Extra Ordinary

Since hating life on Mt. Sinai, my life has been extra ordinary. And not extraaaaaaaaa ooooooordinary in the Nat-King-Cole-singing-the-opening-of LiLo’s-Parent-Trap sense, but instead in the sense that everything that has happened in the last week has happened the whole time I’ve been here. But seeing as to this point I’ve only seen fit to write about the extraordinary, perhaps you’ll take interest in the more common occurrences in Egypt.

I have made a lot of passing references to my eternal struggle with the taxi drivers of this country. But I gather from the questions of the sole commenter of my posts that perhaps I need to make clearer what these battles typically entail. I had a whole paragraph typed up, but to shorten the story, we get in cabs we believe have meters, only to be informed halfway through the trip the meter is broken, and when we get out the negotiations start. There are two schools of thought on how to best handle this situation. There is the Richie Roy “Just Say La” method, which involves shouting La (no) at the taxi driver until he gets more frustrated with the language barrier than we are. Then there is the Patrick Schweighart “Walk Away” method. Pat will throw the money into the seat, and peace. Sometimes the cabbie curses and drives away, other times he gets out and attempts to drag Pat to the police station. Personally, I prefer watching the walk away method.

Memorable cab rides include the ride home from the American Expatriate Club, when ten police officers were needed to broker a deal between me, Ryan and a cab driver who threw the five pounds we gave him into the wind in an expensive show of disgust. Then there was the time when our taxi broke down on the highway halfway to the city. We were chugging along, and then we just kinda coasted to the side of the road. I figured it was a cigarette break, but then he started pouring some liquid into the hood. And then the car didn’t start. I’m not really car guy, and unfortunately neither was the cabbie. He tried a variety of different things, including driving with the hood open and completely obstructing the view, but each time we managed only seven feet before petering back out. Finally he threw his hands up, which we took to be our cue that it was time to get walking. To his credit, he wouldn’t even take a pity-five pounds, restoring my faith in humanity.

To return to the American Expatriate Club, it reminded me very much of a Rick’s. There were all types of strange, creepy Westerners there, presumably trying to escape the harsh realities of Cairo. The drinks are cheap and so is the conversation. I briefly considered opening my own Rick’s, but thus far I have been unable to convince Mitch to address me as Mr. and learn the piano. Play it again, Mitch! Oh the times we would have. But in general the place—and the places like it—isn’t all that fun. The most fun I’ve had there is when I went on an off-night, and watched a Blackburn game with a couple of real live English fans.

Which brings me to my first SPORT REPORT. Watching Blackburn games in the bar was much better than watching them online, during which I am always inundated with offers to get an American green card by completing tasks such as cream pie-ing Uncle Sam in the face or popping the correctly colored balloon (hint: it’s green). Well, Blackburn have been so bad and boring I’ve probably pied enough Uncle Sam’s to bring half of Cairo back to America with me. Thank goodness I have the Buffalo Bills to cheer me up.

I was in the gym a few days ago running twelve miles less than what my mom ran in her half-marathon today when I happened upon the Arab University Women’s Basketball Championship. This is a tournament between all the Middle Eastern universities to promote unity and so on. Being somewhat of a girls basketball connoisseur from my days of watching the East Aurora Girls Varsity team run train on New York State (there apparently is no link to any newspaper covering the state championship). But anyway, these girls can BALL! At least I think they were girls, but it very well may have been Kobe out there wearing a hijab. Maybe they weren’t that good, but they were very impressive for running around as conservatively as they go to the Mosque. I think my chants of “Welcome to the BLOCK PARTY!” weren’t appreciated due to the lack of street blocks in the desert. Or maybe they thought I was being obnoxious. One of the two.

I haven’t played a lot of soccer since being here, but when I’ve played it has been a lot of fun. Every Egyptian plays, and they’re not bad. But let’s just say Team Tevez could beat them 9 out of 10 times. I did get beat as bad as I’ve been though, which may be hard for those of you to believe, who have seen me get some pretty bad beatings. What made this one truly special was the guy who beat me was probably fifty pounds overweight and wearing jeans. They all wear jeans when they play soccer, and at the gym, and probably in the pool, I’ll let you know next time I’m willing to risk extreme bodily burns. So yeah, after that I went home. But not before celebrating Ryan Giggs style after scoring a tap in. Making friends all over the place.

While on the soccer subject, we witnessed a soccer style fight at our favorite Shisha place. We were just sitting there, enjoying our Turkish coffee, when these guys playing dominos jump up and start ninja kicking each other. I don’t know how to play dominos, and I don’t think I’m going to learn. Anyway security slept right through the whole affair but it was all sorted out by pushing the fighters out opposite ends of the alley. That’s the convenience of having a café in an alley way.

My acting career took a huge step last week when our non-English speaking neighbor had me voice over the documentary based on Guns, Germs, and Steel to avoid copy right infringement. The script he handed me to read from was taken right from the movie, minus the conjunctions. But apparently, and this is true, his professor was so impressed with my broken English narrating skills she thought that he hadn’t replaced the original narrator. Which turned out not to be a big deal at all, so he needn’t have gotten me in the first place. I’m glad he did though; I love doing my Crocodile Hunter accent.

