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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Khan el Khalili

Outskirts of the market Khan el Khalili
I am having such an amazing time here =) I really couldn't ask for anything more, I feel so blessed by everything I get to see everyday and all the beautiful people I've been honored to meet =)

Thursday night (the beginning of the weekend for us here) the "family" went to a chinese restaurant downtown and a french night club (how very Egyptian, right?) It was a nice night though. The manager of the chinese restaurant gave us complementary Irish Coffee on flambe, it's coffee with scotch and cinmon and a ton of cream, and then he lit it on fire... there was a whole show involved, we were impressed. Then he told us he was the king and to never forget him, hahah. Then we headed out to the nigh club where we were the absolute only english speaking group, but that was really fun in itself. We met a few randos and practiced arabic =) Night life in Cairo is amazing, everyone is out literally all night long, but the dynamic is so different from a city in the states. Even with everyone out late I always feel completely safe and confident in this huge city. I guess that might stem from the muslim standard of decency and knowing that most of the people wandering around are only socializing and avoiding the heat, not getting completely waisted. Its nice.
Did I mention here yet that once we went to the grocery store at midnight and it was jam packed with mothers and babies and little kids running around? Crazy Cairo man!!

Now here comes friday =) I had been looking forward to it for a long time!
I FINALLY got to meet a beautiful woman named Zakia, who is a good friend of my aunt's and originally from the states. Her name is actually Charlotte, and she's a retired principle who now teaches english in Egypt. She's wonderful. She moved to Egypt on a whim, because Allah told her to. And she says she has never been happier.  =)
My friend Margaux and I met Zakia and her driver Ahmed in a part of the downtown area that we are very familiar with. Ahmed is just a regular taxi driver who she hires out on certain days, he's a really sweet man, he's a sheikh which is basically a teacher of Islam or a kind of pastor to put it in western terms. She's taught him all the english he knows, and she must be a great teacher because he's almost got it! He calls her Mom sometimes too, they are very sweet together.
Some windows are covered for extra privacy
 and to for the sake of modesty
They took us to the largest and most famous bazar called Khan el Khalili! We walked around for a while and then got tea at the oldest coffee shop in Cairo! Khan el Khalili is maaarvelous. Really. It has literally everything you could ever want, and every kind of touristy Egyptian trinket you could ask for. Remarkably... I didnt buy a single thing!! I spend less than 3 American dollars on a henna tattoo for my hand, 3 dollars for the taxi there, and probably less than 5 for everyone's shisha and tea at the end of the night. It was an awesome day. There is just sooo much to see!!
After the bazar we walked down some very rural side streets to Islamic Cairo to visit a mosque and see some "real Egypt." The streets were dirt, children running all over with no shoes on, women in habias carrying babies and bread on their heads, laundry hanging out the window, goats stealing cumquats from the street vender, little boys playing in the street, old men smoking shisha on the sidewalk. It was really different than the Zamelek area, which is where we usually spend our time because of the bus that goes directly there. Zamelek is where half of my school's dorms are and is the more upscale neighborhood in Cairo. Its all embassies, cafe's and night clubs.


"Off Praying"
(Muslims pray 5 times a day, and always take
their shoes off, we've even seen empty police boots with
 just shoes, waiting for their owner to come back.
 I always think it's really beautiful)

Zakia also took us to a beautiful mosque. She had given us advance notice so we had scarves with us to cover our heads. It was a beauuutiful mosque, and it wasn't even a prominent one. The courtyard was my favorite, the tile on the grown reflected the mosque really nicely and there were birds flying around. I feel really blessed to be able to visit things like that. I feel it is important to see how other people worship, and if you visit sites like that, you might be able to feel god's presence there too. Its really beautiful. I'm also verrry excited because I've been able to read a few words around the mosques and I an recognize "Allah akbar" (praise God) and "la illaha ilAllah"(no god but God) =) And the call to prayer is gorgeous, as I've probably mentioned a thousand times. It's one of my favorite things in Cairo, I know I'll miss it when I go home. (Why don't I hear it from the one by my house, are they not allowed to play it? I know in some cities they can't because it offends people... which is awful... ok if you know the answer let me know.. moving on)
It was really nice =)







Then we headed back to the bazar for dinner. Have you by any chance seen Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations?? The Egypt episode??? Welllllllllll!!!! He goes to a tiny little hole in the wall restaurant for authentic Egyptian food... and that is where Dr. Professor. Charlotte Zakia Naugle took Margaux and I to eat our very first (and wonderfully delicious) stuffed pigeon!! It was delicious. Na'am na'am naaa'aaam!!! =)
We finished our time with Zakia and Ahmed at the coffee shop again for mint tea and shisha.


