First few days

Today marks my fourth full day in Cairo, what has so far been confusing but good. Since there's no class or structured time (until later today when my Survival Arabic class starts at 4:30pm) I've been wandering around the neighborhood, called Zamaalek, with other American students. There have been a couple great finds for shops, including a place where you can get one delicious felafel (called tameeya here) for 0.18USD (1 LE, Egyptian pounds). Prices range greatly--we found a bag of Sunchips for 40LE ($8), which was exorbitant, but good food on the cheap abounds when you hunt it out.

The light mist (or is it smog?) in the morning also adds to the beauty of the city, making it seem a little enchanted, like a city in the clouds. Architectural trends so far include:

• tiling the sidewalk directly outside your shop and no further, so that as someone walks down one block they step on many different colors and tectures.
• depressing the level of the floor of the shop about three feet below street level, so that customers open your door and take a couple steps to get the ground. I imagine this regulates tempurature in the store, but I haven't asked.
• having glass doors, even glass walls. At my dorm, the ground level seems very open even though the space is divided into different rooms because some of the walls are made of sheets of glass or have glass sections. It would look pretty ritzy if our grubby fingerprints weren't all over them.
• Because of the climate, buildings can be more open, so some places have no doors at all, or leave them perpetually open. Even if you can't go in, you can peek in.
• This one's not really an architectural trait, but compact fluorescent bulbs are all over the place here. They're a hippy thing in the US, but according to the wikipedia article on CFLs, they're quite a big deal internationally, particularly in big cities like Cairo where their low energy draw eases the strain on the power plants here (and where people are out and about at all hours of the night, and not just to go to mosque).

The population is in the vicinity of 17 million people, and the metropolitan area covers about 25 square miles, or so I read today. Because of this, it's difficult to regulate certain things like traffic (lanes are painted on the road, but ignored because you can fit 5 cars abreast if you ignore the fact that three lanes are painted on the road). I think this happens in other areas too, but traffic is the most obvious.

I'm doing well. I'm trying to drink a lot of bottled water--which you can find here for what I think bottled what should be sold for in the US at 0.25USD (or 1.5LE) for a half liter. I brush my teeth with the tap water. I eat Egyptian food at every opportunity, and my stomach has been shockingly strong. I haven't been sick at all , which I'm so grateful for. I've realized that my Arabic is nearly non-existant, and I'm not upset about it. I've been told that if I take a colloquial class, I'll get it easily. Many people selling food know relevant English words like "Spicy?" and "Two pounds," and I'll try to ask as often as I can "bilarabia?" to get them to tell me the word for whatever they said in Arabic. So far I've learned the words for spicy, change, fare, water, and cat. I excell at one word sentences. I travel almost exclusively in groups of other American students, which has many advantages. It helps my social life, but it also more socially acceptable to the residents here. I feel like I'm getting looks when I walk alone, although there's no way not to get looks. Also, the American students are all really excited about getting to know the neighborhood and learning about new places, whereas the Egyptian students who I've talked to already know the neighborhood and prefer to get delivery (everywhere delivers) and eat in the comfort of the dorm, even if the place they're getting food from is literally around the corner. I think the Egyptian students like foreign food, just like the American students do, but foreign for them includes McDonalds, and foreign for us is Egyptian food.

The dorm looks like a palace on the outside, and upstairs from the lobby on the residence floors, it is simple but complete in what it offers. I carry soap with me to the bathroom because there are the Islamic toilets here, where you clean yourself with water from a small hose or pipe, and not toilet paper apparently.

I feel like a wimp wearing a warm jacket here since it's the Middle East, but I've pulled out the sweaters because it is brisk outside and in, like early spring. I wear a hoody outside once it gets dark, which exposes me as even more of an American, but is necessary, along with gloves.

My roommate is not here yet, but should arrive by the end of the week. I am excited to meet her, and to describe academic life to you guys as soon as it starts. Pictures to come soon as well.

"Asalaam aleikum! Where are the frauenbathrooms?"

My paltry Arabic did me no good in the Frankfurt Airport, where I had about 3 hours layover between Chicago and Cairo. (For the record, frauenbathrooms are called "toilette," just like in French but say the final e, and they're right over there, just more discretely placed and with fewer indicating signs than in the US.) I took some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Christ Jewelry and Watches International

Goethe Bar--if you click the picture, in the background you can see a big white statue of what is assumably the man himself reclining ina big hat

On the way to Frankfurt I sat next to a couple from Wisconsin going to visit their family in India, and on the way to Cairo I sat next a Finnish couple going to Egypt for a meeting. At my gate in Frankfurt, I saw a group of kids whose Georgetown hoodies and guitar case gave them away as American college students. I sat with them and sure enough they were all enrolled in the American University in Cairo (AUC) this spring. One girl mentioned that she felt loud and American in the Frankfurt airport and I felt the same, but ignorant too. It's kind of presumptuous to be in a place where your only vocabulary in the local language comes from "Sound of Music." Although some things are universal; Mom will be pleased to hear that I saw "Das Goldene Sudoku" stocked in the business class section of my second plane.

There were a couple moments on the plane when I thought, "Wow, I'm actually on the plane. I've been planning this for over a year and it's on the brink of actually happening." I think it would have taken me about 20 more years to pull this together if it hadn't been for Mom and Dad helping me so much. So many other people have prepared me, but it's not quite the same as late night faxes, endless phone calls on my behalf, and sacrificing their bedroom to serve as ground zero for my packing efforts.

Everything went smoothly getting from our house in Chicago to the dorm in Cairo, and the few glitches are not worth mentioning. All the AUC students were corralled and put on a bus going to our dorm. The drive from the airport was about an hour, which gave us the opportunity to see the city. It was a little before sunset as we were driving, which bathed the whole scene in a golden light, revealing a city looking quite like Metropolis (the new anime version), with a hodgepodge of buildings mixed together. It was stunningly beautiful architecturally. There was laundry hanging out of a lot of windows and satellite dishes on the roofs of crumbling buildings. Billboards are everywhere. There are palm trees and a lot of other greenery just mixed in. I even thought the sand next to the runway was beautiful. It's just so not-grass. Most everything in the city is paved, but even in that way there's just so much variety.

There's a lot more to describe but I'm very tired and quite jetlagged, so more later.

Getting ready

Dear friends,

I'm so glad you've been able to make it to this site! This last week I've been scrambling to get all my vaccinations (6 injections in 2 days--yee haw!) and to try to find a job for next summer. The placement test for Arabic was hard-to-impossible but not too emotionally painful, and I've also been shopping for 100% cotton clothes. According to all the online fora where people give advice on traveling to Egypt, they say 1. that you'd better cover up and 2. that it is Hot! Luckily I've got a jump on things due to a timely Christmas present from Mom and Dad.

I'm sure I've been over-thinking this trip, but as I read online accounts of other travellers to Cairo, they say that many people who get there act (and dress) like they're still in their home country. This is not my intention. The movie "La Dolce Vita" keeps popping up in my mind too, with its characters who have a hard time getting out of party mode.


The title for the blog was hotly (that's an overexaggeration) debated. A couple people talked me out of "friendlyamerican.blogspot.com" because its potential sketchiness factor. One brainstorming instance produced "Chicairo" (you know, like Chicago but with Cairo...) which I still think is priceless, but "Cooler by the Nile" was the compromise. Pictures and details of my 6-month adventure studying abroad at the American University in Cairo to come. Email me if you'd like my contact info.