"Say Hello to Cleopatra for Me!"

Ahhh! It's been forever and a DAY since I last posted something. I apologize. My life has been a constant stream of activity. And no, not interesting, let's blog about it things. Rather, it has been a wonderful onslaught of completely banal happenings such as studying, eating, hanging out with friends, taking 3 hour bus rides from school and taxi-ing our way to everywhere. BUT, there have been intermittent periods of entertainment, and so I give you, THIS BLOG POST.

Okay so there are 3 Basic things I must catch you up on. First, Daily happenings and a lovely trip to al-Azhar park. Second, an amazing trip to the BEAUTIFUL Alexandria, and finally, a random day full of events. So, let's start with numero uno.

1) DAILY THINGS, oh and Al-Azhar park too=]

First off, don't even ask me why I grouped these two things together. They don't really have anything to do with one another, I just thought about them in this order, so that's how they're going to be written. Basically I just felt like saying some random things about Cairo, living here, and what's up.

So, random things that come to mind when I decided to write this:

• Bus rides to and from school--they take FOREVER. On an average school day, I spend at least 2 hours on the bus. Some days it'll take 2 hours just to get home. On the one hand, this is absolutely absurd.  It is aggravating, hot, and just a generally unwanted occurrence. On the other hand....who am I to complain? Let's take a look at the positives here: I get an hour long nap before and after school. I get a constant reminder of why I love this city as we pass by skyscrapers, dirty streets, broken down building and mosques. I have time to read the Bible, pray and generally spend time with God. I get to chill and think over whatever my mind may be reeling about at any given moment. I have a chance to do homework before I get home. I enjoy games of backgammon courtesy of Andrew's iPod. And i get a chance to really appreciate some of the music on my iPod that I hadn't listened to before. So, I guess that kind of outweighs whatever negatives I originally found. Glad you all worked through that one with me=]

• I LOVE FOOD. I know, for anyone that knows me this is a ridiculously obvious declaration to make, but I'm choosing to do so anyways. Why? Because I just need another chance to inform you of how wonderful the food here is. While the fact that it's cheap DOES factor into why I love it so much, I do just generally enjoy it. I know I posted a few pictures of different things a while back, but I'll make a Food in Focus blog soon, don't you worry. I wish I could bring you all here to enjoy the wonderful character of places such as Alex Top, Alf Layla wa-Layla ( ألف ليلة وليلة), Goal, Saladero, Munch'n Bagel, Euro Deli, or Cook Door. Okay, well, those are just simple everyday places. But, I've also had some WONDERFUL Yemeni, Korean and Indian food since being here. Next up are Egyptian, Sudanese and Ethiopian hopefully! Oh! And I had brain the other day. Yeah. we'll discuss that later.

• Bartering. You have to haggle for everything here. Okay, not everything. Just some taxis and at marketplaces. But, I'm tired of it. that's pretty much all I have to say about that. 
• School. It's getting in the way of my travelling desires. I'll be honest and say that it's nowhere near as hard as UVA but the work is still enough to take away from fun trips, sleep and generally hanging with friends now and again.

2. Al-Azhar Park

The citadel from afar

Yeah, okay. I decided it deserved it's own bullet. I don't actually have a ton to say about it. It was beautiful. One of the gents and I went there for the afternoon and just hung out. It was so nice to be out of Zamalek and  at least feel as if we were out of Cairo for a bit. There was grass, flowers, benches, fountains, and COUPLES! People being couple-y in Egypt is pretty much Haraam (or no bueno as I would say). It was so odd to see so many couples wandering around. But, moving on, the view was awesome. We could see the pyramids, the Citadel and the majority of Cairo from the top of the hill. A refreshing change to say the least.

3. Alexandria

Cairo Train Station

Ah, yes, the portion you have been waiting for. Or, more likely, the segment you just skipped straight to reading. Either way, here we go! This past weekend Andrew and I hopped on a train to Alexandria. It's only about 2.5 hours away so not a bad ride at all. Also, the Cairo train station was BEAUTIFUL. Weird. Clean and beautiful doesn't happen often in Cairo. So, trained on up to Alex, chilled out for a bit and then met up with 2 other friends for dinner and shisha. But, before I move on, let me just tell you about dinner. It was phenomenal. Yeah, I bolded, underlined AND italicized that. The food, price (and company) was THAT good. We got more bread and dips than we could handle, 3 different types of fresh fish, waters and Anjana got a sort of odd, but not terrible chicken dish.

Devouring the fish.

J's not a fan of fish=]

We keep it classy.

Balbaa

Alright, so good times all around at Balbaa. Then, the next day it was SIGHTSEEING! YAY!

 We started off by walking down the boardwalk until we hit this lovely Fort. It's the Citadel of Quaitbay and it's built on the exact same spot that the Lighthouse of Alexandria used to be.

View out of the Citadel with Alex in the background.

Did I mention that the weather was GORGEOUS? It was, and the waves were super Little Mermaid-esque  as they crashed on the rocks. It was amazing.

 Pompey's Pillar was hilarious. First because it's in the middle of an extremely rundown town and second, because well....that's it. It's a pillar. Don't get me wrong, it's a GIANT pillar. But, it's still just a pillar.

After Pompey's Pillar we went to the catacombs known as Kom al-Shoqafa. They were really, really, really cool. Not only was it incredibly intricate with rooms and you know, burial places, but it had a "mummy-chute" to get the mummys down there. Plus, in terms of history, it was a fascinating combination of Roman, Greek and Egyptian art and architecture throughout. Also, there was a chopping block where they would behead Christians, and a room where they buried four horses and a donkey. Interesting. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures so you'll just have to google it. 

That evening we just wandered around a bit. Ended up finding this amazing marketplace. I wish i could have gotten a better picture but I didn't really want to keep my camera out.

ALSO, I got this dessert. Ice cream, peach, and strawberry sauce. ahh YEEUH.

     The last day, right before we headed back on the train, we ran over to the Roman ruins nearby. There is a magnificent ancient Ampitheatre. It was surrounded by classrooms, a bath house (on the far left in the picture  below) and houses. The rooms of all those things are there, but overall they are of course, ruins. It was awesome to see all of it nonetheless=]

In this picture...directly behind me are the classrooms, to the left (where the pillars are in the background) is where the bath house was, the ampitheatre would be to the right and the houses in the WAY back.

3. The Past Few Days

 So, since the trip to Alex I have had a midterm, test, and am now preparing a presentation for tomorrow. It's been a bit hectic. To top things off, I chose to spend the day gallivanting around Cairo with a friend yesterday. Which, let's be honest, I don't regret at all. We went to Giza to legitimately see the pyramids (I only galloped around them last time) and then headed over to Khan al-Khalili to get some scarves and a shisha. While there I got to enjoy a taste of brain. I KNOW. And, you know what? I didn't hate it! Actually, it was pretty good. But, it probably would've been better if I hadn't been mentally freaking out over the fact that it was brain the entire time I ate it. Also, it was just one bite. So, let's not get too crazy here. Maybe i'll do the full sandwich next time.

The sandwich on  the left is brain. 

     Oh and remember how busy I was? Yeah I spent the morning at City Stars. It's a giant shopping mall---possibly bigger than Tysons, in the south of Cairo. It was FREAKISHLY western. I ate Pinkberry's for goodness sake! But, while fun, the overly western feel almost bothered me. I've gotten far too accustomed to my normal, raggedy Cairo. Also, we hit a guy on the way over to the mall. Like how casually I slipped that in there? Yeah, that's what it felt like. Remember those blog posts where I freaked out about how ridiculous the traffic is here? Well, today that finally culminated in our taxi hitting a middle-aged man at full speed. Yes, he tried to slow down. Yes, he ran out to help as soon as it happened. Yes, we got waved on after 15 other people rushed to help him. Yes, that's it. It was terrifying. I'm pretty positive my heart stopped. We were in complete shock that it happened. I'm praying he's completely okay. He didn't look like he  broke anything but he was older, we were at full speed and he was limping. Not a good situation. Yup. That's Cairo for ya. And he wasn't even crossing an 8-lane highway! Amateur.

Well, that's pretty much all I got for ya for now. Thank you for waiting patiently with me through this novel of a blog.