And now I have actual work to do? I have to write a five page paper for Romantic Literature about poems I never understood. I hate doing work for things I don’t understand, which is why I dropped my SIS major, my Arabic minor, and now my lit minor. Quite literally the only line I understand in Wordsworth’s Prelude is “My Drift I fear is scarcely obvious”. Which I suppose could be said about this blog post, so I better get back to block quoting away five pages.

A Scent up Mt. Sinai

There’s an old saying that I picked up from ESPN’s Chris Berman; “If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, Muhammad most go to the mountain!” He was, of course, talking about Muhsin Muhammad, future hall of fame wide receiver. But the saying originated with THE Muhammad, who once asked for a mountain but God was afraid should he grant the request, he might end up crushing the Prophet. A reasonable worry! Muhammad should’ve worded his wish better, like can I have a mountain ten feet away from me. It’s all about clarity.

That anecdote was meant to lead into me going to Mt. Sinai, but it got away from me. And with my aversion of the delete key, I’m going to have to start over. Well, Thursday arrived, and we set out on an eight hour bus ride to the Sinai, take two. When I say “we,” I’m not referring to my bros and I, I’m referring to myself and 10 kids I can’t stand, five kids I like, and five I’m ambivalent towards. Open thing I quickly learned was this: I’m proud to be an American (University student), where at least I know I’m not a pretentious prick. It seems if you go to school some place people have heard of you become rather unbearable. To support my hypothesis, the worst offender was a cultured girl from Harvard, who loved to talk about Harvard culture. I just about cried when she turned my retelling of a 30 Rock episode into how the head writer for the show graduated from her school, and is always inserting jokes only she and her kind would get. Naturally, the tears were from jealousy. Then this girl from George Washington sat behind me and kept me awake for the entire ride, telling some sob story of how she wished she could stay together with her state school bf, but with her volunteering at big and important places on Capitol Hill, it just wasn’t going to work. Which reminds me, last week I accidentally had lunch with a Georgetowner, and HE SENT HIS 60 CENT FALAFEL BACK TO THE KITCHEN, citing lack of tahini sauce. I looked at him like dude, that is the equivalent of sending an open bag of M&Ms back to the store because it didn’t have enough yellow ones. My one solace was the cook got a good look at him, so that Hoya can be sure to expect some extra juicy falafels in the future.

But all my troubles left me when we reached our hotel at 4 in the morning. It was beautiful in the night, and even more so in the day. It was also jam packed with drunk Eastern Europeans, for reasons I will never know. One downside was I had to share a bed with “Dave,” but he turned out to be a perfect gentleman so it wasn’t that big of a deal at all. In the morning we hung out on the beach before “Dave,” Big Adam Morsy and I headed out snorkeling. I’m not trying to brag, but the Red Sea is actually one of the best places to snorkel in the world. In fact, on the world-famous “Travel Lady” magazine website, it comes in at #2 for best places in the world! Well, it’s the second one they wrote about. At first I was a little weary, as they gave me emerald green fins and a mask that I was sure would cut the circulation off to my brain. After all, my high school German class did nickname me “Kurbis-kopf”, and it’s hard to deny the allegations. I could see the headlines: “Ireland’s Least Competent Spy Washes onto Saudi Shore, Still Pale.” But I persevered and reveled in the colors under the bright blue sea. Red fish, blue fish, “Dave’s” flipper coming at my face, everywhere I looked there was something interesting to see. After spending two months observing varying shades of brown, the coral and sea life were welcome sights. When we got back to the boat our guide got us some cokes and we just sat there taking it all in. I didn’t bring sunscreen or a shirt because it was supposed to be a two hour cruise, a two hour cruise! The weather started getting rough and the tiny ship was tossed, if not for the complacency of the Egyptian crew the motor wouldn’t have been lost. As it were, our guide was content to let the waves batter us onto the stones and had to spend the next hour fixing the motor, while I spent my time acquiring skin cancer.

When we got back I was utterly exhausted and passed out poolside, but woke up and finished Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. And people (Shelby Krick) complain I spell poorly and have bad grammar. What about Mark Twain, the greatest American writer! Could barely read a sentence without one typo or another, let alone the cussing! It was like I was reading a rap song. Anyways, I became disappointed there was no parallel between Tom, Huck and I, so I floated over to the pool bar and drowned my sorrows in banana milk juice.

At 2 the next morning we reached Mt. Sinai, and began our ascent up the mountain path. It was fairly dark, but I quickly became aware there were camels afoot, as I almost put my own foot directly into one of their many, many camel piles. As a consequence, my gaze was directed groundward for the remainder of the trip. At one point I glanced up to find myself face-to-face with a ghost camel. Gah! I stumbled backwards a few steps, but when I steadied my flashlight I found myself walking next to the George Washington girl! GAH! We snaked our way through the mountains, and I had the impression we were circling the same mountain, Dante’s Inferno style. In the morning, however, I discovered we had just pretty much hiked a straight path and then zig-zagged it up one face of the mountain until we got to the 700 stairs, and the only thing hellish about the trip was the company. Seriously, we were taking breaks every ten minutes for people who had spent too much of their breath/life talking about their own awesomeness.

Around 6, 20 minutes before sunrise, we finally made it to the peak. Naturally there were no spots left to see the sunrise, but the Harvard girl used her considerable girth to wedge herself a spot. That left the rest of us disappointed, as it was her considerable girth that had slowed us down. By the way, I have no fear of her reading this because to do so she would have to be my friend on FB, and if that happened I’d be dead already so what would I care? And if you spoke with her for a minute you’d be using words stronger than “considerable girth.” Luckily I’m a bit taller than most, so I at least got some decent shots of the sunrise. On our descent I saw the burning bush, which is looking remarkably well for being in such a dire situation so many years ago. But by then my thoughts turned homeward; I was out of sight of Ryan, Richie and Mitch for nearly 48 hours. What kind of excitement was I missing in our dorm? Maybe Ryan would wake up before three today? When you begin to yearn for the cave that is my dorm room, you know you need sleep. I also I have an ultra-heightened case of hypochondria since being in Egypt, and needed to get home to Google image various freckles and discolorations. I fear I may have been "incepted" with the idea I'm going to catch something horrible; Leonardo has certainly been in my dreams more than once. Of course, the AUC health center doesn't diagnose cases of inception, so I'd rather not waste my morning waiting in line.

After a nine hour bus ride back (we took an extra hour to look at a hole in the ground) I made my glorious return, to find it was Mitch who provided the excitement by sleeping a full 19 hours. That gave us something to talk about. But then, by a stroke of fate we hear this irresistible melody coming from across campus. I could barely make out the words, but it sounded like the singer was In Miami. I followed the beat and it paid huge dividends, we came across FREE SHAWERMA! Which is like a delicious Arabian taco. I had forgotten a big Lebanese festival had been planned, and was relieved not to have missed it. But my, how dressed up people got for a Lebanese festival. And they all looked so young! We felt slightly out of place. It all made sense, however, when the loud speaker came on. “We’d like to thank everyone for coming out to our first annual High School Model UN Ball!” So we had crashed a high school dance and ate all of their food, repping our white Ts, completely ignorant to how unwanted we were at the event. So I took a few shawerma roadies and made my way to my long awaited bed. Turns out the Lebanese festival was tonight, and filled myself til I couldn’t eat another bite. Then they brought out this dessert that was a mixture of wheat, cottage cheese, and barrels of sugar, so now I think I’m going to go lie down and die somewhere.

Once More Unto the Beach, Dear Bros, Once More!

I realized after writing the no one will get the pun, through no fault of your own, but rather of my far too regular watching of Good Will Hunting. Robin Williams quotes Shakespeare’s Henry V “Once More unto the Breach, Dear Friends, Once More!” But more famously it is the title of Gilmore Girls Episode 721. I don’t ever want it said that this blog, or that show, panders to the ignorant.

Beach weekend! Me and the bros (minus Mitch, who is no longer a bro until further notice, possibly tomorrow) headed up North to Alexandria to wait for buses and argue with taxi drivers, and see the sights in between. Alexandria is the Buffalo to Cairo’s New York City. Second biggest in the state/nation, great waterfront view, wonderful people, and there are sheep in the street. It’s only a two and a half hour train ride, when you don’t figure in the five and half hours we waited for the train after our trademark poor planning. Anyways, it gave us a good chance to get to know each other in a way that sitting everyday in the same dorm room doesn’t.

But then we started chugging along and the times were merry. We weren’t quite sure where we were going to spend the night, it was either this cheap hotel or at our 34-year-old lawyer/international lover friend of friend’s BEACH house. I was hoping for cheap hotel. See, Pat was in Alexandria a few weeks ago and met this character, Amar, at a bar, and ever since Amar desperately tried to get Pat to come back for his birthday party. As luck would have it, Ryan, Richie, and I were headed up that same night of the birthday party. We met Amar in a bar in Cairo a couple nights beforehand to make sure he wasn’t shady, and three hours of his Conquests of Love throughout Europe we were convinced this guy was pretty straightedge.

On the way up there we found out the party of the century had been moved from his friend’s mansion to above a restaurant. So we got into town, checked into a four-bed room, and went out to celebrate now having a 35-year-old creepy friend. The place was pretty chill, and as to be expected Amar had a lot of young, strapping friends, many of them British. We had a great time, but nothing to really tell about until Richie was persuaded to call one of the Brits a fairy, more out of obedience than homophobia. I’ve never seen a name make such a mark. The kid was livid, and stood up ready to turn the clock back to 1812. A ten minute shouting match ensued, both arguing the merits of their nation, while I slammed plates of hummus with Pat, in what could only be the reason for the most severe hiccups either of us have ever had. When the dust settled it was apparent the Brits were as douchey as their popped collars suggested they were, and we were as culturally sensitive as our passports suggested we were. A fun night overall that left plenty to be talked about on the way home.

The next morning we got a jump on things and were up by 11. We headed straight out to the Citadel and I loved it. It was a medieval castle, on the BEACH! We were as much an attraction to the Egyptians as the sights were to us. Several asked to take pictures with us, primarily because of the Tattooed Freak that is Richie Roy. Getting a tattoo is taboo in Islam, but there’s no taboo against getting your picture taken with a damned infidel. We explored the fort for awhile then went to the Catacombs, which also were awesome but didn’t allow pictures. Buried deep in the earth, they had some awesome caves dug out to put dead people in. Here we almost got in another fight, when we remarked how another tour group must be having difficulty with the guide only speaking Arabic and the group only speaking Japanese, or so we thought. Then we hear, and I quote, “We’re not Japanese, BRO.” Oh god damn.