After our Khan el Khalili adventure, Margaux and I went back to Zamelek and waited for the rest of the family to come downtown for a good old American style party at a flat where some of the military AUC students live. It was fun, I met a ton of people!

Then the week began again, sunday classes were good, monday classes were good. I have a paper due tomorrow and a presentation on thursday. I love all my classes though, my Egyptology class is just fascinating. And Im HERE, which is insane. And my Shi'i Muslims in History class is really realllllllly intereseting, it's a ton of information and I feel behind because most of my peers are Sunni, but I still really enjoy it. My literature class is reading stories and poems from all around the world about people who feel displaced and people who travel a lot, so that's been wonderful too. And Arabic... as difficult as it is and as much as I whine about it, it really is great. Actually looking at how much time we've spent in class, we've learned soo much in the last month. Last night I was able to order in Arabic!!! "Midfudluk, iyisa kushari" Please I want kushari (I know that's very basic but I can do it!) And "hashrob bepsi" I will drink pepsi. "Shukran" Thank you. =) And then there are those words that have become part of our regular vocabulary: Yalla- come on, habibi- sweetheart, walla- I swear, yanni- you know?, mish- no, humdid'Allah- thank's God!, insha'allah- God willing (AKA maybe or never), moompkin- maybe... Its so bad.. but I mean now I know future tense and if I think about it really hard I can conjugate all the regular verbs, and we just learned how to negate them too.
Anyway, the point being, I am learning a ton here, working hard and playing hard, and I absoluuutly love it here. I can't describe it. =)

The family at one of our favorites, a club called "After 8"
They play house music and there's also a live band, it's tons of fun!!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

The old the new and the bucket list

Yesterday =) I went to the pyramids!!! =)
And I got to cross "Visit the pyramids at Giza" and "Ride a camel" off of my bucket list =))

It was a fabulous day! I went with two friends from school, Alex and Sophie, and it wasn't crowded. We'd been warned about crowds of people, pushy camel guys, trash blowing in the wind, and inhuman treatment of the animals. So expecting that, it wasn't bad at all. I think we went on a really good day. And it wasn't very hot either (well until we went inside the temple of claustrophobia.)

The pyramids are on a hill and can be seen from the highway and the even the Nile if you're on the top floor of a building. Even with Cairo's dense (worse than Bakersfield) smog, they are soo majestic on the horizon. Now Ive seen them a number of times just driving around and they still always take my breath away.

Thanks to my Egyptology class, I know the tiny tiniest bit of background on these giant beauties. They were constructed by the pharaoh Khufu somewhere between 2589 and 2566 B.C. Which is... I mean... wow. Nothing is that old. It's incredible. And considering the amount of people who have seen them in the last 5,000 years and climbed all over them, its just... well it's incredible. They took only twenty years to make too. For some reference, the Milan Duomo in Italy was constructed over a period of 400 years ( and it's beyond incredible too, but just saying.) It's impossible for us to imagine what it took to build these pyramids, Egypt was so different then. The pharaoh had an indescribable amount of power because he was considered the son of god incarnate. So with his title "Horus" he could do anything. When he died, he became Horus's father, Osiris, ruler of the underworld, and the next pharaoh picked up exactly where he left off as the next Horus. So that's how a pharaoh had the means to construct any kind of giant monument or temple even in his first week on the throne.

Another thing not often mentioned is that the pyramids were not build in a desert. Cairo/ Giza area was a lush oasis in the time of the ancients. The land is still incredibly fertile along the river. The climate would not have been as harsh as we would think and the workers (not slavesss) would have been treated a lot better than our conception. Ancient Egypt was also ridiculously wealthy, but you probably already knew that.

That's hardly any background at all, but still enough to blow anyone's mind when they stand at the bottom. A weird thing I thought though was the lay out, and the Sphinx. It was all different than I imagined, and the Sphinx is tiny. I actually couldn't find it. When I was standing at the Great Pyramid, I had to ask someone to point it out to me. Everything is build on a slope, so the pictures can't really show the reality. That didn't lessen its beauty or anything, I just thought it was really interesting. Not quite what I expected.

