This is Egypt

My friends and I often find ourselves saying "T.I.E.," This is Egypt. But for those of you not here in Egypt, I thought it would be nice if I shared the kind of "this" that we have here in Egypt.
You frequently only get brought most of what you ordered in a restaurant, or have to ask a waiter a couple (or many) times to get your full order.
People (try to) translate things into English on menus and such, but often they just transliterate it (put the Arabic letters into English letters) so you're stuck wondering what things are and sometimes have no idea what you've ordered until it shows up on the table.
Cars don't slow down when you cross the street in front of them.
People walk along the side of the street, not on sidewalks.
Generally people don't bother getting out of their cars after an accident unless it's serious.
There are speed bumps on highways.
You have to haggle for everything or you will get ripped off.
You get anything done with enough baksheesh (tipping).
ANYTHING can be delivered to your front door. The liquor store delivers.
Everything will take "five minutes." Nothing takes five minutes.
A 2:00 start time for a class means the professor will show up promptly at 2:14. And often end the class early, too.
Egyptians are always amazed when you speak Arabic, even more amazed when you know about non-touristy things or neighborhoods of Cairo.
I have never once been asked for a single form of identification when going to a club, despite a drinking age of 18 for beer and wine and 21 for liquor.
Being white can get you a long way, or it can just get you harassed.
A headscarf can save you a lot of trouble.
I was literally wounded last night because my bus driver (of one of the nice, AUC busses) went about 40-50km/hr over a speed bump. I fell out of my seat, my computer and phone went flying (and my laptop would have broken if it weren't for the nice man sitting in front of me), I jammed my foot on the stairs in front of me and I have a huge and beautiful purple bruise just above my left knee from where my laptop came crashing down on me.
A "mop" is a squeegee with a rag on it. "Mopping" is dumping a bucket of water on the floor and pushing it around, leaving puddles on the floor.
You have to go up stairs to get to the elevator of the dorm. HAVE TO.
There are separate boys and girls sections of the dorm. They have guards preventing the wrong sex from entering. even for visiting. Not even a parent of the opposite sex can see their child's room.
The Nile is nasty.
The food doesn't agree with your stomach. It just doesn't.
Everyone skips class. Everyone. Someone was amazed yesterday when I told him I had skipped one class all semester and it was because I was on vacation.
Sheesha is everywhere. At all times of day. In every flavor.

This list is a small portion of what my life is like here. These things are common knowledge to me, yet most of them are probably at least somewhat foreign or even shocking to all y'all back home. I never really had the "culture shock" thing when I got here, but I think when I get back there will be some things that I will have to get re-adjusted to.

O, look, it's Americans dressed like animals and devils.

I love Halloween, always have. But here love it even more. As if I wasn't already stared at enough for my whiteness and lack of veil, painting whiskers on my face and bobby pinning cat ears to my head is just a call to oggle. A few even thoguht they were particularly witty and meowed at me.

A few random things, AKA I'm trying to blog more.