After that I returned to whence I came, the library. Yes, a lot of people don’t know, but before I read resumes at Chemonics, before I looked good at Food & Friends, before I spilled coffee at The Roycroft, and even before I got fired from my work-study position at SIS, I nearly died of loneliness by working at a library. But this library here wasn’t any ma and pa shop East Aurora Library, where we measured DVD’s in and out with tally marks; this was the Great Library of Alexandria, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. Except that one got destroyed, so this is just the Library of Alexandria, but it is still pretty great. It functions more as a museum and convention center, but it can still hold up to 2,000 readers, or approximately the population of East Aurora proper.

That night we went to a delightful little seaside restaurant, The Mermaid. True Adam fans will know I’m no fan of fish, but when you’re in Alexandria, you eat fish. So we had a wonderful meal of sea bass, calamari, salad and dessert all for $10, and I had that unfamiliar feeling of being content with a meal. Afterwards, we went to a famous place of expatriates for the night, Spitfire, where we had a wonderful evening and I was forced/enabled to eat these little doughnut holes all night. On the way back we had a one pound falafel shop, where we were served spicy falafels. I’m not one to make excuses, but I feel they basically left out the falafel and gave me a spice patty in a pita bread, because I almost died. Richie thought I might be able to handle it better and could handle spicy sauces, the way people at Inauguration were surprised when I curled up in a ball and demanded to be left for dead. Yes, I’m from Buffalo, do I not bleed? Too much Shakespeare for one post, I’ll tone it down.

Next day was straight up BEACH. We had two of the toughest roughest taxi drivers you could ask for but we didn’t let that spoil our tan time. First beach we went to might as well have been Lake Erie for all the trash that was floating in it, but we had better luck at a beach farther out. Eventually, though, we knew we had to pack our bags and head back to our lack of responsibilities in Cairo. So we got to the train station, said we were looking for a bus to Cairo, got crammed into a mini-bus (leading cause of death for tourists in Egypt, true story), and were out on the road. About a minute into it we ask, “Are we going to Cairo?” We weren’t. But we were going to a bus station where we could get one there. Of course, the bus didn’t leave for another 2 ½ hours, but it was fine as it gave us a chance to get to know each other. A three hour ride later and one final taxi ride later, we were back in the middle of the desert, where we belong.

I also think it is hilarious GoogleAds think my audience will be most interested in hot Bollywood action. They know you’re reading this, Rochelle King and Cassie Wheeldon.

Here is a link to the new album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2097028&id=1201016658&l=175db4acd7

29°C and Sand

Finally, Thursday night was here! Not much had gone on during the week, and I was ready to head to the Sinai Peninsula in order to follow the footsteps of this blog’s namesake, get my beach on, and see YET ANOTHER MONASTERY. But it wasn’t to be.

I was excitedly packing my bag when Mitch stuck his head in my room. In his western-Canadian drawl he asked if I had looked at the weather. I replied in the negative, assuming the night would be like the last forty nights I had been in the Egypt, dry and hot. Mitch had checked the weather, and he told me, “29 degrees and sand.” Upon opening my window I found the sand forecast to accurate. Damn you Jack-Off, damn you. Apparently sandstorms don’t just occur when you steal a magic genie lamp. They occur when I want to get my tan on too. With the trip postponed, there will be much more opinion than the normal factual reporting you’re used to from this publication (EDITOR’S NOTE: It also gets slightly blasphemous).

My first thought was what the significance of the sandstorm was. Is it possible that God has taken notice of my blog’s popularity? I did have 3 page views yesterday, and not including the two times I visited to check. Does he fear that climbing Mt. Moses will give me the last bit of authority necessary to start me new world order? By his own admission, he is a jealous God. Well if He/She/It thinks I need some slabs of stone to dictate how this world should work, He/She/It’s got another thing coming. Here are my Studying in Egypt Ten Commandments, given to me by no one (unlike a certain prophet I know):

1. I am the Travel Blogger who brought you off of Facebook, the house of drunken pictures and annoying status updates (Gooooooooooo Billsssssssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). There shall be no Travel Blogging before mine (except Feierman’s fotolog, but that’s fine because it’s hardly a blog and he left a month before everyone else)

2. Do not make images of this Travel Blog, all rights are reserved to the author, including the forthcoming Broadway musical under the same title

3. Do not swear by this blog. While most things recorded here have some semblance of truth to them, I often lie to make stories more entertaining

4. Remember the Holy Day, Friday. Nothing will be open so you have to plan ahead, or else you will be very, very hungry

5. Skype thy Father and thy Mother. They worry about you, and it’s a good excuse to look at yourself on your screen, see what looks work which ones don’t

6. I’ll actually keep my forerunner’s sixth suggestion. Three thousand(?) years later we can still agree murder isn't cool

7. Do not commit public displays of affection. Especially not twice, two kisses=expulsion from the dorms

8. Do not let cab drivers steal from you. They will try to charge you $15 for an hour long taxi ride that should only cost $10. Be vigilant, be harsh. At the end of the day their feelings aren’t gonna hurt any worse than the chronic back problems they have from working extremely long hours for extremely low pay. Yo no hablo Ingles, bro. And certainly not Arabic.

