edit, edit, more edit

Wednesday (2nd):

Edited the book foreverrrrrrrrrrrrr.

We leave Cairo tomorrow at 1am (eghhh) and about 20 hours later I'll be back in Boston!!  I've definitely had a great time here in Egypt and I know I'll look back on the trip fondly. The people I've met are hilarious and it'll be strange to not see them everyday, but oh man I am so ready to come home.  There are a bunch of people I can't wait to see. Annnnd it's suppose to rain the day I get back! Which would be amazing, I'll probably need to go puddle jumping and run through the fountain outside of the Pru.

The weather in Egypt today was over a hundred and "sand", yep sand.

ICE COFFEE!

Munch and Bagel proved to be even more amazing than I thought- they have ice coffee!! Not frappe-crappe-whatever. Not blended ice and milk. Not a little bit of coffee with a shit ton of milk, sugar and caramel. Regular, good old, black ice coffee.  Well, they had hot brewed coffee and an ice machine, so I kinda had to make it myself 'cause the guy behind the counter couldn't figure why I would possibly want to make my coffee cold....it's over 100 degrees outside. Of course i want to make my coffee cold.

Anyways, after a month of searching, my search for ice coffee in Egypt is finally over. Great success!

working, working, working...

Tues (1st):
In this morning’s class I continued the work I was doing yesterday. The original plan had been to go to the Pharonic village, but that didn’t work out so some of came back to “the office” an kept chugging away on our final projects. I’m pretty happy with how it’s going so far, but I definitely have A LOT to get done btwn now and Thursday.

happy memorial day! where's the bbq???

Mon. (31st):
Happy Memorial Day!
Not a holiday in Egypt so there was a serious lack of bbqing and I had to go to class. Bummer. I spent photo class doing more work on the pictures for my final book (the rough draft is due by Thursday.) and picking pictures for my section of the NU Photo website which will be up later this week, check it out! →

This afternoon was our last Arabic class,  Hasna taught us how to write our names in Arabic, which was pretty cool. Arabic writing isn’t based on the letters themselves, but sounds. So an Arabic word might look much shorter than the same word in English. My name is much shorter. I can sorta write it…sorta. It kinda looks like squiggles when I do it.

bagels and markets

Sun (30th):
Got to sleep late today!!
Went to Munch and Bagel for breakfast- best bagel place around. The guy who runs it lived in the US for a bunch of years and when he came back to Egypt, he realized a serious lack of well made bagels in Zamalek. He and his wife opened Munch and Bagel about a couple months ago…just in time to satisfy our American need for bagelsssssss!

That afternoon, a couple of us went back to the Khan and the tent market to look for gifts to bring home and to take more pictures. It wasn’t as busy as it was the 1st time I was there, but there were still plenty of good photo ops, so that worked out well.

good job boys...

Climbing pyramids

Sat (29th):
Went to Sakara and climbed in a bunch of Pyramids. Mad chill. Did more photo work. Went the Pottery Café to smoke some Hookah w/ meg, Clanc-pants and Steve.
(I’m super tired)

Alexandria

Fri. (28th)
Alexandria field trip
Today we took a bus to Alexandria for the day. It was nice to get outta the city for day and see the ocean. I love love love the beach and pretty much any big body of water, Cairo doesn’t really have any of that, except for the Nile, but that’s not the same.

On the way to the Alexandria, we stopped at the Lion’s Den. Which is a weird petting zoo type place. There were tigers, llamas, ducks and a collection of dogs. Yes dogs. Everything from labs to huskies, all in cages just like the rest of the animals- I guess dogs are exotic here.

In Alexandria, some of went to get swimsuits so that we could try to go in the ocean. I ended up getting the most ridiculous bikini that looked like I stole it from a pre-teen from the early 90’s…. it was great. I didn’t end up going swimming because it was taking forever to figure out how to actually get onto the beach, so instead I went on a search for ice cream and ice coffee with Doug and Lauren. My coffee was a hilarious fail of an ice coffee. Somehow ice coffee came out as blend ice and milk with coffee beans in the bottom. Sigh, oh Egypt.

Citadel and National Military Museum

Thurs (27th)
Today’s photo class was another walking shoot. We took a van up to the Citadel and the National Military Museum. It was absolutely beautiful in the Citadel and the view of the city probs would have been amazing but there was a lot of dust in the air today so it was kinda hazy.

Market Photo shoot

Wed (26th)
Today’s photo class was a walking shoot through the Babuwayla markets near the Khan. It’s a pretty sweet area ‘cause there are more locals shopping there and the stuff sold there is kinda ridiculous (in a good way). There are a ton of juice stands, people selling chickens and rabbits, LOTS of rug/fabric shops and there were cats EVERYWHERE.

Editing, Editing, Editing....eyes melt

Tuesday (25th):

We had photo class in the classrooms again today and I pretty much spent the whole time sorting pictures and editing. It was good to have a day to sit down and try to make sense of all the pictures i've taken (there are A LOT!).

ate some food somewhere for lunch.

Edited from ate lunch until dinner, and then i thought my eyes were gonna melt so i called it a day.

Monday Afternoon- arabic class : Ur Mom!

After the walking tour with Prof. Sullivan, I came back to Muhandasien for the second day of Arabic class. Luckily the teacher, Hasna, is super nice! And has a good sense of humor. She puts up with our ridiculous questions and taught us how to say "your mom" in Arabic and explained that Arabic speakers mix up the "th" and the "s" sounds and have trouble saying words like "books" and "Massachausetts", so of course we spent like 20 minutes teaching her how to say them :-)

a you tube clip she played for us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZz0PlLY69g