Happy Halloween, everyone.

Struck By a Fish

After neglecting this blog for a period of time (again), I feel this event pertinent to my experience here in Egypt. The other night a lot of us went to the Fish Market, which is probably the best (or most expensive, as I've heard) restaurant in the city. It was certainly some of the best food I've tasted in ages - most Egyptian food is really simple, and consists of bread, beans, meat, potatoes....lots of carbs and protein, essentially. Anyway, there were real-dead vegetables at this place, which is a sign of how fancy it was. Not having eaten fish in a while (and having enjoyed the last time I did greatly) I ordered some here. It was quite good. After dinner we left to go get some ice cream by the sea, which was also nice.

I woke up in the middle of the night feeling as if an alien were trying to burst out of my stomach, and spent a considerable amount of time in the bathroom between 3-5 AM (more or less, I didn't exactly check). So these past few days have been spent feeling extremely weak and incapable of eating anything that isn't a piece of bread. But I'm better right now, or so it seems. It's a more than a little frustrating that I missed the trip to the White+Black deserts, because I was really looking forward to that. Maybe we can round up a bunch of folk in the future.

The past bit of time has been relatively uneventful. More of my feeling generally apathetic to doing anything. Part of that is the setting, part of that is because I don't really have anyone to do anything with. Traveling by oneself is alright, but kind of lame at the same time. Also, by myself I have to be a lot more watchful of my stuff, etc. Egypt isn't that bad, but still. It isn't home in that regard.

Speaking of which, the email addressing J-term class sign-ups has brought up the issue of when I'll be returning. As financial aid has deemed fit to more or less forget part of my package, I may have to return earlier, and with fewer places under my belt. Sigh. I have arguing yet to do, but honestly.

I'll reiterate that, despite my (I assume) negative-seeming comments about being here, Egypt isn't bad. It just isn't....anything in particular. For me, at least. There are some folks in the program who I can tell are enjoying it, but I'm having difficulty. Also, because we're so stupid in terms of language we can't really learn anything of substance (or that we haven't already read about in classes) from the Egyptians. Kind of silly. The whole thing feels as though it is without nuance. At least this is a good experience for language use and acquisition.

Finally, if anyone is at all interested in a visit to Egypt, complete with complementary/caustic tour-guide, I would advise them to say so soon, as I have to work out my return to the US, in whatever simple/complex form that takes.

I hope everyone is enjoying themselves, regardless of locale/climate.

Huh

I'm currently grappling with the notion that I have become relatively indifferent to learning much more about Arab culture. Not against, just indifferent. Unfortunate that I reach this conclusion while in an Arab country.

The Turkish Town

This weekend went by quickly, though somewhat boring. As I did not yet have a cell phone (I repurchased one finally), I wasn’t really in contact with anyone, and so I didn’t have much ability to get in touch with anyone else and run around the country. So I hung around my apartment, relaxing and doing homework. I bought a nice book about the history of Alexandria, and went exploring and photographing in Anfoushi, which is a pretty unique neighborhood. When the island of Pharos was built, there used to be a dike/bridge that connected it to the mainland, but when the city started to decline it silted up, so now there is this giant peninsula separating (what is now) the East from the West Harbor – and everything was built on the peninsula was the old Arab/Turkish town, Anfoushi. It used to be a fishing village, so now it’s home of a large fish market, lots of fish-grills and probably the coolest thing, the shipyards. It’s kind of sketchy (no, it’s plain sketchy) in some parts, because the neighborhood is so poor, but it’s definitely a change from the rest of Alex, which is either 19th century European or 20th century developments. Then I wandered over to the Citadel, which was surprisingly not very crowded for such a lovely weekend afternoon, and sat on the water. A pretty tranquil experience, I must say.

Next on my plans in Alexandria is to visit the Orthodox cemetery, and the old Greek Necropolis. Also, I missed Kom ash-Shoqafa (which is apparently a Medieval Wonder of the World) when the program went because I was still tripping off of drugs, so that needs to be done as well. Speaking of tripping on drugs, I saw a kid on my street passed out on the sidewalk (or sort of the sidewalk, anyway) clutching a cough-syrup bottle in his hand. Kind of a weird sight.

Shopping needs to be done soon…or we will simply starve in the morning. We have no gas for the stove or shower at the moment, because of an issue with the new bellboy (in Egypt the two are connected, seriously) not being present. Hopefully soon, because I miss my daily regiment of tea in the morning.

Finally, you may notice some new photos on my blog. Most are from Alex (various parts), though the more obviously desert pictures are from Siwa, and the pictures of actually gorgeous beaches are from outside of Marsa Matrouh. Then there are a few of ancient/important things from Cairo. Just to give you all a vague summary.

