I'm still in a pretty good place, despite slipping down some stairs on Tuesday evening. They were mopping the stone steps without putting up a "wet floor" sign and so my flip-flop-clad feet went right out from under me, and I slid down the stairs on my butt/lower back. Not fun. It didn't really bother me until I went to sit down in the hotel room later that night only to realize sitting upright wasn't going to happen. I laid down for the night, and decided that the wooden chairs in the next day's classroom would be torturous for the amount of pain when I tried to sit, so I forwent class on Wednesday and slept in a little bit, to catch up on sleep I've been missing, caught up on some journaling and rested. I've got a pretty colorful lower back, now, though.
At 2:30pm, Abduh picked up Cynthia and me from the Flamenco to go to AUC for a screening of The Yacoubian Building. Sitting for the three-or-so hours that the movie spanned was painful, to say the least. The movie? I wasn't very impressed. If someone saw it who hadn't read the book, they'd be totally lost. The story lines jumped all over the place, especially with Taha, and the music was so overdone. Of course, that's what I pick out, but it's the first thing I noticed. It was way too over embellished. Maybe, had I been in better condition, I would've taken to it better, but it was just bad timing, and a not-so-great movie. I appreciate the theoretical value of the creation of the film, but the content left a LOT to be desired. After the movie, we came back to Flamenco to study for an Arabic quiz we had yesterday and after a few runs through the flash cards April made, we both went to sleep.
Yesterday was probably the longest day yet. We had class from 9-1, a break until 2:30, and then the US Embassy from 3-4:30 and the Arab League from 7-9. Our quiz was okay. Syonara just asked us a bunch of questions in Arabic and we had to answer thusly. It went well. We took the rest of the class pretty easily, and worked on some counting and a little more vocabulary. We all met in a part of the AUC campus that I had never seen, and it was pretty lively over there. We got some Ta9maya and relaxed and waited for the rest of the group to assemble to go to the US Embassy. I'm not gonna lie, the Embassy was pretty lackluster. Three different people talked at us for a little over an hour in the Embassy library. We didn't get to see any other part of the Embassy - just the worn-down, old library. I was really disappointed, considering the ridiculous amount of security we went through, and as dressed up as we all were. Oh well. I can't do anything to change it, but I had a lot higher expectations.
We spent the two-hour break in the sitting-area of the Nile Hilton, just to get out of the heat and the sun and sit for a while. At 6:30pm, we walked over to the Arab League, went through some metal detectors, and that was it. We were in. The most minimal security. They led us into a room with a big, oblong table with microphones in front of each chair, and two rows on either side of the table. We all just kind of looked around with our jaws on the ground. We sat for a while just kind of in awe of our surroundings. A group from Green Valley University in Michigan came in to I guess we must be sort of a loud bunch, because every once in a while, the guards would come around and shush us, only to return a few minutes later when we got too loud again. We waited a little longer and a tall man in a dark suit stood at the door. He came in, shook some hands, and took the head seat of the long table. 
He was Ambassador Hisham Youssef, Chef de Cabinet for Amr Moussa, the Secretary General of the Arab League. He presented a fairly intimidating figure, and surveyed the room before he started talking. Mostly, he answered our questions about Middle Eastern affairs and future plans for economy issues and things like that and I guess you could say it was pretty interesting. He spoke until about a quarter to nine, and then we were led into another room which just blew everything else before it away. We were led into the forum where the Arab League meets, and we were just like kids in a candy store. We sat in the chairs, and played with the flags, and wandered around with our mouths opened and our eyes shining. There were so many things to look at and touch and play with. It was so much fun. After 20 minutes of pictures and running around, we left and piled back in the vans to come home. I think it's safe to say that the Arab League pwns the US Embassy.
At around 10:30, Bridget's friends Karim and Amir picked us up for a night out. We were going to go to this place simply called "Purple", but apparently there are 21+ places in Egypt, and the guys at the front didn't believe that any of us girls were 21, so we didn't go in. Instead, we went back to Cairo Jazz Club where, instead of a band doing Frank Sinatra, there was a band singing a mix of Beatles, Bob Dylan and various other classic rock gems called JunkMale. It was definitely a lot of fun, and totally worth the 30LE that we ended up paying. We didn't get back to Flamenco until well after 2am, and we were getting up at 7am to go horseback riding to the pyramids again today. 
We had a free day, but Megan organized this sweet trip with Abduh and one of our vans. We were up and out by 8am, and in Giza by 8:30am. It was nice to go with such a small group rather than the NU40 that we're usually lumped into. I got on this beautiful white horse [of course, one of the taller ones - the irony abounds] and we set off with our 8 horses and 2 camels. We took a different route than we did last time. Note to self: when riding horses, backpacks are a BAD idea. Mine was bouncing all over the place, and my stirrups were a little too long, so they kept falling off my feet and I nearly fell off the horse a few times. It was worth the experience though, despite the renewed pain in my back. We took the horses up to a higher plateau than we stopped on last time, but it was still a gorgeous view. We got off, snapped some group shots, got back on, took some solo shots, and headed back to the van. All in all, we were only gone for about 3 hours, and by the time we got back, I was ready to crash. Good thing my body only let me sleep 10 minutes. Hopefully I can stay up long enough to celebrate April's birthday tonight, and then crash with enough time to sleep before our 9am-2pm tour of Islamic Cairo tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment