Happy Post

I just thought I would share with you all a "Happy Post." A random happy reminder of the fact that I'm in Egypt and having the time of my life. Today was really fun - very "basic," but awesome. Classes, homework, food with friends. Kim had a craving for sushi, and she found a place nearby that delivers to campus. So we all got sushi tonight. (And last night Kenny made pasta for us - I'm eating well these days!)

Anyways...LA VIE EST BELLE! !الحياة جميلة Life is beautiful!

God loves you and so do I...so smile!

Oh, look, it's I!

I found a few of me on top of Sinai...

...not that you can actually tell that it's I all that well.




But that one is clearly my jeans and shirt...lol.

High-Level Language Classes are Fun!

The best part about being in an upper-level language class is that you can actually talk about things. Our listening assignment for today involved the history and practice of the hijab. We got into a big discussion (in Arabic) about religious symbols, the French ban, and the like. I wasn't able to talk all that much due to my limited vocabulary, but I understood a fair bit of it and really enjoyed listening.

And some more, why not?

A few more good ones I found on Facebook:

Banana Boat fun!


Our gorgeous resort


Nice shot, there, Kenny. That was at Sinai. Ain't she purty?

More Pics

The pictures in the posts about this weekend were taken by others...here are some from my camera.

Friends on the top.


I have my moments with a camera...





Oh look! I'm on top of Sinai! Can't you tell with the incredibly obvious surroundings?

Sharm el-Sheikh

It was gorgeous. I went snorkeling at one of the world’s prettiest reefs…and, my word, the color. Sorry, I didn’t have an underwater camera. Big mistake, there. My apologies. Not sure what else to say…I snorkeled and rode a banana boat (picture below) and played on the beach and in the pool. We stayed in a resort with a fantastic buffet, so I ate a lot of food. It was a great time of general relaxation and beauty.

Snorkeling! Kim and Kenny are with me there.


My friend Kim and I, very happy on the beach


The waiter at the Italian restaurant where we celebrated Tim's birthday


Banana Boat!

Mount Sinai

We started climbing around 2:30 am on Friday. It was pretty black, as there wasn't much moon. The stars were absolutely gorgeous. I managed to get away from the mass of people with flashlights and just walk with one friend who knew how to keep the light where he needed it and turned it off when we stopped to look up. I carried the water and whatnot and had to stop and wait for him several times...
Every fifteen meters or so you're assaulted and asked if you'd like a camel to go up. At one point I was playing "Camel Frogger" as I got caught up in a large pack that was going too slowly.
They allotted three hours. The first group got up at 1 hours, 7 minutes. I was there ~1 hour, 30. (Geesh, Cameron, slowing me down...) We had a lot of time before sunrise, but it was really nice to climb up on a comfy rock and stare at the stars.
The hike itself wasn't bad at all. Any easier and it would have been boring. Any harder and I might have broken a sweat...but the stairs at the top were not the easiest thing I've ever done.
We saw the sun come up and some friends and I shared an extremely unorthodox Communion of rolls from dinner and a can of Coke. Going down to see what you had hiked up, unable to make anything out, was really fun. As usual, I hated going down. The camels on the way down were so tempting...

Home Safe!

I'm back on campus after Sinai and whatnot. I just have a brief break between classes; an actual update about the trip will appear sometime. It was amazing! There are tons of pictures. Just be patient - they're on their way! Hope everybody had a good weekend.

St. Catherine's and Mount Sinai

This weekend is the trip to St. Catherine's and Mount Sinai...I'm not sure what the internet situation will be. Know that I'm having a blast and I'll tell you all about it Sunday night!
Love to all.

Water

The water's off again...this happens very randomly. I have no idea. I went running this morning...and then didn't get a shower. It was not fun. It came back on for about ten minutes two hours later...and went off again immediately. Guess I don't get a shower today...

Class: Readings in the Quran

We read a full sura (chapter) aloud in class today! The teacher is a semi-professional reader, meaning that she can do the amazing melodies and rhythms and reads it aloud. It sounds amazing. Totally gorgeous - I was really hesitant to read the sura out loud. Not because I was nervous, but because I desperately didn't want to butcher it! But it came out quite well for a first attempt. It was really, really fun.

Life is Easing Up

Classes are easing up - the first week, we were making up hours from Swine Flu Week. So we were having incredibly long days and amazing amounts of homework. Our vocabulary professor realized we had too much homework and has started to assign less - at the same time as our schedules were freed up. So now I feel as though I have all kinds of time! It's nice to be able to relax - and to feel that I'm actually doing a good job on my homework rather than just desperately trying to throw it together.

"Night at the Museum 2"

Classes ended at 1:15 today (since I don't have an elective on Sundays and Thursdays and have decided against electives). A group of friends and I went to the mall to see a movie, as the homework load was fairly light.
Firstly, it's a cute movie. I loved the first one; the second is also adorable.
Secondly, in regards to movies in Egypt - we were at a fairly Westernized mall, so the movie theater quality was pretty good. The seats were not what they are in "Celebration," but they were pretty good. There was - I kid you not - an intermission. The movie suddenly stopped and the lights turned on. It was fascinating.
There were subtitles in Arabic. The ads beforehand were Arabic commercials followed by Western movie previews.
Everything here is a cultural experience, even the Western stuff! It was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow for my Vocab class, we're discussing religious groups in the Middle East. I'm really excited and got incredibly geeked about my research tonight.

Week 2

I know this blog isn't very exciting during the week...It's because I don't do much of anything other than attend class and do homework. If something exciting happens, I'll tell you. In the meantime, classes are crazy, the homework load is intense, and I'm loving almost every minute of it.
Love ya!

Egyptian Museum!

Oh, the papyri! I was in heaven. It's crammed with wonders. In a way, it was sad - they simply don't have the staff and facilities to properly care for, catalog, and store the artifacts. But being able to see all of them was fantastic.

No cameras were allowed inside the museum, but here's a bit from outside -

Grocery Shopping and the Roof

Friday morning I did some more Arabic work. We took the 5 o'clock bus to City Stars Mall and went grocery shopping at Spinney's, which is like a Meijer's or Wal-Mart. It was quite the adventure. I got a lot of bread (surprise, surprise). And we picked up pasta to cook, but somehow lost the bag with the pasta in it...at least that bag didn't have anything expensive in it.
After shopping, we got a late dinner and ate up on the roof of the cafe. It's gorgeous up there at night - you can see campus lit up with all the trees, and stretches of desert at dusk. It was incredibly gorgeous. I stayed up much too late gabbing, but it was a lot of fun.

It's the Weekend!

I don't know that I've ever been so ready for the weekend...but when they say "intense," they mean intense!
Saturday I get to go to the Egyptian Museum!
Friday is the Muslim holy day, so Friday and Saturday is our weekend, and we have classes on Sundays.
I'm looking forward to homework (no, that wasn't sarcasm, I really am that much of a freak) and lots of vocabulary work. I also have some research work (non-Arabic!) to do. It will be a work weekend, but a very fun one.

Classes, Day 3

Today was pretty good. I had a LOT of homework yesterday, but performed decently in my classes today.
I really enjoy my Quran class.
Had the first extracurricular session...Calligraphy! It was fun and stress-free. We'll see how that goes - I wasn't completely beyond hope, though.
I dropped my Translation elective today. There aren't any other electives that interest me during the hours I now have free. I may well use that time for homework, if I can stand just letting things lie and not taking every available opportunity. (Is my inability to do so a strength or weakness? It often feels as though it's both...)

Class, Day 2

Today was much less exhausting than yesterday. I don't know if I'm simply more comfortable or it was the fact that I ran this morning (I skipped yesterday, which is almost always not a good idea...).
The Obama oral presentation went over very well. Translation, my other elective, is going to take a fair bit of work. I may end up dropping it...I don't need the credit (it's only one), and it may take more time than it's worth. I think I have until the end of this week to decide.

Obama Bio in Arabic!

We are presenting tomorrow about an important person...my partner and I chose Obama. We have to use as much new vocab as possible. So I just wrote a paragraph (short, but still) in Arabic about Barack. It ends with "American youth believe in Barack Obama." A bit of a generalization, perhaps, but "believe in" is in our new vocab...

