First looks

اهلا و ساهلا!

I've been in Alexandria, Egypt for...2 days now, and I think I'm already starting to think in Egyptian. Right now it's 1 am and I am exhausted from the sun (shems) and the day's adventures, but here are some quick highlights of my first couple days:

Alexandria....it's about 25 miles long and maybe 5 wide, stretching along the Mediterranean Sea. We live in the dorms of "Kulliat San Markos" (Saint Mark's College) about 3 blocks from the water. Tonight and yesterday at sunset we walked through the tunnel under the Corniche, the large road that runs along the sea, and went out onto the beach to put our feet in the water. SOOOO amazing to be able to stand in the waves and watch the sun go down with the lights of the city surrounding us. Ahhhhhh!

It's been pretty hot, but not uncomfortable. It's not yet as hot as the summer in Maryland, and not nearly as humid. I hear it'll definitely get a lot hotter though....hehe. But, I'm ready!

TRAFFIC is craaaaaaazyyyyyy! You WILL get run over if you step into the street without paying attention. People here use the horn pretty much constantly. And they only use headlights to flash at pedestrians when they get in the way!

Everyone is soooo friendly. The dorms we live in are very conservative, and tonight all of the girls threw us a party and cooked us tons of felafel and fool and other egyptian foods and we all danced and sang egyptian songs :)

Guys in the streets are pretty annoying, it's kind of funny the number of times we'll hear "Waalcoome to Egeept" as we walk by in the street though. The boys hiss at us to get our attention, so we call them snakes.

Mostly so I can remember, the basic details:

Friday June 5:
leave airport in Dulles, fly through the night. Watched He's not that into you, or somehting like that.

Saturday June 6: Arrived Frankfurt, wandered confused around the airport for a while, found a place to leave our bags, got a really bad rate exchanging dollars for euros, then took the train straight from the airport into the city!!! We saw some awesome old churches, from as early as 1300s, and walked around old town Frankfurt. We tried some Fleischschnitzel, german beers, and apfel streudel! Yummmm. We ran into a group of british guys, who tried to get us to come get "leathered" with them. Haha! We declined, though we did learn a new way to high five.

Flew through the night again on Lufthansa, soooo much nicer airline. Real silverware!! Sat next to an Egyptian guy, and talked to him in Arabic a lot. He wants us to visit his stainless steel shop in Alexandria.

Sunday June 7: Arrived in Alex 2 am! Got through the customs and swine flu checks, and headed for the dorms by bus. Got to the dorms and were greeted by lots of lovely Egyptian ladies and girls from the dorm who helped us get settled. I live with Rachel, my same roomie from college park. Slept a few hours. (literally a few)

Woke up, lunch at noon, (yum!) met Mama Hoda, hilarious lady in charge of food, and Iman, in charge of the housing, learned the rules of the house etc. Walked from the dorms to the University of Alexandria, where the Flagship program has its own floor at the language center, and we have our own "dar" with a kitchen, a/c, comfy couches, and computers etc. Met all the professors, and then we had our placement testsssss ahhhhh in both aamia (egyptian dialect), and fusha (more formal ...and more difficult...Modern Standard Arabic.)

After orientation stuff was over Ahmed and Iman (the two students who are our contact people in the respective girls and boys dorms, and very very fun and nice) took us around the downtown part of the city by tram (women and men ride in separate cars, it costs a quarter ginea, which is less than 5 cents in US dollars) to Radio Shack and atms to get chargers and converters etc.

Dinner lezeez! Afterwards I went around with Hira and Hannah to downtown area and went to watch the big futbol game between egypt and Algeria in a cafe.

Sleep

Monday June 8:

Woke up, breakfast! Left with the whole group to do some touring of learning about Alex. Went to see a huge old fort at the entrance to the bay, amaaazing! Visited an old mosque and I didnt have a headscarf with me, but I borrowed one and went inside, I'm so glad I did. It was beautiful and grand.

Had some more orientation stuff at the dar, then Muatez (another one of the young people) took us to the market, or supposedly. Really he took us on a whirlwind tour around the city, downtown, saw some catacombs, ate the best falafel in the city, and learned a very important secret lesson. 3 hours later we were back in the dorms in time for dinner. Then afterwards, walked along the corniche, and went to a cafe (ah-hoo-a) for shay (tea) and sheesha (hookah). PHEW!

THEN we came back to the dorm in time to be serenaded with our third dinner, prepared by the adorable dorm girls, so sweet! Dance party in their room, we played the egyptian version of spin the bottle which is actually a lot like truth or dare. Sang LOUDLY in arabic! crammed about 20 girls into a dorm room. They are all the sweetest people i have ever met. And here I am! Good night. Maasalaaamaaaaa!