Cairo Post 8: Thank You F&M, Architectural Tour Mommy Talk, Ms. Daly Talk

I probably should be getting a jump on my homework, but I think I can take a few minutes to post another entry. I first would like to think F&M College, specifically the Office of International Programs, Dean Kent Trachte, and the Arabic Language Program (Uri and Lucie) for making this opportunity possible. Why am I saying this now? Well because I originally was going to open this post with a thank you shoutout to whoever runs the F&M facebook and, I assume by autoposting extension, twitter page for publicizing my blog and that made me realize that I had never said thank you to the people that made this trip possible in the first place. So thank you all very much!

Today was spent on an architectural tour of Cairo. Our guide, Dr. Shahinda Karem, took us on as choronological a journey as she could. We visited 4 mosques, one of which is in the Citadel of Cairo. Each successive place clearly illustrated the advances in architectural design and the implementation and borrowing of designs and themes from other cultures, prominently those of the Basilicas of Catholicism and architectural stylings of both the Ottoman and Persian persuasion. I am not an architect but I do appreciate patterns and history, so I was absolutely fascinated throughout the tour. Dr. Karem was fully engaging and even though I didn't understand all the terms she used, I gleaned enough information to be able to piece together that very short synopsis I piece together for you. At one of our stops we were treated to a beautiful rendition of the Call to Prayer and a reading of a passage from the Quran. Here is the video and a few pictures from the day:

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Now to the literal heart of the post, I finally got to vidchat my Mom a little earlier today. I know she, I guess I can say you since you are probably reading this, won't like this much but that simple "face to face" conversation would not have been possible if I hadn't downloaded the video chat plug in for gmail chat behind my Mom's back. I couldn't believe she didn't want to do it herself, but now that she has it, I think she likes it...least of all to be able to tell me that I look like I haven't lost weight. Thanks Mom. She also "strictly forbade" me from thinking of dropping the Architecture elective that is being offered by the Institute here in Egypt. I would like to focus on the Calligraphy elective that I am also in, but Mom would like for me to take advantage of as much as I can...I will take her forbidence under advisement :)

And of course almost as soon as I was done with Mom, up popped a facebook chat from the General, Mrs. Audrey Daly-Hinds, who I have known for as long as I can remember. Mom and Ms. Daly met while working together for the City of New York while I was little and they have been friends ever since. Ms. Daly is probably also another person I need to thank for being on this trip because when Mom had reservations and concerns, Ms. Daly helped both her and myself to understand those concerns and try to alleviate them as much as possible. Ms. Daly is also the master food critic, and even though she didn't have a good experience at one of my favorite pasta places (you know what I'm talking about), when she finds a place to have a good meal, you go because you know you will have an excellent meal. In any case she told me that she loves reading my posts and that I have a way of getting down to the heart of the story without much fluff. Even though there is some fluff, by way of needed backstory, in this post, I am sharing this because I want to make a point. I want to hear reactions, comments, questions, concerns, editing tips (because truth be told, I don't edit these posts much, usually for time reasons) that you may have because I would like for a dialogue to form from my experiences. Cyperspace is a big empty vacuum if you don't engage it, and I for one want to engage it and be engaged through it...so please, leave a comment, voice an opinion, don't be shy, let me know what you think...Ms. Daly already has.

Thanks for reading!

-Diggs

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Cairo Post 7: The "Fun" Has Begun, I Found 24, Egyptian Soccer, "Black Honey", Downtown Cairo and Zumalek

So from reading my posts you know that the first couple of days here in Cairo was spent touring the city and seeing the sights and sounds of this city, and of course one day in Alexandria. Unfortunately though, just as all good things do, the fun has come to an end. I spoke of how difficult the classes were in passing. Well let me just reiterate the fact they are hard. Things are doubly difficult when one has to go from one form of Arabic to another back to back for two consecutive days. My head has been spinning in circles trying to remember when I can say one form of yes and when I can't. The Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) teacher gets slightly annoyed when the class answers his questions in the Egyptian dialect, even though I'm pretty sure he is Egyptian, and the Egyptian dialect teacher (Egyptian Colloquial Arabic or ECA) giggles when her questions are answered with MSA. Don't they understand that this is HARD for us. Sigh...at least my section hasn't been forced to learn the entire Arabic alphabet in 3 days like the beginners have, I guess that's a saving grace of sorts.

The biggest story for me today was that I was finally able to watch the finale of 24. It pained me a lot when I realized that I wouldn't be able to watch the series finale "live" because of the time difference...and of course the lack of Fox on this overwhelmingly Arabic language tv package that the hotel offers. But just being able to find a solid 2 hours of time when I was tired, in class or doing homework, felt heavenly and I greatly enjoyed finally being able to finish one of the most innovative series to every grace the airwaves. Of course watching it wasn't without a little drama as megavideo cut me off at their customary 72 minute limit and I had to scrounge around the internet to find an alternate means of watching, but I was finally successful.

Back to Egyptian things, we got a taste of Egyptians love for soccer today. From around lunch time when my group arrived back at the Metro station that is closest to our hotel and a passing guy yelled at us that he expected his team to win 2-0, to the area police commander that showed up in the hotel lobby tonight to catch the game on tv, Egyptians clearly follow the teams within the league. I couldn't begin to tell you which team won, or where they were from, but I did get to watch the game, and I can tell you that it was entertaining to watch.

Black Honey is the translated name of this movie that a few of us want to go watch while we are here in Egypt. We saw the commercial for it a couple of nights ago during dinner when the tv at the restaurant was on mute and it just looked absolutely hilarious. We have since seen the commercial with sound...and it made very little sense except for a few choice words here and there...but we still want to go see it regardless. 