I decided that I don't blog enough. This experience is once in a lifetime and so I think that I should be writing as much of it down as I possibly can. We'll see how long I stick to that. Anyhow, I do have a few things to say:
Since I've been here I feel lie the amount of drama in my life has skyrocketed. I mean, this summer was the first time I had ever had any drama of my own really, and now all of a sudden, my life is full of it. I must say it's kinda entertaining at times. I hope that doesn't make me sound like a complete bitch, but drama is going to happen whether I like it or not so I've decided I might as well try to get a chuckle out of it. I mean some of the shit that's happening is my own, so it's not like I'm simply enjoying other people's misery, I've just decided that I'm going with optimism and (something that shouldn't be a surprise to those of you who know me well) smiling.
Right now I'm on my way to campus to see The Odd Couple, the play, because my old roommate (I don't know if I've mentioned Savannah on here before) is in it. It's supposed to be really funny, I'll write more about it in my next post.
I may have told a few of you that I was thinking of getting a new camera because my old one was literally falling apart. Literally. A few of the screws had come out and a couple of the panels were in great danger of falling off, too. So I went to a camera store on the way back from class thursday (just to investigate/price things out) and I showed the man my camera and what was wrong with it. He (in his limited English (I by no means could have a conversation about cameras in Arabic)) seemed to be informing me that he could fix it, so I figured what the hell, he couldn't possibly charge me too much, and let him see what he could do. five minutes later he's found screws and fixed it (don't get me wrong, I had thought of this, but I couldn't find the right screws anywhere). Now for the part I dreaded "How much?" I ask. "No problem." Made my day. And the day only got better.
Next, on my walk back from the camera store (on 26 July, the main street on the island), I went into this little clothing store that the bus always passes and I've always wanted to look in but I haven't had any money. Well, now that I have my money, I decided to give it a look-see. Glad I did. 45 minutes later I emerged with three tops and a dress for under $50. and I really needed some nice tops and a dress. The dress more urgently than I thought, I'll get to that later.
After the clothing store I made a stop at the Mobinil store (my wireless provider) because I wanted to price out some phones, seeing as I absolutely hate the one I got the beginning of the year. After a half hour or so I decided to not bother, and left. This will come back into play later, also.
That night my friends wanted to go to Cairo Jazz Club. Which is a fancy place. No jeans. Guess what Amanda brought for dressy clothes? Slacks. Good thing I bought that dress! We ended up not being able to get into CJC because one of our guy friends isn't 21, but we ended up at this other club, Stiletto, which I loved. This is the same place my friends went to last weekend and raved about. They were justified in doing so, it was awesome. I got home around 4:30. And slept until 2. It was so nice to sleep in.
Yesterday was a productive day as long as you measure in terms of anything other than homework. First, I woke up and discovered that my phone, which I had plugged in when I got home because it had died, had not charged overnight. Tried a new outlet. Nada. Crap. Well, I guess I'm headed back tot he Mobinil store. In order to have my phone fixed I would have had to go back to the store where I bought it (in Rehab, near New Cairo, where I lived at the beginning of the year, an hour from where I live now). I decided this was a sign. less than twelve hours after I go shopping for a new phone and decide not to get one, my phone dies. I had been talking to my friends and doing some research (before I headed to the Mobinil store, in case I did need a new one) and figured that I would just get a nice phone and jailbreak it before I went home and continue to use it at home. so I got a Blackberry. So far I'm loving it. It's actually nicer than the phone I had at home, but the keyboard layout is a bit different (and has Arabic on it, too (!!)) so I'm getting used to it.
After that adventure I took my roommate to the store I'd gone clothing shopping the day ebfore because she wanted some tops. They didn't have any she wanted/in the right size, so she only bought a couple of cardigans, then we headed back, bought some bananas from the fruit man, and went home. A few hours later we and Cassidy went grocery shopping. Now, I've needed groceries for like a month now. So I was very excited for this. I spent 100LE ($17) and got drinks and snacks that will probably last me a couple weeks. I then proceded to get nothing done. I did talk to a lot of people from back home, though, including my grandmother, who I hadn't talked to since I've been here. Hopefully I'll get some homework done tonight, though, because I have a paper due Monday.

A Great Big THANK YOU

I would like to dedicate this post to everyone who lent me money, let me eat their food, put up with me ranting about my idiotic school, etc. over the last month or so. I am so lucky to have found such amazing friends after being here less than two months, y'all are a lifesaver. To everyone back home who worries about me, you don't need to because I know that my friends here will take care of me no matter what happens, and I hope they all know I would do the same for them. Considering the trouble I've always had meeting people (and having them see past my annoyingness) I'm thoroughly pleased at how easily we all seemed to click. I think that the decision to go to Dahab for the second time was probably the best decision I've made since coming here. So thanks, everyone, for everything.

The Elephant in the Room

So, sexual harassment in this country is ridiculous. Just putting it out there. I don't think I know a single woman here who hasn't been harassed in one way or another. Anything from catcalling, staring (somewhat entertainingly blatant staring), and meowing (o yes, meowing) to touching, groping and kissing. I don't know what it is about this country, but sometimes it drives me completely crazy. Don't worry everyone, in general it's completely harmless, but it's frustrating and sometimes downright disturbing, because the cops don't give a shit and won't (and can't) do anything about it. I mean men are /touching/ women (on thighs, butts, breasts) on the streets and in cabs and it doesn't seem to bother people here enough to do anything about it. What the F.

Dahab, Take Two

I didn't think it was possible, but Dahab the second time around was even more fun than the first. I think that has a lot to do with the fact that I feel like I fit in better with the people I went with, so I didn't feel awkward ever. We basically got completely plastered every night and went swimming and shopping during the day. We had a bunch of drama, but I feel like I bonded with the people I went with a lot though, which is good because I needed some good female friends. We have already hung out a couple times since we've been back from dahab so I'm hoping were all gonna stay good friends.

Woah something in this country is efficient?

So I'm moving to Zamalek. As of like 8 hours ago. I packed all my things in about 2 hours, finished my classes and then took the next bus to Zamalek with all my crap. It was probably the only thing I have ever had take less than three days in this country. I'll write more after I've gotten settled.