9. Do not bear false pretenses of speaking Arabic. If you’re trying to impress the group of Americanners you’re with by being the native speaker in your traveling group, don’t. They’ll know when your cab ends up in the middle of the desert, the cabbie is demanding you get out, and you’re still shouting Cahara Jadeeda!

10. Do not covet thy roommate’s falafel. Guys, I’m stockpiling for Friday. Don’t touch em. Yes I need all seven of them!

Of course for a more traditional account of the Ten Commandments you’d have to listen to Congressman Lynn Westmoreland’s hilarious recollection of them on the Colbert Report. It is seriously the funniest interview you will ever see, and I really hope you watch it.

While I am decreeing my wishes, you should all buy a pie from Food & Friends. I hate to get all Maggie Skelton I’m-gonna-use-social-media-to-promote-my-own-selfish-cause on you, cause I really do detest it when I get on Facebook and she’s making me look at starving children, but this is mutually beneficial. You get some of the best pie I ever tasted (and you know I’ve eaten a lot pie in my day), and you help those in DC who are living with AIDS/HIV, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses. If I remember correctly you’re all poor, or at least that’s what you said when I asked you for money at the last party, so maybe you could find a friend and buy a pie together? If you need flavor recommendations, I’m always on Facebook.

Speaking of my copious amounts of free time, I’ve decided I need a profile picture for this blog. But, after Emily Beyer tore my FB prof pic apart for being too Egypty, I need public opinion to pick the one for this blog. I tried to keep to the standard six American profile pictures you generally see, but I couldn't get four girls to pose with me so I knocked it down to five. Also I added a distinct Egypt taste to it. If you would please view the pictures below and then vote at the top right of this page for the one you think I should use, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Option A: The Falaphisor

Option B: Quarter-pounders

Option C: Falafel Belly (not even flexing girls)

Option D: Two Much Falafel To Handel

Option E: Falafel Eyes

Special thanks to Emily Lelandais for taking the Falaphisor photo, which the onlooking Egyptians will never truly understand. My favorite picture is the candid one directly below, taken by the shutter camera after I had accidentally dropped my second falafel during my antics. Just look at the pain on that face and tell me I don't love falafels.

Hanging with Vin Diesel and Jack-Off

We exited Hurrayah in a somewhat drowsy state. It was Thursday night (weekend night cuz they can’t get anything right here)and pretty late. I was pretty full of western beverages and Lima beans (see below), content to go home and sleep both off. (Quick aside, they weren’t Lima beans, but that’s the closest description I can give you. Where most bars put out peanuts, this one put out these disgusting Lima bean substitutes. I ate them tho because I have an eating problem. Which reminds me of a few weeks ago when the bartender at this classy British place, Pub 28, absolutely refused to give me and my roommates another plate of peanuts. Again because I have an eating problem.) Back to exiting Hurrayah. While I was in what Mitch calls in his native tongue the “washroom”, my roommates struck up a conversation with three Egyptians outside. They took an extreme liking to us, and a few alley ways later, we started to be able to understand what they were saying.

One thing that could be understood by both groups was “sheesha”. This excited the Egyptians and we started off quickly through the streets. While traveling in between the donkey carts and taxi cabs we learned more about our new friends. There was Rallah, the only one who could speak understandable English, and is currently at the University in Cairo I believe. You would have to ask Richie though, as those two were holding hands the whole walk so I assume there’s more of a bond there. Then there was Risslaba, who obviously enjoyed curling (and not the kind Mitch enjoys in his native country). Most jacked Egyptian I’ve ever seen. Then there was Achbar. His one but memorable contribution to the night was nicknames. Richie got Vin Diesel, because of his shaved head, tough guy attitude and the beater. Mitch got Jack-Off, for reasons that nobody will ever understand. I was watching Mitchell all night and there was nothing to suggest he had just or was about to jack off. Both names stuck immediately, despite Jack-Off's great efforts.

We ended up in this alley way which turned out to be a sheesha bar, After Eight. One pound sheesha! What could be better? ONE POUND FALAFEL! Not at After Eight, but a store real close by. Needless to say, the night had developed into one of the most fun downtown trips in my time here. In stark contrast to the next night.

We agreed to meet them the next day to see the movie “The Expendables”. I never wanted to see this movie in the first place but decided to go for the experience. At three Risslaba called Ryan and wanted to know if we were there yet. We told him no, had just about woken up but would be there soon. We get there at five. They say they will be there in twenty minutes. I have a few one pound falafels. At SIX THIRTY they show up, saying not to worry the shows at six. We walk to the theater, and they’re not even showing the movie. So we walk to another theater. No movie. And another and another. Finally we get to one where the movie starts at ten, and it is eight. They ask if we want to sheesha. Uh yeah sure. Ok lets go to After Eight again. Wait the place we just walked an hour from? Why, you won’t walk? I mean I’ll walk but it seems a little far, please don’t give me a name like Jack-Off!

