Happiness and Cheer

Christmas time is here! We found some evidence in the coptic neighborhood in Doqqi! It was magical =)
And the weather outside is more than frightful, so there ya go!

CHRISTMAS!!

 This weekend was jam-packed full of more amazing memories, and more reasons I feel so torn leaving here. That's not to say I'm not excited to go home and see everyone, it's just that I really do love it here. It's definitely been some of the best months of my life.

The week was really nice too, full of cake and celebration and finally I hung out with some girls from campus, our Egyptian friend Randa took us shopping, she is really sweet. And then after that we went to see the Cairo Choral Society perform the Messiah. It was a really nice week!!

This one's for the Christmas card!

This weekend, we celebrated Margaux, Sophie and Aaron's birthdays! Thursday night we went out to Cairo Jazz Club, but before that we had some cake at the apartment. Alex bought a xmas tree!!!!! It was the best surprise ever, we all just about died. We took some awkward family photos with it, it was glorious. Then we headed out to Cairo Jazz to meet Aaron and his posse. Basically every non-study abroad friend we have was there, it was reallllly fun!!
The next morning we woke up and watched some BBC and arabic news with a cup of tea before heading out for Sophie's birthday picnic! We got some cinnamon rolls and a bucket of KFC and took to the streets. Our original plan was to crash a private garden and eat in there, but after hopping the fence we found it to be a little too dirty. We ended up doing the most authentic Egyptian thing one can do and ate on a curb across from a toy store, lavishly decorated in Santa Clauses.
It was an awesome day just walking around and discovering things! We found a grocery store, fruit market, Nike store and a huuuuge candy store.... yummmm! I bought the Mummy Returns with arabic subtitles. Pretty exciting. And some shoes for the choir concert tomorrow.
It was a really lovely day =)
We ended the night at our favorite restaurant, Falfela (the one I mention all. the. time. because it is wonderful). We ate some delicious felafel and tehena and eggplant concoctions. Later our friend Mohamed joined us for a while (his family owns it actually, so he was in the neighborhood), and we had some delicious cake which Alex made a waiter go buy and bring back! Haha! It was awesome. Alex is the king of birthdays. We even got the whole restaurant singing!! "Sana helwa ya gamil!!"

EGYPTIAN!!!!!

Twenty One-derful <3

The next day I had a field trip with my Shia Islam in History class. We walked around the oldest part of Cairo, where Khan el Kalili is and the fortress wall. Our objective was to see Fatimid mosques because the Fatimids were Shii. So we stopped at some amazing sites and had a great time just walking around, the area is really cool, and I love all my classmates!! 

"We go to the mosques to study and pray!"
SURE =)))

One of the supposed burial sites of Hussein,
grandson of Muhammad and son of Ali

I love them soo much

The view from the top of the fortress gate
Did I mention there was a sand storm? =/

SO! Hallas, the weekend was really awesome and insha'allah this one will be awesome too, it's our last hoorah! =)

9 days until I'm home! <3




PS. Sometimes I just drive by the pyramids =)))))