Pre-Cairo Update

It's been a few days since I've updated this, so I'll try to remember what's happened since then.

Everytime I sit down to write a post, it's hard. Not that I have nothing to say, but there are countless stories which I could tell, and thus little chronology to them. Every day, I have events happen to me which I try to remember for my next post, but ultimately I forget many of them. Little things like conversions with taxi drivers, people almost getting hit by cars, buying food from small, perhaps not-safe food stands, et cetera, become convoluted into one massive experience to hopefully be unravelled later. I'm sure once I get back to the States, I'll have a decent juxtaposition from which to recount exactly what I'm experiencing right now, but ultimately the present provides too much distraction to have any sort of flow.

A couple days ago, I went to a cafe with a friend to do homework, since they have a superior wifi connection than the one in my dorm. It's my new homework place; the place is always crowded, but there's a nice section upstairs right next to a window above the street where I can carve out my own hoven in which to study.

After that, at about midnight, we went to an open air, neighborhood-type market. They sold all kinds of things there; one place even had live rabbits, outside of their cages, for sale. To eat of course. Being white americans, we of course rocked everyones world there. I'd bet that there's never been any Americans in their little market before. On our way out, a group of what had to be the local elders stopped us and asked us if he wanted "shye," the Arabic word for tea. We had to accept their offer, and they circled their chairs around us and talked about all kinds of things. In Mexico, I've had somewhat long conversations in spanish before, but this was the first time I could manage it in Arabic. I really wanted to snap a picture with them, but I felt I might destroy their moment. I should get a similar chance again though.

I've been swamped with homework recently. Anyone who knows me very well knows I'm huge into soccer, but the only world cup news I've been able to follow are simply the scorelines. Hopefully, when it gets to the knockout stages, I'll be able to watch some more.

Tomorrow, we go to Cairo and then nearby Giza to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. It's what i've been looking forward to the most. I'm anticipating camel rides, lots of pictures, and a bad sunburn. Exactly what I'm here for. Oh, and I'll have to be speaking Arabic, of course.

I'm still going through the stages in my head of adjusting between short term, week-like stay, to the mentality state it takes to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time. Eight weeks may not be a long time at home, but we've only been here almost two weeks and it feels like a long time ago I was in D.C. Not that i'm not enjoying it, but there's a massive responsibility on everyone here to make the most of this opportunity, as well as the fact that lots of homework means time slows down.

All in all though, I can't complain. I've looked forward to a trip like this since the first few weeks of college. I know that once I get home, my entire perspective will have changed. That is good because it gives me something to look forward to, but bad in that it gives me something to look forward to. It can be easy at times to stay in a temporary mindset, but I've found that learning the most requires focusing less on time and more on speaking Arabic.

I guess that's all for now. Maybe I'll update in the next couple of days, but I doubt it. Our schedule at Giza will be packed, thankfully, but hopefully next post includes cool stories about the pyramids. Later