Izzay a 'ool...?

Another two days has come and gone here in the beautiful city of Cairo! Here's the lo-down on what's been happening.

Wednesday, August 24th was a pretty hectic day. I have gotten up at 6:20 (or well... tried, sometimes my alarm doesn't do its job and I wake up twenty minutes later!) every day so far since being here. We have to catch the 7:40 bus from Zamalek to New Cairo, which takes us to the campus in about 45 minutes. We end up getting there at around 8:20-8:30 depending on traffic, whereupon we wander around campus for a little, or sit outside. Yesterday, we had lectures in the morning about Egypt's political and social situations both before and after the January 28th Revolution, as well as what the American Embassy can do for us if we get into trouble or need help. I was so exhausted yesterday morning (which is strange because I went to bed at 12:30, and generally I'm alright with that sort of thing, I mean, the previous night I hadn't gone to bed until 2:00 am, and I was fine then!) that by the start of the second lecture on the embassy, I could barely keep my eyes open.

We were told that we aren't allowed to take pictures of governmental buildings, or anything outside them, or anything to do with the Egyptian military and that Americans who didn't know that have gotten put in jail for things like that and not knowing local law (which there really isn't, it's all still basically central, authoritarian government). Kind of scared me out of taking pictures of random pretty looking buildings until I know what they are. Of course, I do have pictures of the military on Tahrir Square from inside our bus. Whoops! c: Oh well!

Then after that we headed towards Survival Arabic, which is going frustratingly slow at some points, and then very well at others. I'm catching on well on the basic phrases, but each time we add more phrases, I get stuck and confused and have to think really hard about what's going on and what I need to say. But I'm getting there. I can hold a basic conversation, I know how to say and read numbers in Arabic... The title of this blog actually means "How do you say...?" in Egyptian colloquial, which is what I'm learning. After that, we were supposed to go back to Zamalek and then go on a trip to the Bazaar but I was far too tired, and super elated that we were getting back to the dorms before 9:00! We got back actually rather early, ordered dinner just around Iftar, which was a mistake because everyone was closed eating dinner and breaking the Ramadan fast themselves, but overall it was fun. There are seven of us here from Gettysburg and five or six of us live in Zamalek, I think?

Regardless. I got to go upstairs and skype Laura (my roommate) and Alex (other partner in crime), which was tons of fun because I miss them a bunch. They then left to go to Gettysburg's class of 2015 opening convocation ceremony, which started at four pm eastern time. So I was like, oh okay, and then I discovered that we could watch convocation via live streaming! So the gburgians over here in the girls side of Zamalek watched opening convocation live (go JMR!) and I got to see Gettysburg from across the great big pond and the continent of Africa.

Today, August 25th, was very much like yesterday; we had lectures on more facts about Egypt, and then a short lecture about how to face homesickness and adapt to a new society. I am a little bit homesick, but I don't think it's really hit me yet that I'm not just visiting this country for two weeks and then going back to Gettysburg - and that I'm actually LIVING here for an entire semester. I suppose it will when my roommate moves in, and when classes start up on September 4th. I think being able to skype home will make it easier. After the lectures, we had a slightly longer arabic session today. It was long, and tiring, and I was exhausted, but shortly after, we all met up and left to go to the busses back to Zamalek.

When we realized that first year orientation for AUC was also going on. There was a student life fair for clubs and information desks and stuff. The first year class for AUC's theme was beach and lifeguarding and stuff. And AUC has lots of fountains just chilling all over campus. There's a huge area with about eight of them planted into the ground, like those ones that kids run through in like parks and strip mall areas and stuff. When we came out, we spied Nick, who was drenched to the bone.

Turns out, AUC FYE staff likes throwing people in the fountains and dumping water all over them and playing in said fountains. They caught another Gettysburgian and literally picked him up, grabbed his feet and his arms, put him on top of the gargling fountain spout, and dumped buckets of water over him. A guy came over to me and asked if we wanted to join the fun, and I said, "No, I have electronics with me, I'm okay." And he said, "Come on, put your stuff down and go!"

But we all shook our heads. We had a forty five minute bus ride to take back to Zamalek! There's no way we were getting soaked wearing jeans and riding on the bus like that. So we started to walk away, almost got caught again (another girl in our group walking with us DID get dragged off...) and just when we stopped and thought we were safe, we saw an FYE "lifeguard" coming at us.

He blew his whistle. And before we knew it, we had to run to the gate to escape them from dragging us into the fountains! After he blew the whistle, more came after us, and it was actually exhilirating, if not kind of terrifying. We made it to the gate, huffing and puffing, and almost got caught several times because of our backpacks.

But alas, we were dry.

Needless to say, AUC certainly does seem to have more fun during their orientation than at Gettysburg's! And they don't care if you're upperclassmen or firsties...

Another thing I've learned?

Egyptians just don't give up!