Walk Like an Egyptian: Old Cairo

So. It's been crazy =)

We have amaazing RAs here on campus who have organized a lot of trips and activities for everyone, and it's been really easy making friends. Ive been hanging out with a really awesome group of people from South Carolina, Oregon, Georgia, New York, Santa Barbara, Colorado and a few Egyptians. Its been a rioooot, seriously.

The first day here we just went to a little town 10 minutes away called Rihab. Its nice, it just has stores and stuff, and we bough some essentials and egyptian phones. With arabic on the keys. Soo cool! Haha!

The second day we went into Old Cairo all day. Its about a 45 minute bus ride from school, so not bad. The bus dumped us right in Coptic Cairo, or some people call it the religious center, because there are churches, synagogues and mosques all within a few blocks of each other. We visited the two oldest churches in Egypt. One is built over an old roman fort, the other has a crypt below it where Mary and Jesus supposedly lived while hiding from Herod. Ah. So cool. (No pictures allowed tho =/)

Our second stop was a gorgeous little synagogue built over Moses' mother's house! (Even though he went to the pharaoh's castle on the river and the river runs south to north and the palace was south of the synagogue, but that's cool) haha

Then we went to the largest mosque in Cairo, it was beautiful. My first mosque experience! We split, girls in one enterence and boys in the other. The boys strolled in in their t-shirts and shorts... we took off our shoes and had to borrow hijabs to cover our heads. It was soo interesting though to see people praying and reading and just hanging out. (There were men sleeping on the floor all decked out in their male burkas (I forget what their called, sorry)!

It was an amazing, eye-opening experience. The other day I got to here prayer call too, soo cool!

I reeeally admire muslim people, they are soo devout. And it's Ramadan right now too so they are all fasting all day until sunset, no water even!! And its HOT.

Anyway after that we went back to the other AUC dorms which are in the city and had dinner and then walked around along the Nile.

Cairo is interesting. Its beautiful to me, but I dont think it would qualify as beautiful by any standard deffinition. Its filthy. You can see that the buildings have changed color over the years, and there is a lot of trash and pot holes on the street. And mangy cats literally everywhere.

But its soo incredibly interesting, everything is so different from what Im used to. So yes, it's beautiful. Colorful laundry hanging from everyone's window, interesting trinkets on the street, and the architecture, ah! Its beautiful. The Nile is beautiful too if you dont look closely enough to notice the trash floating. My friend Margaux saw a dead donkey last time she was here.... hah.

But its beautiful.

I really love it here, Im looking forward to a really awesome semester!! We'll just see how classes go! And I dont have a roommate yet, eeek!

Well here's a good dose of pictures =)