Yesterday afforded myself, Emily and Sam the opportunity to go into Downtown Cairo with Lucie. We went to the American University in Cairo old campus where Lucie did her intensive Arabic program a couple years back, but the main campus has since moved to the newer campus elsewhere in the city. We also stopped at the AUC bookstore, which was really cool as far as university bookstores go. After that we went to the island of Zumalek, which is smack in the middle of the Nile. Getting over there, the elderly taxi driver we had tried to overcharge us...but coming back, the relatively young driver we had nearly refused to accept our payment. There is no rhyme or reason to it, no way to judge who will be nice and who will try to be a jerk, because I definitely would have pegged the older gentleman to be the nicer one. Indecipherable cabbie behavior aside, I've come to the conclusion that Cairo as a whole really has no rhyme or reason to it, it's just an unabashed city that will do as it pleases, when it pleases. I think I could get used to this...

Thanks for reading!

-Diggs

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Cairo Post 6: The First Couple Days of Class, The Unexpectedly Good Dinner

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

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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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Cairo Post 5: Memphis, Sakkara (Saqqara), Giza, Shisha Dinner, Alexandria, The Mohammed's We've Met

Again, I just want to apologize for last night. I came in from dinner and was just absolutely dead. But back to the beginning of things, I will most definitely touch on dinner later, yesterday we had a tour of sights that were relatively close to Cairo, our first stop being Memphis. Memphis was an old capital of unified Egypt so that neither Upper (Southern) or Lower (Northern) Egypt felt slighted by the King, who I believe was Menes at the time, and continued to be a capital city through 2200 B.C. There we saw our first sphinx, or sphinxis as our guide kept calling it, amongst the other artifacts that were at the site.

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Our next stop yesterday was Sakkara or Saqqara where the first pyramid was built, the Step Pyramid. It was really interesting to see how the trend started and to hear that was originally because they just kept adding additional places above the foundation, like offering rooms. We were told that there are 112 pyramids standing in Egypt, out of the 139 that were known to have been made. For the original one to be standing now is something that I find quite amazing. Even a part of the original wall, its the picture of the wall that looks like it just comes from nowhere, is still standing after nearly 5000 years, truly amazing. We didn't get to go into the Step Pyramid, but we did go into one that was a short drive away. I didn't take any pictures in it because I didn't really feel like tipping the "guide" guy, but some other people did. I'll share them on my facebook profile when they put them up. Sakkara was also the place that either myself or Gravy was called Barack Obama, we're not sure, and Gravy was called Muhammed Ali. Needless to say we discovered the hawkers at sites are relentless, and sometimes funny.

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After leaving Sakkara we made a stop at one of the many Carpet Schools that lined the road...this actually may have been after leaving Memphis, but I can't really remember at the moment. In any case we went, and there we saw these beautiful carpets being made by these kids that were probably 2-3 years younger than us. There was one older man making a carpet "from his mind" as the carpet school guy told us, but he was the only older gentleman that I saw. We went upstairs to see the finished products, and my goodness their work is really beautiful...albeit quite pricey.

Of course the day of sites ended yesterday with the great pyramids of Giza. Contrary to popular belief there are 9 pyramids at the site, there are just 3 really big ones that everyone knows are there. They are impressive as you think they would be. I really felt like a tiny pion standing in front of them, and even smaller when we climbed up to the entrance. We didn't go in because we have been told by numerous sources that it just isn't worth the price, but just being there and standing on it was cool enough. Of course there are other things to do at Giza, and most of the group rode camels down from this place called Panaroma, where you can take a good picture of the 3 main pyramids, down to the smaller of the 3 great pyramids.

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Dinner last night was had at this nice place just around the corner and down a block from our hotel. I had this chicken dish that was covered in walnut sauce that was really good. The dessert I had was this custard thing that I didn't enjoy much. But what made the night alright was the grape shisha that we ordered. I don't remember liking the grape flavor while I was in Saudi, but in Egypt it is quite good and I think its safe to recommend across the board.

And finally to today. Today we went to Alexandria, and upon arriving, after the 3 hours drive, I felt like I was back in Jeddah again. The street we were on was wide and clean and the traffic generally obeyed the lane separation lines, something the Cairo drivers don't really do. We made a few stops on the day, the first being this palace that the Egyptian Kings used to frequent, but is now a spot for President Mubarek. The place is on the Mediterrean coast and while we were there, Emily Seidl and I decided to take the long way back to our bus over this bridge that was along the water. After making it 3/4 quarters of the way across, a wave crashed over the bridge and absolutely soaked us. I still feel salty now. We also had our first realistic Egyptian cuisine when we made a stop at this restaurant and had their fish, which was really good. We also went to an old Roman ampitheatre and experienced how the actors and speakers were able to project their voice by standing in one particular spot within the complex. Probably the most unexpectedly cool stop was the Alexandria library. It is massive and absolutely impressive. The building is in the shape of a huge circle from the outside, and on the inside the floors are situated in this staggered slope pattern that is just unlike any building, let alone library, I've ever seen. I could see myself getting a lot of work done there.

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Now of course, I think a lot of people know that there are a lot of people named Muhammed in the world. In our dealings with people, we have had 4, two tour guides, and two security people. The first Muhammed tour guide from yesterday clearly knew a lot but was just a tad bit annoying in his constant talking and flirting with Lucie and Sam :). The second Muhammed tour guide, was great and we hope that we will have again. But the Muhammed's that I really want to talk about are our two security guys. They both looked like linemen, but in their interactions with people clearly were gentle giants...just with semi automatic rifles under their suit jackets. The second guy looked like Secret Service in my opinon and I think the general consensus was that he was the epitome of cool, Gravy called him Shaft.

Well tomorrow we start our classes...can't say that I am that thrilled but it is the reason that we are here.

Once again thanks for reading!

-Diggs

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