So we walked all the way back, sat for ten minutes, then walked back to the theater. It was a good way to see Cairo though, just walking around with three middle class guys. At one point Risslaba and Achbar saw a girl they knew and stopped to talk to her, but twenty minutes later we were back on the hike. All to see The Expendables. Gah.

This weekend I headed out to the Red Sea, a welcome break from the bustle of Cairo’s nightlife. But first, we headed over to St. Anthony’s Monastery. The bus ride was pretty painful; there was this tiny bus and we packed it to capacity. I was prepared to amputate my legs to ease the pain. My mood was such that our tour monk almost met an early demise when he was showing us the ramparts. He was suck a quiet, slow speaker, and then all of a sudden he’d be like why isn’t anyone listening to me? Oh I’m sorry, which monk I’ve never heard of came from which place I’ve never heard of? You’re a joke. Then he showed us a miraculous spring in the middle of the desert. And the less miraculous faucet they built so we could DRINK MIRACLE WATER. I shimmied the line to get to it first, but I still can’t speak Arabic. By the way the water was miraculous because according to Monk Look-At-Old-Stuff it absolutely never rains there. And I believed him until it started raining while we backed out the driveway. Get a real job, like reading resumes.

Then it was just straight up beachin’ it for the next day and half. It doesn’t need a paragraph to explain, I sat on the beach for a day and a half. Also, I drank the most delish banana milk ever. That monk should spend less time making stuff up and more time milking bananas.

An interesting, ongoing story, Risslaba has called Ryan every single day since we’ve met him. The other day I got a call at 2:30 in the morning from a number I didn’t recognize. I answered because I’m lonely. It was Risslaba, wondering why Ryan wasn’t picking up his phone. No idea. Vin Diesel? No idea. Jack-Off? Good night, Risslaba.

Take an Educated Guest

A month ago I got off the plane in Egypt naïve, hungry and pale, ready to conquer the world and learn Arabic on the side. Today I type this more cynical, spilling koushary over the keyboard, and slightly less pale. I climbed the pyramids, journeyed the Nile, and dropped Arabic like a hot falafel.

But it hasn’t been all fun and games! I do occasionally go to classes, which are held here very occasionally. Now, having been to three classes of each subject, I feel comfortable summing up the Egyptian style of schooling through my experiences. That’s right; in the month I’ve been here I’ve been to 12 classes. Deal with it.

My first class is Romantic Literature. I thought it would be like reading rom com scripts, but that is far from the case. Sarah Jessica Parker is not in a single one and there are almost no montages of dates gone wrong. My professor is a character. American by birth, space cadet by nature. His unspoken goal in life is to use only 50 point Scrabble words in each sentence. Invariably, he always falls one word short, and pronounces that last ten point word with a look of utter disgust on his face, like he just swallowed one of the flies that are a constant distraction to my education. A sentence of his resembles, “Currently, interpreting Rousseau provides abundant opportunities toward introspection for the um, errr, aggghhh, reader.” I’ve never met an eccentric man as boring as he.

But hark, readers, I’ve fallen in love! Perhaps it’s the Romantic Literature course, or maybe it’s the overwhelming sense of aloneness that the desert offers, but she is all I ever think about lately. I do not yet know her name, but she works behind the falafel counter, at the restaurant Al-Omda. Al-Omda translates to “the mayor”, and she certainly governs my heart. It started when she handed me my change; I couldn’t help but to notice her skin possesses the gentle texture of floured pita bread. As I looked closer, her skin is the color of kneaded chickpeas, fried for 2-3 minutes in cooking oil at 360 degrees, which is about as hot as my face feels when speaking with her (our dialogue almost always entails “Two falafels please.”) I could not catch her scent over that of her trade, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is impossible for me to smell falafel without associating her face with the dish. And the laugh! There was a sauciness to her cackle when I tried to order koushary after 5 pm. Not the sesame seed flavored Tahini sauce which so often graces my lunch, but a richer sauce, something more akin to the garlic-chili sauce that you have to ask for, the kind only passionate Al-Omda lovers know. While the feel, sight, sound and smell of the object of my affections pleases me, what has captured my heart is the desire to learn of the fifth sense, and the more intense lust for the answer to be falafel. O! The pains and pleasures my habeeby gives me!

That actually is just an example of the kind of reading I’m subjected to in my Romantic Literature course. I wrote it in class (BAMF) instead of interpreting his interpretations. While bearable in short doses, imagine hundreds of pages of that nonsense. When half my book, Rousseau’s Confessions, fell out of the binding and blew into the Nile during the cruise, my only concern was I had added the most vile trash to an already endangered body of water. To self-project a bit, Rousseau shamelessly self-promotes and glorifies the most trivial activities. If he had engaged in a juice drinking competition, you could bet he would include it in his book.

