Friday night. Woah, that was a crazy night. It seemed like it went on forever. Being April's birthday, and seeing as we had already ridden horses to the Pyramids, we decided to do a low-key night, rather than some other options that were presented to us. We went out to dinner at Café Vivant, near Longchamps, until almost 9pm, and then came back to the hotel to give April her beloved chipwich and try to determine some plans for the rest of the night. We ended up around the corner from Flamenco in a smaller branch of Café Vivant instead of Versailles, like we were thinking, but it was still nice. We left there around 1am and on the way back to the hotel got a text from Ted saying to go up to his room. When we got up there, everyone was leaving to go out for Pete's birthday, so we got caught up in them and ended up going back out. We packed 8 people into a rather small car, blasted some metal music, took of in reverse and crunch. Our driver, Mohammed, backed right into the car parked on the other side of the street. I'm sure everything would've been fine if there hadn't been four police officers around the corner. They heard the crunch and came to see what happened and that was it. Mohammed got out and was talking to the cops for a while, during which the seven of us still packed into the car sat and wondered what was going on and how we were going to get out of this. Turned out that the only problem was that he backed into another car, not that there were 8 people in a 5-person car. By then, it was almost 2:30am, but we went up to Matt & Rod's room to hang out for a little longer. We ended up hanging out up there, talking and watching Happy Gilmore until after 4am. Around 4:30am, I was finally in bed, passed out, not looking forward to getting up for a 9am tour of Islamic Cairo.
As tired as I was, I definitely enjoyed Islamic Cairo a LOT. I love going to the mosques and hearing about the histories and just being inside. Our tour guide, Iman, was pretty sweet. She definitely knows her stuff. The first one was the Mosque of Ahmad Ibn Tulun. It was absolutely huge, and so plain, but that's one of the things I loved about it. It had a beautifully sculpted minaret, which we climbed to the top of for an amazing view of the whole city, and how there were about 100 mosques in the area. It was an amazing view. The stairs were killer, but it was worth it. 
The second mosque we went to, the Mosque of Sultan Hassan was my favorite. It wasn't too plain, but not too ornate, and the cruciform structure is my favorite of the structures of mosques we've seen. I loved how opened it was, unlike the other mosques we've seen, where there are columns everywhere, almost making it feel sort of closed off. I think the thing that won me on the second mosque was when we went into the mausoleum of Sultan Hassan and one of the Muslim men who was in the mosque at the time wanted to demonstrate the echo and the acoustics of the place, and he started singing what I assume was a passage from the Qu'ran. He sang it so beautifully and with so much passion that it made me cry, as ridiculous as that sounds. All my life I've looked for something to believe in as strongly as his faith evidently is, and something to have unconditional faith in. I just haven't found it yet. 
He sang for about 2 minutes, and the verse ended with the inscription around the ceiling of the room we were in. He stopped, and continued in a hushed whisper. A woman heard his prayer and came in from outside and was whispering along while he was singing, and continued the whispered prayer with him after he was through singing. I can't really explain what I felt right then, I just know that they have something that I've been longing for all of my life, and that hit a soft spot in me. 
The third mosque we went to, the Mosque of Mohammed Aly, at the citadel, was my least favorite. It was so European and overly ornate and crowded that I felt a little uncomfortable there. There were tourists everywhere with their shoes on the ground, which I find appallingly disrespectful, and talking loudly and laughing, and I didn't find that same peace that I've found being in other mosques. It was unsettling. I was glad to leave that place when the day was over. 
After the mosques, I rested for the day because between lack of sleep and being so busy, running around between class and the tail end of our touristy adventures and everything like that, my body is starting to shut down earlier and earlier in the day. Sunday was spent writing a paper we had for our Arabic class. We had to do a page and a half about our houses, using directions and colors and adjectives and all that good stuff. All I can say about that is thank god for Mary helping us proofread through them.
My back is slowly getting better. It's still a little sore, and the bruise is getting more colorful by the day, but it's definitely an improvement from last week.
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