And so we have completed our second day of classes at the Hedayat Institute. The first day was done a little haphazardly and Group A (the group with Arabic experience) accidentally missed our first elective class, for the record it was not our faults. Things have been hammered out now, like poor Miranda will not have to re-do a whole year of Arabic by being in class with us anymore, and the elective classes and respective schedules have been amended and corrected. So for the most part, it should be smooth sailing from here.
Our first class was basically in Chapter 7 of Al-Kitaab ("the book" literally but its also the name of our textbook) so it the class was on Modern Standard Arabic, which Dr. Nagwa equated to Shakespearean English. Today our class was on the Egyptian Colloquial dialect, and while we have been introduced to it at times in various places and settings, it is going to take some getting used to.
Perhaps the most interesting class that I signed up for is the calligraphy class, it might also very well be the hardest. Getting those shapes and formations down is extremely hard, and for anyone who is familiar with arabic and knows the beautiful writing that can be seen on Qurans and such...imagine trying to write that out by hand. Not easy at all. Hopefully though I can get the hang of it, and not only be able to write it well, but read calligraphy too, because right now calligraphy confuses the hell out of me. Here are some examples of what our teacher did, you can tell the student work because it doesn't look nowhere near as sharp as what the teacher did
Now to jump back for a second, dinner last night was first an adventure, then a pleasant surprise. To understand the adventure part you have to picture the section we are living in, which is called Maadi. Maadi is apparently so notoriously confusing that some taxi drivers won't bring you here if you are coming from somewhere else. There are virtually no street signs, and if there is a sign, you have to venture a good ways down the street in question and probably look on a random building and hope a sign is there. Yesterday was supposed to be a short walk to a Thai restaurant. Our hotel is on the corner of 7th Rd and 82nd St. The grid kind of stays together for a couple blocks, until all of a sudden you're on 127 St, at least going by what the map says. Mind you, you walked 3-4 blocks. I think the Thai place was supposed to be at 7 152nd St. Lucie asked a man where building 7 was, he proceeded to say he didn't know the numbers but that he thought the building behind us was 15, the building across the street was 9, next to it 17...I'm learning that Egyptians are worse at admitting they don't know something. After walking around, and passing through "the hood" as some people labelled it, we gave up and went to where we knew a restaurant was.
The restaurant we ended up going to has been labelled as the best Asian style food in Maadi, and man was that correct. We almost got scared off though because there was not a soul in the place other than the waiter guy and the cooks. But once we actually got our food, and our beer, we didn't care anymore, mainly because it was just so damn good. To date, that was probably the best overall dinner we had because it was just a laugh fest, with good food and great company. If something can top that dinner, I think I might just have to move here. JUST KIDDING!
Thanks for reading!
-Diggs
Our first class was basically in Chapter 7 of Al-Kitaab ("the book" literally but its also the name of our textbook) so it the class was on Modern Standard Arabic, which Dr. Nagwa equated to Shakespearean English. Today our class was on the Egyptian Colloquial dialect, and while we have been introduced to it at times in various places and settings, it is going to take some getting used to.
Perhaps the most interesting class that I signed up for is the calligraphy class, it might also very well be the hardest. Getting those shapes and formations down is extremely hard, and for anyone who is familiar with arabic and knows the beautiful writing that can be seen on Qurans and such...imagine trying to write that out by hand. Not easy at all. Hopefully though I can get the hang of it, and not only be able to write it well, but read calligraphy too, because right now calligraphy confuses the hell out of me. Here are some examples of what our teacher did, you can tell the student work because it doesn't look nowhere near as sharp as what the teacher did
Now to jump back for a second, dinner last night was first an adventure, then a pleasant surprise. To understand the adventure part you have to picture the section we are living in, which is called Maadi. Maadi is apparently so notoriously confusing that some taxi drivers won't bring you here if you are coming from somewhere else. There are virtually no street signs, and if there is a sign, you have to venture a good ways down the street in question and probably look on a random building and hope a sign is there. Yesterday was supposed to be a short walk to a Thai restaurant. Our hotel is on the corner of 7th Rd and 82nd St. The grid kind of stays together for a couple blocks, until all of a sudden you're on 127 St, at least going by what the map says. Mind you, you walked 3-4 blocks. I think the Thai place was supposed to be at 7 152nd St. Lucie asked a man where building 7 was, he proceeded to say he didn't know the numbers but that he thought the building behind us was 15, the building across the street was 9, next to it 17...I'm learning that Egyptians are worse at admitting they don't know something. After walking around, and passing through "the hood" as some people labelled it, we gave up and went to where we knew a restaurant was.
The restaurant we ended up going to has been labelled as the best Asian style food in Maadi, and man was that correct. We almost got scared off though because there was not a soul in the place other than the waiter guy and the cooks. But once we actually got our food, and our beer, we didn't care anymore, mainly because it was just so damn good. To date, that was probably the best overall dinner we had because it was just a laugh fest, with good food and great company. If something can top that dinner, I think I might just have to move here. JUST KIDDING!
Thanks for reading!
-Diggs
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