First Full Day

I had my first full day of classes today. And it was full, to say the least. Due to our missed week of class, all hours have been extended and breaks shortened. Our professors use very little English, which is a great teaching philosophy. But eight and a half hours, essentially straight, with minimal English is exhausting. And now I get to play to homework and catch-up on vocabulary game! Yay!
It was a lot of fun, though. I love all my teachers (surprise, surprise). Had the Qur'an elective today - that's going to be a really nice, easy-going class that I'm really interested in.
There are other people in the class who have not started Book 2 either...our professor is going to kind of be throwing everything together. He plans on getting us through the book. If this happens, I will be more than set for equivalency at MSU.

Picture in the Library of Alexandria

A picture of me! What a shock. That's the problem with being "Mom" of the group...you take good pictures of everyone else, but people rarely bother to get any of you...
But I found one! Here you go.

I was, as you can tell, just a wee bit happy at the time...

The Class Saga

So...there has been quite the drama going on figuring out what exactly I'm doing.
I thought I was being placed in a class that started in chapter 4 of Al-Kitaab 2. This gave me the grammar and vocabulary of Al-Kitaab 1 Chapters 14-20 and Al-Kitaab 2 Chapters 1-3 to learn and memorize in forty-eight hours. I was getting to the point today when I felt really comfortable doing that.
Then...I get an email from my new prof. "Please read x and y pages of Chapter 5 and complete Exercise 11 for tomorrow's class." So now I have to catch up on Chapter 4, and get this homework done. This was around 3 pm today. I was getting there...I went to dinner with the kids, because I needed a bit of a break and some actual food. I came home, expecting to have a long night (because Exercise 11 is a long translation and paragraph writing thing). And I had marvelous emails!
One from my professor: Sorry; I meant x and y pages in Chapter 4 (I had emailed him inquiring).
One from Dalal, the summer program director: Several of you have asked to start in Chapter 1. Would you like to do this?
Another from my prof: Never mind; don't do anything until I see you tomorrow.
So I don't have a freakishly long night, and I think I'm actually going to be in a very happy place this summer!! Happy Becca!

TGI Friday's

My friends and I went to the Americanized mall today and ate dinner at...TGI Friday's! I know, I know, I'm in Egypt. I should eat Egyptian food. But there are times when I girl really needs salad and steak. And these are not readily available in Egyptian cuisine. I got this amazing mocha brownie ice cream dessert thing that was absolutely fantastic.

Clothing in Arabic!

I'm currently being entertained with my learning the articles of clothing in Arabic. Almost all of them are cognates of the English words, transliterated into Arabic, and then said with the most Arabic-sounding vowel and consonants possible. It's really quite amusing.
There isn't a "p" sound in Arabic...so pants=pantaloons, but actually sounds like "buntaloooon," and the plural is "buntalooonet."
A sweater is a pullover..."bull-oh-fer," plural "bull-oh-fraat."
Rather than underwear, the Arabic equivalent translates literally as "internal clothing."
(Yes, this really is how I spend my weekends...what can I say...)

Laundry Triumph!

I am pleased to report that I have managed to do laundry in Egypt! Nothing has blown up and the clothes are actually clean. Woohoo!
There are industrial washers and dryers for our use...we don't even have to pay for the machines, just provide our own detergent. My roommate went to the mall Friday night, so I stole some of hers (with her permission).

الأسد الملك

I watched "The Lion King" in Arabic all the way through for the first time today. I needed a break from my quick catch-up of Arabic studies, but didn't want to stop thinking in Arabic...
The voice actor for Zazu was really good.
I had just learned the phrase used in the song "Be Prepared" today, so that was cool.
Merry Christmas to me, from Papa! (Good gift, Daddy.)

Hotel View

Here's our absolutely "miserable" view from the hotel room...living a rough life, aren't I?

Alexandria Sunset

How beautiful...

The Beach

We ended up at a private beach (crazy times getting there...)

Bibliotheca Alexandria

AHHHHHHHH! It was AMAZING!