My second and easiest class is Ethics in Media. Everyone knows ethics; it’s applying them that’s the hard part. My Egyptian professor is the communications point person for the highest UN official in Egypt is kind of a scary thought. One minute she damns Rupert Murdoch’s CNN forays in China (on the grounds that he is a communist/robber baron) and the next she insists there is no free press in America because of the Zionist lobby. She brought up the well known example of when the Zionist lobby threatened to bankrupt the New York Times should it print anything favorable to Palestine (link not found) as well as a few other indisputable pieces of militant Zionism. Here, she made eye contact with me, and perhaps thinking that there is a chance I’m Jewish, made it clear she hates Zionists, not Jewish people. I nodded understandingly, but not so understandingly to further her suspicion of my ancestry. Part of me felt I should’ve spoken up about how I perceive the press in America, which certainly isn’t favorable but I have never been a believer in the Zionist plots. But, not really caring, I didn’t. So I compromised by not yelling anything anti-Semitic. And thus adhered to my ethics.

My next class is Magazine writing. This is actually a delightful class in which the teacher is American and the focus of the course she decided will be food writing. Ever since she announced this I’ve been gorging myself in the name of research. Our professor is extremely enthusiastic, speaks overly dramatically, and always holds the end of her sentences for an inordinate amount of tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime. Additionally, she fails to pronounce “D’s” at the end of words. This style of speaking wouldn’t be that noticeable, except the author we are reading is Jonathon Gold. Hence, every time she reads his name it sounds like she’s announcing an Italian soccer game, and this happens anywhere between 50-100 times a class. I’ve started finishing her sentences for her. She thinks I’m trying to prove my intelligence, but I’m really trying to protect my sanity.

My next class is International Development, again taught by Egyptian. Just more American bashing here. Apparently we built their country wrong and that’s why nothing works. Oh so that’s why. It has NOTHING to do with everyone taking a month off in the middle of the year? Or your maybe-I’ll-show-up-today-for-my-job-as-the-only-employee-of-the-post-office attitude? To be fair to my Egyptian classmates, they often cite their nation’s work ethic as a reason for the lack of development. In fact this cause didn’t even occur to me until they said it, but once I heard it, I started to connect the dots.

Congrats to Mike Kelly for being the youngest person in my recent memory accepted to med school, and for Emily Heltzel getting a prestigious internship-to-job gig at Customs and Border Protection Agency, putting her I think 16^th in the line for the Presidency. And at the rate the world is getting angry at the Zionist USA, the first fifteen might not want the job anymore. What’ve the rest of you been doing in my absence? I expect everyone to have the next ten years of their lives accounted for when I get back.

NILE CRUISE PICTURE EXCLUSIVE!!! ALL THE PICTURES YOU’VE ALREADY SEEN ON FACEBOOK WITH THE COMMENTARY THE CAPTIONS ALREADY PROVIDED!

Legendary and lecherous Manchester United striker George Best once said, “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.” Before this weekend I could have said the same about water, falafel, and taxi rides. But the $400 dollars I spent on the cruise from Aswan to Luxor was the best $400 I ever spent, and that includes the broken cuckoo clock I bought in the Black Forest.

It only lasted for three days and two nights, but I would’ve paid the price of admission just for the food. In sharp contrast to the involuntary fasting I have participated since my arrival, the cruise offered buffet-style meals; it was like TDR on a boat. So I gorged myself on dates, various forms of chicken and meat, and made the dessert table my own. I know my eating habits is not the primary reason you’re reading this, but I feel not mentioning my number one past-time would be entirely misleading, lying by omission if you will.

But now to the adventure! We left AUC at 3:30 am Friday and our flight landed in Aswan around 8. When I say Egypt is a backwards country, I’m not being condescending. They call south Egypt “Upper Egypt” and the Nile flows north, defying the laws of gravity. Also, there are no human rights and they shut down the whole country for a whole month to celebrate Ramadan (which, Ham d’Allah, ended over the weekend). There, that’s me being condescending. We got off to a wild start by looking at some dams. Spirits were low, as we were tired and hot. And when I say hot, I mean rul hot. Aswan is on the ominously named Tropic of Cancer, which has been described as the equator’s little brother. And when I say spirits were low, we were looking at dams.

The day took a positive turn though when we were ferried out to Philae temple. It was here that it first hit me how awesome ancient Egypt is. These guys were dragging and decorating stones thousands of years ago, and here I am sitting on it today, still being able to make out what they drew. I can’t read my handwriting five minutes after writing it. It also became apparent I was not going to be able to understand our tour guide, so all historical information in this post is pure speculation.

After seeing the temple we checked into the ship, Princess Sarah. We grabbed some grub and then were ferried out to a Nubian village. The Nubians are the native people living below the Egypt you normally think of, though there seems to be a fare bit of overlap. The ride out there was probably the most entertaining part. Within a minute of leaving the dock our boat brushed another boat, sending the bumpers flying into my classmates sitting on that side of the boat. Then we passed a boat of what I took to be aspiring Somali pirates, who apparently have no fear of crocodiles or disease and were having the times of their lives splashing around the Nile. Then we were attacked by these submarine children, who more or less popped out of the water and foam boards and attached themselves to our boat. They sang such classics as Row, row ,row your boat and the Wheels on the bus. Then they asked for money and it was awkward so we shooed them away and on to the next boat. I didn’t come to Egypt to make friends, damn it.

Finally, after some very scenic landscapes, we arrived in the Nubian village. Here camels were much more prevalent than cars and it seemed like we were more in Africa than the Middle East. We were told we were going to be taught the Nubian alphabet, which I immediately tried to drop and pick up Nubian Prose, but that class was already full. So we learned the Nubian alphabet in the form of a song and then went to sit in this common area to drink tea. While sipping tea, we were informed that there were crocodiles in our midst! And sure enough, in this covered pit, there were crocodiles. And they even offered us a chance to poke them with long sticks! Holding half-dead lions one week, poking caged crocodiles the next. I’ve turned into quite the wilderness man. Next weekend I’m hoping to sit on a dead hippo.

We returned to the ship, had dinner, then went to see what the night life in Aswan looked like. We went to a market, suspiciously labeled “Tourist Market”, and checked the place out. Everyone is trying to sell you everything, and one guy shouted “How can I take your money!” I think he was going for how can I help you, but I think his broken English was much more clear. What was most shocking was how much mariwuana we were offered. It is forbidden in Egypt and the drug laws are extremely harsh, decades in jail for any kind of possession. This kind of strict drug policy probably explains Call of Duty and Halo’s lack of popularity over here. But I guess Aswan parties hard and the crew I was rolling with admittedly do look like stoners. It was funny though cuz whenever we said no they always acted so confused, like they had no idea they had even asked a question. We ended up hanging out at this boys only café, which I know sounds similar to most parties held at Connecticut Heights, but in this case girls weren’t allowed much less invited. It was pretty bro.

The next morning we woke up at 8 for bfast and then spent the rest of the morning poolside. If I spent half my weekend eating, I spent the other half getting my tan on. A lot of people in the know peg it as the missing piece of the puzzle for me cracking into People’s 100 Most Beautiful list. Around ten or so we hoisted sail, lifted anchor, and most importantly, turned on the engine. It was a pretty surreal experience to be floating around in a pool with a sprawling backdrop of desert, grassland, and small towns all blending into each other. We passed enough mosques to make Ground Zero appear like a non-secular city square in contrast to the Muslimist stronghold we all know it has become. Soon we took another ferry to Kom Ombo, which was legit. It was one of the first cities with a hospital, has tunnels that go under the river, and a giant well like structure used for measuring the height of the river, called the Nilometer. I didn’t really capture the point of the Nilometer, as the actual Nile itself surrounded the island and it would be pretty apparent when there was a flood. Also the tour guide made the absurd claim that this one stone pit that was connected to the Nilometer was a hot tub. A hot tub in the middle of a desert. Okay “tour guide”, I’ve seen this stunt before in Slum Dog Millionaire. But it was pretty cool, they had ancient depictions of surgery and the like. On the other hand, they also had ancient depictions of child birth, which I didn’t care for. But my mind was elsewhere, for that night there was going to be a costume party!

For the low price of $15, I bought a two piece gallibaya with a scarf included! Talk about a deal. Naturally I got blue to bring out my eyes. Mitch got black, Richie white, and Ryan wore a t-shirt but saved it by wearing a scarf and sun glasses, claiming to be the son of an oil tycoon. The costume party was pretty hyped up so we were all pretty excited. Naturally, we got there first. After a half hour, it was pretty apparent my suitemates and I were some of the few who chose to participate in the costume party that evening. But then the dancing started, and I just let myself go and forgot all my problems, like I do. The night ended pretty disastrously, with Ryan challenging me to a juice drinking contest through straws. I still haven’t felt well since. But I won. Needless to say, since I’m including my juice-drinking feats in this paragraph, the costume party was a letdown. And we had an early morning the next day.

Wake up call at FIVE IN THE MORNING. After a weekend of little sleep, this displeased most of us. After Kom Ombo we cruised to the Edfu temple, which was striking in its sheer size. It was completed by Cleopatra, but that’s all I can tell you about it. We went back aboard and passed through one of the locks they have on the Nile. The locks are used to make the ride smoother to change elevations, but after immediately crashing into the left hand side of the canal I doubted their efficiency. In the end it was pretty boring, but it gave me a good excuse to get a good calf-tan on. Not long after we set off for the Valley of the Kings, where no cameras were allowed, adding to the mystique. It was awesome, but so hot. I don’t know why the ancient Egyptians chose to ride out to the middle of the desert to dig so far down in the earth. Seems to me we passed a lot of real estate on the way there that would have sufficed. Just another way I could have built the world better. But yeah it was very cool, a lot of the tombs had the original paint still on them. And the hieroglyphics were amazing. Probably a hundred yards of them detailing Ramses’ life. Either he led quite the life or it takes forever to spell anything using birds and eyes. I like to believe the latter, if only to convince myself it would take 100 yards to sum up my life in birds and eyes. Then again FIFA is only four letters. I’ll never get tired of FIFA jokes, so don’t ask.

All that was left on the cruise was Luxor Temple, but what a way to finish. It was dark by that point, but they do a nice job of illuminating it. The obelisk was pretty intense. I know we have the Washington monument, but I think the absence of goose crap on the obelisk added something to it. The other cool thing here was the Sphinx Avenue, which has scores of little sphinxes all lined up. After viewing the temple, we went back to the cruise to enjoy the last supper. By eleven, we were on the way to the airport and by four Monday morning we were back on campus. And so ended one of the greatest weekends of my life. To console myself, I ate three falafels.