We walked around the pyramids for a while just taking pictures and being silly before allowing ourselves to get hassled by the camel guys. We got an okay deal I guess. I gave him a tip and all together it was 10 american dollars for 15 minutes on a camel and a thousand pictures. He also put a beduin scarf on my head even though I told him not to. Then he asked if I had any husbands and I said yes.. 5.

Camels are tall. They smell really odd, they are bow legged... sitting on one while it stands up is like a roller coaster. But they're calm, and mine was so sweet. His name was Mickey Mouse. When I asked my guide if he was nice to him, he said "oh yes of course he's my friend. He seemed ok. Oh! And camels "sing." They open their mouths (which look like the inside of the aliens' mouths from Alien vs Preditor) really wide and make the weeeirdest gurgling noise I have ever heard. But, they call it the camel's song. I really loved the camel ride, Mickey was good to me.

Next we walked around the Sphinx. He was built by the pharaoh Khafra who most think is the son of Khufu. All that's really left of him is his face (noseless of course( and his paws, the back of his head is warn down along with his back and behind. But still. Its incredible. He has these giant gorgeous eyes, and its incredible you can still make them out.

Then we took our touristy "Im a 20 year old giggley girl picture" and Alex got a lot of "Lucky man two beautiful wives" shouts, hahaa. And he said "thanks" too, that was the best part.
We went inside a little temple too. Sadly it was graffitied and empty, but we did get to see a few really cool hieroglyphics. I was able to recognize where the name of the pharaoh was (with the hieroglyph of Horus) and some other symbols like the pharaoh smiting his enemy and bring order to his kingdom, which is on the front of almost all temples from the Old Kingdom. It symbolizes the gods keeping Ma'at on earth, which means a bunch of things, like Wisdom, Order, Peace, etc. Oh but fun fact: Ma'at is a woman who was there when Ra, the sun god created earth. Which is symbolized by the building of the temple itself.

Im so glad Im taking an egyptology class. =)

The day did not end so well due to some really awful taxi drivers. We managed not to get too ripped off though and we did get home safely, thanks to directions over the phone in arabic from our savior Joe from Bahrain.
But. Im not even going to focus on that.
Let's say the day ended when we left the pyramids, and that ended soo well.

We climbed up a bit and took some pictures, made sure to touch the facade and pick up a few stones.
Then as we were walking to the gate, looking down at all of Cairo, we heard Call to Prayer. And everything else was silent. And the wind blew and brought us the beautiful music from what had to be 100 different mosques, not competing but almost chanting together. It was incredible.
I was blown away. There I stood on the other side of the world, in the largest city in the Middle East, watching wind blow across a desert below the greatest archeological achievement in the ancient world, listening to over eight million people worship god. It was incredible, absolutely amazing. I will never forget the feeling and it will never be duplicated.
Just absolutely amazing, a gorgeous day I will never forget.

<3

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Nothing to do with Egypt

(But maybe everything to do with Egypt?? Muahahaha.)


This is my very very favorite song ever, the definition of my motives, the basis of my inspiration

Beautiful, by India Arie =)
And my favorite places/ pictures..

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How to Walk Like an Egyptian

The following are literal and exact instructions on how to walk like an Egyptian:



AS SLOWLY AS POSSIBLE. AT ALL TIMES.

-FIN-

ShamShmarm

This blog comes to you from the relieved and refreshed of Kjrstin Berg who is now home from an amazing weekend at the beach =)

Last wednesday, at about 10pm, myself and six other AUCans headed for the bus stop in downtown Cairo to embark on our 6 hour drive to Sharm el Sheikh, a popular beach and tourist area along the Red Sea in Sinai (Did you see Moses?- my dad <3>
The bus was okay, it had air conditioning, we slept or tried to sleep most of the time. The strangest thing for me was being woken up at 4 or 5 checkpoints by a man with a gun demanding to see my passport. One man was actually taken off the bus because he didn't have a visa, that was scary. And every time I looked out the window I saw literally nothing but sand. But not like the beautiful rolling sand dunes, no I mean, just sand.
We eventually got there, but much earlier then our gracious host, so we waited seeeevvveral hours at a random hotel. A hotel we werent staying at. And we swam in the pool. And just hung out with our luggage. Hahah, so weird.