Prometheus with Fire!


The Manuscript Museum was fantastic. Papyri, ancient books, letters...


It's incredibly tempting to transfer to the University of Alexandria. Were I a student there...



...this would be my main library!

Happy Dance!




I can't believe I'm putting this video up...but here you go. I saw Hippocrates translated into Arabic in the 900s and kind of went crazy.

Alexandria Blog

Here's what I typed on Kim's computer while in Alexandria:
Tuesday, 6:30 pm
We took the 9 pm train from Cairo to Alexandria, first class (I think that may have been my first first class adventure - had I been alone, I would not have bothered, but I wanted to sit with everyone else, obviously). We got into the train station in Alexandria at 11:25 pm. Getting taxis to the hotel was a major fiasco - Cameron haggled to 30 pounds for two taxis, but then gave one of the drivers my bag, which we promptly locked in his trunk...and we ended up being forced into three. Cameron lived in Lebanon for a year and loves to fight with people - he took forever bargaining over the hotel. It was a fairly cheap hotel and we overpaid, it felt like. Today getting to the beach was another craziness. Kim's roommate is from Alexandria, so she gave us the name of a beach. The taxi drivers took us to the wrong place at first. We finally got the right beach, only to be told it was private. We were going to wait for Kim's roommate to meet us, when suddenly our cab driver came over and had convinced them to let us in. He, of course, then wanted massive amounts of baqsheesh, and followed us around forever. Kim's roommate ended up not coming because her father is ill (I think he's going to be okay, though), but the beach was nice, filled mostly with natives, and the water felt fantastic. After more exploration, we found a great hotel right on the sea that's an incredibly reasonable price. Kenny brought a guidebook and I've been looking through it - here come the Roman Catacombs, Library of Alexandria, the Souq, and all sorts of other wonderful things. I think some of the boys may be heading back tomorrow fairly early, but I think I'll stay through Friday evening with several others.

Wednesday, 12:15 am
Hilary has now joined us. The hotel we're staying at is incredibly observant and notices everyone who comes in to the building. I suppose I should be glad of this, but it meant that Hill had to pay an additional amount of money to stay. We all get breakfast, though!
We went to a Greek place for dinner that had seafood and was really good. The rest of the gang went out for sheesha; Hilary and I watched a movie in the hotel and walked around the streets a bit.
On the agenda for tomorrow (well, today) are the Library of Alexandria and the Roman Catacombs. Then some of the boys are headed back; the rest of us will stay and do other cool history stuff and/or more beaches. (Probably and.)

Wednesday, 10:39 pm
Today was absolutely fantastic!!!!
Slept in quite a lot, and then had a really good breakfast at the hotel (egg, croissants with fantastic strawberry jam, veggies, beans). Most of us then headed off to...The Library of Alexandria!!!!! And - Oh. My. Word. It was absolutely AMAZING. I was incredibly happy with everything. The original was, of course, destroyed. But they recently did a renovation, including the discovery and restoration of some stuff belonging to the old library. It's an actual library too, where students from the University of Alexandria study. There was a manuscript museum with originals of all sorts - Euclid and Hippocrates translated into Arabic in the 900s, letters Muhammad wrote, a Book of the Dead, and all sorts of other wonderful things. I was absolutely ecstatic.
After the Library, we went to "The King of Mangoes." Great mango juice - oh my word. Then the Fish Market - great fish for dinner, and a phenomenal view. I wrapped up my day hanging out an an over-ninety-years-old cafe, where I had some water, tea, and Arabic Coffee, and the rest of the gang had sheesha. They're all off to a pub; I'm going to bed, as we're getting up to see the sunrise tomorrow. (We didn't actually end up doing that...)

Swine Flu Funnies

Oh, boys. How adorable thou art.


A few fun statuses on Facebook from kids at AUC:
"we have snow days in michigan, egypt has swine flu days‎"
"Swine Flu Outbreak: Don't open the door"
"Classes cancelled due to swine flu. Huzzah!"
"AUC + H1N1 = PANIC! :D‎"
"‎Dear Zamalek-ites. Wish you weren't in quarantine, so you could come to Alexandria with us. Love, Us."

