Ya Salaam!

It's been a while so I think its time I report on the happenings of the past couple days. I guess the first thing of note was when we went to Cafeteria Houria. It was a large, dingy bar in Downtown that attracted us with its 9 LE Stellas. Getting there was an adventurer however since the cabbie didn't know where it was and neither did we. We knew we were in the vascinity of Tahrir Square, but he drove past that and started driving down an alley. At that point we shouted "Henna henna!" ("here here!") and decided to hoof it the rest of the way. I knew it was neart the old AUC campus in downtown so we walked the block around the old campus until we recognized some landmarks given to us by some friends who had already been in the cafe for a few hours.

Last night we decided it was time to check out some belly dancing. Now apparently you really get what you pay for with belly dancing. There are a few skilled dancers and they perform in the expensive luxury hotels in Downtown and Garden City. Cover for those shows was around 250 LE, which no one was willing to spend. Instead we decided to go to the 35 LE place, about which a guidebook said, "if you go after 2:00am, you might be lucky to see a girl who actually has rhythm." Another described the cheaper shows as having "all the style and grace of amateur wrestling." And they were right. The show was absolutely unnoteworthy. Jim said the show was "awful, amazing, and awfully amazing." The dancer invited some of the people in attendance up to the stage to dance, and I'm pretty sure every one of them was a better dancer than she was. We won't be going back.

Our Survival Arabic class had a field trip to Downtown on the last day of class, which was fun. I really liked my class and we all liked our teacher Hala. For lunch we all went to a very classy resaurant called Felafa. Now Egypt is known for its koshery and its stuffed pigeon. I was feeling adventurous and decided the time was right to try the pigeon. Like belly dancing, its something I'm happy I tried once but am not going to do again. The pigeon still had the gizzard, feet, and a few organs left inside allong with the rice stuffing. Apparently Egyptians eat the whole thing. I didn't.

I've discovered that I love drinking guava.

Tonight we met some Egyptian AUC students along the Nile near Garden City and took a sailboat out at dusk. It was a little different from the experience Ali and I had the night before with the faluka boat. We were walking back to the dorm, looking at all the clubs and boats along the West Bank of the Nile, and paid a little too much attention to a guy talking to passers-by about his boat. We were curious to see what it was like, one thing led to another, and before we knew it we were taking a half-hour cruise down the Nile. The boat had flashing lights, blaring Arabic dance music, and a very loud motor. It was a pretty random happening and ended up being fun for the sheer goofiness of the whole situation. Tonight we had a very calm, relaxing, leisurely drift down the Nile just south of Gazeera and Garden City, the leafiest parts of Cairo.

After spending all of yesterday walking about Cairo for seven hours, I decided to take it easy tonight and study up on some Arabic. It's hard to believe I've been here for over a week already and school starts tomorrow. There are still so many places to see and things to do and school hasn't even started yet. Hopefully the next fifteen weeks can live up to and excede the first.