Finally, we met up with the rest of our group. We were soo lucky to have been offered a friend's house to stay at. Good ol' Wafa'i. Haha.
That night we went out to seafood (naturally I bought food at a different restaurant and brought it in, we know how I feel about fish, bleh!!) Then after walking around the area and looking at some shops we went to an upstairs lounge with hookah and drinks and pool tables. We went home pretty early that night and just ended up swimming at the house and hanging out.
Every day there we slept wayyy too much during the day and stayed up until 4 or 5am... but we're in Egypt, that's how it goes, TIA, hahaa.


Our second night we got to go clubbing!! We went to a really cool venue called Little Buddha. It was the same as any club I guess, low lights, really loud music, but this one was full of the funniest european tourists you could ever imagine... huge Russian muscle heads and German girls with bleached blonde teased hair and ridiculous shoes. All of Sharm was an awesome place to people watch. Very touristy though, not very Egyptian. We had such a fun night though just dancing and dancing until it closed for the night

Our next day in Sharm was incredible. We spent the day in the Red Sea after eating a big meal on the beach. The bay was gorgeous, the water was warm, they gave you towels, we spotted our first burkini (which some women who wear hijab wear while swimming in order to keep their heads and bodies covered). And the weather was gorrrgeous. Margaux, Sophie, Gwen and I swam out to the edge of the swimming area where we formed a sort of raft by holding each others' ankles and floated back down to the other edge. It was really nice. Just a normal relaxing beach day.



After a few hours of swimming, Said (Like sa-yeeed, like from Lost) suggested that we go parasaling and organized the whole thing for us. It was SOOO funnnn!!! Id never done it before and I was thrilled! Margaux and I went up together. They just strap you in and let you go, it looks a little unnerving from the boat, but its actually really peaceful. We were susspended in the air for about 10 minutes and we were lucky enough to see the sun set behind the Sinai mountains. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The water was so blue below us and the air was warm and clear. And the sky was blue, and pink, and purple. The moon was a gorgeous crescent and the North Star was crystal clear beside it.
And Im not romanticizing, it was gorgeous. =)





We concluded our vacation with the event that initially brought us all down there- a David Guetta concert!! David Guetta is a DJ who mixes house music. And you know his stuff, I promise. The concert was AMAAAAZZINNNNGGG!!! Im not sure I would call it a concert, everyone was calling it "the party" as in "are you going to David Guetta's party?" The venue was incredible. Its a club called Pacha which is considerable famous in Egypt. It's not really indoor or outdoor... you walk in and there are shops and restaurants inside and then a huge open area in the middle with a DJ booth and stage, a huge dance floor, a number of bars and some tables set upstairs in the VIP area. And it was all standing room. I think there were about 5000 people there, all excited and happy and ready for a good time just dancing and being around each other. The concert itself was amazing too, people were fanatically excited every time Guetta said anything, and he was great. There were so many lights and the bass was loud, everyone was dancing like they'd never danced before. One of my favorite parts of the concert were all the extra dancers. On stage there were always at least two go-go girls, but that was only half exciting. A little bit into the show twirling dervishes came on stage with neon lights attached to their costumes. And from the ceiling came trapeze artists and other gymnasts. I cant figure out the term- the girls who just dance around hanging from the ceiling with two long pieces of cloth... like Circ de Sole status. It was amazing.








I had soo much fun, I loved every minute of it.
Im looking forward to more weekends that will be even better, insha'allah =)

Now to do some arabic homework...
Goooodnight everybodyyy!!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

More pictures!!!





Cairo Tower!



I'm starting to finally feel like Im in Egypt, it always takes me a while for things to hit me, but yesterday I realize wow... Im in EGYPT!!
The day was amazing. I leisurely woke up at about 1pm, we went out the night before with Egyptian guys from school, they took us to
another "bar" on top of a hotel with a gorgeous view of the Nile. Oh and by bar here I mean you go and sit down and order guava or mango or banana juice, and you stay out till 4am but its not for the sake of partying its for the sake of being in nice weather and being awake during the only hours Muslims can eat during Ramadan.