World War 1 Memorial

You'll be getting information about Alexandria as I track down the pictures I took of it. One of the last things we did was visit a World War 1 Memorial Cemetery. It was incredibly moving and very well maintained.

Moving up a Class

Well, I've taken the plunge...
I have been moved into a class that will be studying Modern Standard Arabic only...Al-Kitaab chapters 4-10. So I have thirty-six hours to catch up like 10 chapters...here we go!!

Camel Picture

There have to be better pictures somewhere...I went with three different people. But here's one, at least.

Home Safe

I'm home safe from Alexandria. No internet while I was there, but I typed blog stuff on a friend's computer. As soon as she emails me the text, I'll post it. There are some pictures as well that I will post when I get my hands on them!

Classes

I am currently enrolled in a class that will take me through the end of Al-Kitaab 1. This is not a full year's worth, though I will earn eight MSU credits for it. I have a few options:
1. Study some of Al-Kitaab 2 on my own and pull some strings at MSU to get the credits to transfer simply as 201 and 202.
2. In this extra week with no classes, finish Al-Kitaab 1 on my own and switch up a class.
At this point, I'm not sure which I'll go for. It probably makes more sense to get through the book this week and move up. In that case, I think I'd be studying some Egyptian colloquial as well.

Elective-wise, I am taking Translation and the Qur'an (!!). I will receive MSU credit for these, so I'm very excited. The Qur'an stuff will look great for religious studies; I'm hoping to be able to transfer them as specific courses (titled that appear on my transcript) rather than just general Arabic credits.

Extra-curriculars will be Typing and Calligraphy - just for fun! Hopefully calligraphy will improve my handwriting; typing will be good and will give me more exposure to academic Arabic.

The Swine Flu

Many of you may have seen the news...here's what I know:
1. There have been two confirmed cases in the Zamalek dorms (downtown Cairo housing). Zamalek is currently under quarantine.
2. The Ministry of Health has mandated classes to be postponed until next Sunday, June 14.
3. We were required to be tested at the clinic today, though do not know the results.
4. I feel fine. Please do not worry about me.
5. We have been cleared to leave, if we wish.

So...a group of us is probably going to Alexandria. We will most likely not have internet access, as we'll be "bumming it." I will be in a large group; there are fairly fluent speakers with us. I will try and give you details, but don't panic if you don't hear from me for a while.

The Extra Week

For those of you who don't know, I have a bit less than a week after classes end to "bum around Egypt." I was originally planning to go to Luxor. I am now doing that with the Institute, though, and getting there on my own would be a bit nerve-wracking. What am I doing instead? Well...lucky bum that I am, I have a friend whose father teaches at this university. She goes to Columbia but is doing ALI this summer so she is better able to visit her parents over here. Her parents have a house...and an extra bedroom...
So I will be staying in Cairo for essentially nothing, and Hillary and I will be having a blast climbing in all of the pyramids, living in the Museum, and generally loving life.

ALI Cultural Activities

Cultural Activities that will be through ALI for the rest of the summer:

Saturday, June 13: Saqqara and Memphis (Step Pyramid of Zozer, tomb of Meriruka, Pyramid of Teti)

Saturday, June 20: The Egyptian Museum (!!!)

Thursday, June 25-Sunday, June 28: St. Catherine & Sharm El Sheikh. This trip is mostly a resort...but it's also a sweet climb up Jabal Moussa...also known as Mount Sinai. This one is 750 pounds ($150), but I've got to do Sinai.

Saturday, July 4: Mosque of Al-Azhar, Wekala Bazaraa, Bab il-Futuh and Khan el-Khalili. This is what I did with Residence Life plus a bit more. The cost is included, so I'll certainly go.

Friday, July 10-Monday, July 13: Luxor and Aswan Trip. It's a $400 cruise, but includes a plane ticket down there, food for the weekend, and other fun stuff. Anyone want to know what I'd like for my birthday?

Saturday, July 18: Tour of Coptic Museum and the Old Cairo Area. Again, similar to what we did with Residence Halls, but with some extra stuff.

