dorms. I didn’t feel like making the haul to Muharram Bey (my neighborhood, which I’m realizing is kind of off the beaten path of most taxis), so I followed a few folks to the dorms and wound up eating with them, though their supervisor was adamant that it be my first and only time doing so, on the count of needing to prepare the correct amount of food. Regardless, I hung out there, and we sung some Red Hot Chili Peppers songs – first in English of course (it doesn’t really violate the pledge…), then we with much silliness tried translated ‘under the bridge’ into ‘tahta al-kubri’, etc, which was really quite a spectacle.
After that was our arranged gathering at this club in the area of Muhattat Rammel, which is sort of the Time’s Square of Alex. It was this sort of American-esque wanna-be bar type deal, but the alcohol-drinkers seemed to enjoy it, though I was quite satisfied with a coke made with real cane sugar. Mmm. Getting to the club by taxi was kind of an ordeal, as the driver (I think) took us a really roundabout way on purpose, in order to make it seem further than it really is so we’d pay him more. We had an idea of how far it was though, but because there was a lot of traffic we gave him a little more for his trouble than what we had planned. Taxi culture here is kind of stressful sometimes, but the one I took tonight was alright enough. He offered to help me learn Arabic on the side, but to err on the side of safety I said ‘no’ and that I don’t have a telephone, though I thanked him a lot for the offer.
After ‘clubbing’ we went wandering the streets of the downtown area, looking for a purse for some of the girls and an English-Arabic+Arabic-English dictionary that didn’t suck, which proved sort of difficult. We wound up finding neither, so kept walking until we were within reasonable distance of a taxi area, bought some Kunafa (a pastry type deal) and sat on the Corniche to watch the sea together, just to relax. These Egyptian students from the university who were near us started talking to us (because as foreigners we stood out like sore thumbs), mostly to Adrian (a British guy in the program, from Dartmouth) and me. One of them was actually a Geography major at the university, and he had to take GIS as well at some point which was cool to find out. It was nice talking to them , and already the language pledge has been paying off; my 3ammia (the colloquial) is improving a lot, after just a week here. Hopefully by the end of four months I’ll be comfortable, though I still have to figure out if I want to stay for the whole year. It may well be very worth it to be here for the entire year.
At any rate, I’m quite tired from a long day of walking, and for some reason the internet that we were stealing stopped working tonight, so at some point this weekend we have to buy DSL and hook it up to the wireless router we have in the flat, so we aren’t uncivilized. Lucky for the people in the dorms that they have AC AND free wireless. I’m a little jealous. Hopefully soon I’ll be able to communicate with the rest of the world, and with the other students here so we can coordinate stuff. Over and out.