Grinding Along

So I am in fact back from Siwa, as of quite a bit ago. Siwa was pretty cool, though I'm not entirely sure it was really worth the negatives (the uncomfortable bus, the nine hour drive, the awful toilets, the mosquitoes). There were definitely positives (the desert, the beaches around Matrouh, etc) but it was hard to really enjoy them given the other difficulties. All the same, it was an alright change from the ordinary.

Unfortunately, I left my cellphone in the hotel, so I have to buy a new one. Luckily it wasn't an expensive phone (relatively speaking). I have that to do, then finally get internet soon (which is grating on my nerves). Some housekeeping things to busy myself with at a (hopefully) later date, but for the most part all is kind of calm.

In other news there are plans to go to the White Desert the last weekend in October - which means we'll be camping in the middle of the exceedingly creepy desert for Halloween. I'm pretty excited. This weekend the program may be going to a beach not too far from here, which may also be nice. It'll be interesting to see because the beach is by a town built for employees of the oil-refineries that line the Northern coast, so it's quite different from anything else you'd see in Egypt.

I'll try to have something more interesting to say next time, but for now the whole experience is sort of wearing. I like Egypt, but I feel like when I leave I'd be perfectly fine with not coming back. Nothing particular, just that the interest isn't there. Which is sort of sad, given that the point of study abroad is sort of the opposite...oh well. I'll see where things go.

A Strange Situation

I am currently sitting in one of the more upscale cafe deals in Alexandria, Délices, which has free wireless and air conditioning (though at this point the AC is unnecessary. I'm sitting here, watching Europeans walk in and out, speaking a million languages. Apparently it was famous about a century ago, when the city was 60% European, so the tourists just keep streaming in.

So once again the internet in our apartment cut off, but this time for a good reason: we have to pay for the next month. The interesting thing is that we're all going on vacation (the whole program, that is) to Siwa Oasis in Western Egypt (quite far away), so we don't really see the point in paying at the moment.

That sort of goes for other things, like food. We (by which I mean I, because Phil doesn't really do anything) have been lazy about procuring food for the same reason, so these past few days have been a lot of scrounging/cleaning out the refrigerator. When we get back we'll have a lot of shopping to do.

Fortunately and unfortunately, today is Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim equivalent to Christmas. It's hopefully going to be pretty cool, as we have this day off from school before our real vacation. Unfortunately, so does the rest of the city, which means I can't do a great deal of things (deal with out of country mail, set up a bank account, exchange a torn $100 the exchangers won't except, etc...). It's more than a little frustrating.

At the very least classes are going more or less well, other than absolute insanity with Arabic numbers (writing the numbers, like 'four cats' is ridiculously complicated). I'm currently reading Harry Potter, which is inspiring a sort of guilty confidence in my reading ability. I know the story so well from reading the first book many, many times, so it's not difficult to guess the meaning of new words. At the same time, that's very helpful because I'm gradually picking up useful literary words and expressions that I haven't learned in FusHa class. Also Harry Potter makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Ahem. In English I'm reading The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie, and so far it's been sort of meh. He may well redeem himself, but there isn't much time left for it.

Alex is amazingly enough starting to cool off (praise be to God!), to the point where I left the apartment in a hoodie. The plan for tonight is hopefully to eat a lot and go to bed early so I don't miss our rendezvous at the college for our trip to Siwa (8:30 AM - criminal). Hope everyone else is well, and will get in touch when I'm back in a week or so.

A Month

Today is the one month mark. What has happened since then (and my last entry, additionally)?

I arrived in Egypt knowing very, very little spoken Egyptian dialect. Not only did I sound like an idiot, but I couldn’t get some of the more important pieces of information across (oh, like this isn’t the right hotel, for one…). It became a production trying to get almost anything (because odds are that the Egyptian word is nowhere near the Standard) and trying to give taxi drivers directions to my apartment was almost impossible.

At this point I can deal with the more important situations without too much trouble. I’ve successfully been able to navigate the food system, the transportation system (for the most part) and just generally staying alive. I can communicate what I need pretty effectively, though there are still certain vocabulary gaps that the Egyptian Dialect class is helping to fill over time.

I went to Cairo by myself this past weekend, learned how to get about the city, saw the Pyramids and the Old (Coptic) City. I explored a bit, but it’s Cairo – it will take a lot of weekends to explore the place, and I’m not sure I really want to. Being in Cairo for a few days definitely increased my appreciation of Alexandria. I’ll be sure to post pictures somehow, probably via facebook, but there are quite a lot.

Right now, as three weeks ago, I am sick. Though I seem to be worse, as my cough sometimes forces me to the ground and I also have a cold. I can’t really seem to sleep, either, which is helping neither my physical nor mental health. Something needs to change.