First Day of Classes!

We had ALIS (Arabic Language Institute Summer Intensive Program) Orientation today, and then had a few classes. We were to go to our Media class and our first elective. Many elective professors did not get the memo, so didn't get that class. In media, though, we learned a lot of vocabulary focused on diplomatic meetings. The professor pretty much refused to speak English - good for him! It was a lot of fun; I'm looking forward to it.
I'm now going to geek out and do some work with my new vocabulary words. I miss studying!

"Bedouin Night" was a bit misleading, as far as name goes. The RAs were under the impression that we were having a fairly long horse and/or camel back ride into the desert, learning about Bedouin culture, and eating some traditional food. Instead, we were at more of a resort type of thing. They did quite a bit of traditional dancing for us. People got to get on a horse or camel and be led around the pasture. I got on a horse; the saddle was much different, and I got to trot a bit. So that was lots of fun. I finagled my way onto a camel as well...and ended up going three times. Towards the end, there were a few boys who wanted to go. Everyone was doubling up. And boys did not want to go in the front, given the saddle construction. So I went several times, in order to be helpful. Let me tell you, it was quite the sacrifice. Getting up and down was the best part. Pictures of me on the camel are on other people's cameras, so you'll have to wait a bit for them.


Sunset and the pyramids, anyone?



Ooh...bird in flight.




Oh, the moon.

Camel

Here's your camel, Granna.


There are several other camel pictures, but I enjoyed this pose.

Pyramids Pics

An incredibly small sampling...




Me and my friend Tim. He took the video seen in an earlier post and went shopping with me last night. He's from northern California.




Happy Becca!




And this was just an incredibly well-timed shot. I was proud of myself. Take enough pictures, and every once in a while you get a cool one.

Pyramids!

I was at the pyramids; I was at the pyramids!! I got to go IN the medium-sized one. Sarcophagus, anyone? Long, small tunnel, anyone? BEAUTIFUL!

I had the hardest time figuring out what pictures to show you. You know what the actual pyramids look like...so I guess here's a video of my absurd reaction to said pyramids.




Two of the students got separated from the group; we waited for them for a long time. National security was alerted, etc. It was not good. Luckily, they made their way back to Zamalek (the inner-city dorms) and we found out eventually that they were safe. And we did continue on to the Sphinx without them - which was good, otherwise they probably would have been tarred and feathered. We're now going to be read the riot act during orientation though - probably like twelve times.

The sellers at the pyramids were incredibly pushy. One tried to physically take my camera away from me to take a picture - heaven only knows how much baqsheesh (tip) he would have required to get the thing back. People were lifted up onto camels without their permission, and then required to tip in order to get off. One of the guys just jumped...

It was an incredible day, though. And I still have horseback and camel riding to look forward to tonight!

Walking in Cairo

We went shopping today at some local markets with a fellow student who has family in Cairo and has been in-country for about a month. I didn't buy anything, but it was great to walk around Cairo. We had a bit of a mishap with the bus, so a friend and I ended up spending quite a lot of time just walking around the Zamalek district waiting. Saw some great sites and had some great conversation.

Dorm Breakfast

The Office of Residence Life provides breakfast each Friday morning in the common area. Today was omelets. I am now a "great cook" in the residence hall director's eye due to my ability to make scrambled eggs on the flat grill. I was whipping them up for anyone who wanted some. I sauteed some fresh peppers for myself as well - and they were GOOD. My first fresh veggies in several days. Friday mornings will be fun. Sachi (residence hall director) has promised to provide stuff for French Toast one week if I'll make it up.

Trouble in Denmark...Rectified!

I emailing rather pointedly begging for a spot...and managed to convince them to let us all go! YAY!

Trouble in Denmark...

The ALI Pyramids Trip requires a registration. The deadline was today. I went to the ALI Office three times today. No one was there - Obama traffic. Understandable, I suppose. However, I emailed to reserve a spot, and I received a reply stating that the list was turn in to security yesterday night and they did not have the capacity to add people. They are going to have total mutiny on their hands...WE WANT PYRAMIDS!!!

More Khan Architecture