Unfortunately, we did not end up going to a wedding on Friday because there were going to be rifles shot in the air at the end and that's illegal in Cairo nowadays and Jessie's professor didn't want us to get in trouble, which was nice of her. However, that morning I decided to stroll on over to Metro Mart to get money and go grocery shopping. However, my ATM card ended up getting eaten by the machine. Whoops! At least I had 150 pounds out already though, which is approx. $30. I went back to my room, did homework, then later that night I had Alex Top with Ryne and Jessie then Jessie and I hung out and watched Conspiracy Theory and chatted.
Saturday, all of our friends came back from Luxor and Aswan. It was great to see them again! Later that day I went to church with my friend Tim, we went to Maadi Community Church and met up with some friends who live on campus. We went to get dinner with some other friends that live in Maadi but while waiting, Tim decided he wanted to try a "street drink" which is purchased by men with big metal pitchers on their backs which they then pour from into little glass cups that have been washed with who knows what kind of water. Since I didn't want Tim to die alone, I tried a sip. In my opinion, this drink tasted an awful lot like water from the Nile with some street dirt mixed in. It was probably about as sanitary. After dinner, I went back to Zamalek with two guys who live with tim then did some homework.
Sunday was uneventful as was Monday except that Monday brought a brand new debit card to me in the mail. Al-humdallah!
Tuesday, I went with Ryne and Ben to Tahrir square in downtown Cairo. I was on a quest for shoes because the ones I brought with me cut into my feet. We wandered for a while and popped into many stores until i found some i liked. I got some converses for only $15. Then we got some arabic music and Harry Potter in Arabic and had lunch at a famous restaurant downtown, called Fill-Filla. We took a cab home and did homework for a while. Later that afternoon I went over to my friend Tim's apartment and we made dinner. We got tomatoes, onions, garlic, eggplant, yellow pepper, mushrooms and simmered them all in a pot with some spices for an hour while we prepared pasta and chicken. It was delicious!
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| Cooking with Tim! |
Thursday after school, Jessie, Ryne, Brent, Ben and I went to a bedouin engagement party. This was through Jessie's professor also. We took the metro as far as it would go in the direction of Helwan and from there got in a 12 person bus with 13 other students from AUC and drove out to a village.
We followed a string of colorful light bulbs to a horse corral area where there were a bunch of men smoking shisha and drinking beer, tea, and coffee.
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| Ryne, Ben, Me, Jessie, and Brent |
We all sat down and watched as different men on various horses would take turns making the horses dance around in the corral. Throughout all this, a band of musicians played shrill, traditional music and the singer of the group would occasionally call out "Allah! Allah hu Akbar!" (God! God is the Greatest!) over a bad microphone. It was pretty crazy. This went on for about 3 hours.
At one point, several girls and I had to use the restroom so we followed this one girl we had been chatting with into a house nearby. This is where all of the women were! One woman had also recently had a baby, which we got to see. The Bride to Be was also there, and were were able to ask her a couple questions.
Finally, around midnight, dinner was served. We had delicious rice cooked with saffron and almonds, spicy pickles, chips, and a big hunk of goat meat. For me, who only became "un-vegetarian" less than a year ago, this was a little much to handle. I nibbled at it a bit but I had my friend Ben help me polish it off. Then we took the bus all the way back to our dorms and went to bed.
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