So at about 1pm we left for Zamelek, a section of Cairo. Sophie called cabs and organized the whole thing, she's wonderful =) It was Margaux, Sophie, Gwen, Alex and I (Alex is half egyptian from Texas). The drive was awesome actually, your usual near death experience, but it was so nice to go into the city in the day time so you can see more. We took a different rout then usual too so we saw a lot of new interesting buildings and people. As we came up one little hill I saw my first glimpse of the pyramids =))) They're still so unreal from far away, just lingering on the horizon past the city, surrounded by a layer of fog/ clouds/ smog (who am I kidding)
It was incredible. The three of us that had never seen them before were literally squealing. =)




So we got into Cairo and walked around for about an hour just exploring with no map or schedule, just with the idea that we'd go to the tower for Iftar. We took some pictures with giant lion statues that guard a bridge, saw a statue of man with a fez hat and the Cairo Opera House, and walked along the Nile. Then we went to Cairo Tower!!!
Cairo Tower, or Burg Al-quarera, is just a huge tower in the center of Cairo with a restaurant on top and an unbelievable view. It's taller than the pyramids and claims to be taller than the Eiffel tower and stuff like that too but Im not sure about that one.
We spend I think 4 hours up there. The view is INCREDIBLE. It might be my favorite thing that Ive done here so far =) Sooo amazing. You can see most of Cairo!! I loved looking down at the mosques and high rises and hotels and homes, it was incredible. Also, now I feel like I can get around easier. And it showed us how much we walk too, crazy!



After looking around at the top the first time we went into the restaurant to kill time before Iftar so we could watch the sun go down. We bought fancy icecream drinks and talked for an hour or so before heading back up. It was such a beautiful day =)
And thennn we heard call to prayer!! From several different mosques!! It was gooorgeous, it was really such a beautiful experience. I'm going to try to learn the prayers while Im here, they are so pretty!! Then we watched the sun go down and the city come to life =) Or night life, yeaknow. It was incredible. Im so glad we went!!!
Then for the rest of the evening we walked around some more and went to dinner near the other campus dorms and caught the bus home. It was an awesome day!!




Tomorrrrrrow, school starts!! No more vacation!! Well except tuesdays when we dont have class, and this thursday which is a holiday, and a few weeks from now when we get the week off =) Hahahaha.
Wish me luck! Im nervous but excited, just like the first day of CLU.

Maaaan, I love it here <3

Thursday, September 2, 2010

This is for you, Mom =D

THE FOOOOOOOOOD!!!! غذاء
Bon appetite!!
تناول الطعام بشكل جيد


Pigeon!! But not Anthony Bordaine style, this one was grilled and probably anorexic, but really good. You have to eat it with your hands. And it's served with rice and potatoe wedges.

This was a free meal from the school, its just chicken, rice, potato wedges and sauce. And the bread... oh the bread!! Egyptian peta bread is sooooo. Goooooood. Im sure theres a better name for it, but Idk what it is. Its so good though and you put everything inside it like a tortilla or lefje. We get it wish baba ganoosh or with felafel, soo good!

Here's more!

Rice and noodles (yeah, on the same plate! Hah)
Egyptians love their carbs! Its actually really awesome bc the bread fills you up and its cheep so its perfect for a country with such high poverty.

Egg bake felafel, really yummy

"the man plate" just a bunch of meet: kabob, beef, chicken.

Lebanese fooood =) It was really good, like a canole kind of! I should start writing down what things are called... haha

Delicious icecream at Odeon, a bar above a hotel in downtown Cairo. Pistachio and hibiscus flavored!

Annnd, if you feel very full, you went with a delicious mint tea (for me, with 2 sugars) and some cookies.


Naam naam naaaammmm!!!

^Ok you know how people say that? Well! In arabic, Na'am means YES! So suffice to say, we've been using namnamnam here a lot =)


Love you familyyyy =))))


إذا كنت ترغب في معرفة سر ، أنا لا أعرف أي اللغة العربية على الإطلاق! أنا فقط استخدام موقع على شبكة الإنترنت الترجمة! أنا أعرف كيف أقول بضع كلمات ولكن ليس لدي فكرة عن كيفية كتابتها ، سوف يأتي على الرغم من.

Gorgeous, eh?? Ma salama habibti!
I dont think its PC to call your mom habibti, it means sweetheart... but its my favorite! OK LOVE YOU BYE!