Winter break

Break so far has certainly been interesting. I wish I had been keeping up with blogging, because I'm not really sure where I left off.

My friends leaving was sad, but all of their departures were incredibly strange and almost awkward at times. Think "I've hung out with you every day for the last couple months but I might never see you again." Weird, right?

Christmas was pathetic. We had a delicious dinner at our friend Omar's house on Christmas eve, but that was definitely not a foreshadowing of how the next day would go. I had some pretty good plans but they didn't really pan out; I spent the day shopping at City Stars, the massive mall in the outskirts of the city, with Tamera. I felt it was somewhat ironic to spend Christmas shopping, both because everything in the US is closed and because we were being, as we liked to cal it, "materialistic whores" lol. I spent the evening (and into the morning) with my few friends that were still left in town, wearing santa hats, eating chinese food and at a bar. Sadly the chinese food was as Christmas-y as my Christmas got. Well, actually Tamera and I bought each other Arabic music CDs at the mall and wrapped them in whatever we could find and gave them to each other. lol. Certainly different.

In the days between Christmas and new years we spent a lot of time at Horreya, which is a difficult place to explain to those of you who have never been there. Technically the place is a bar, because its basis is the drinking of alcohol, but it's more of a place for socializing than for actually drinking (though don't get me wrong, you can't really go there and not drink, the overly assertive and obnoxious host [I guess that's what you'd call him] Milad will make sure you always have a beer or I.D. [in my case] in your hand). Literally translated as "freedom," Horreya is a great place to meet interesting people. Tamera and Mostafa and I made some friends there and hung out with them several times this past week.

On new years eve I met Greg, who is studying here from Tulane next semester and for the winter term. he had just arrived the previous day and so I showed him around Zamalek and then he joined Tamera, Mostafa and I for our new years plans, which hadn't actually been made as of that point. After a somewhat infuriating day of dealing with different shit, we finally got to the place that we had chosen a bit before 11, only to be told that there were only VIP tickets remaining, so we were forced to pay 250LE instead of the 100 we were expecting, but we got an extra drink and some decent tasting Lebanese food. Whatever. We were dancing at midnight, but the countdown was... I guess as new years countdowns tend to be, less dramatic than expected and somewhat off-time. We then ended up on a houseboat on the Nile, where Tamera accidentally dropped one of her heels in the Nile (lol), and then proceeded to throw the other one in after it (What's the use of one shoe?).

I've now fully moved into my craptastic apartment (as of the 24th). Let me tell you some of the ways in which it is craptastic, not for the sake of complaining but for the sake of illustrating. I havent taken a real shower with hot water and/or any decent amout of water pressure since moving in. Today, our kitchen sink started leaking everywhere. We have ants, and cockroaches. Our internet still isnt set up. We live in a walk-up, when every other building in the city basically has an elevator. The walls are paper thin, aka i can hear every sound on the street 4 stories down. My heater doesn't work. The washing machine is from the 50s (no joke, I described it to my dad and that's what he said) and there's no dryer. But I'm not letting it bother me, and so far I think I'm dealing with it pretty well. It's just one of those things that I need to get used to, and one more reason that I will be excited to go home in May. I do have to say that if this is living like an Egyptian, I am glad that I'm American. As shallow as that may make me, technological advances have happened and they make life easier and I like being able to take advantage of them.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Tamera got a kitten. her name is Jasmine. Well, it finally got to be Jasmine after going through several others for about a day each. Its adorable.

On a final note, I'm leaving for Turkey, Spain and Morocco on Wednesday. I won;t be able to call anyone via Skype until I get home, most likely, so I will try to update this blog regularly. As always, there should be regular Facebook updates. I would put out my plans for what I'm going to be doing on here, but I don't really have cemented plans, so it will probably work better if I just update about things after I've done them.

Merry Christmas?

**** This is an edit to this post. I swear there used to be a post here, but when I viewed my blog recently there was no post. The post title will remain to show that I did indeed intend to say something, but apparently the internet did not approve of such an idea.

I have PLANS

I just bought my plane ticket to go to Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, and Morocco this January. Y'all are very jealous. I can't even begin to place my excitement in this box. It was my reward for finishing my paper. Which is my other yay. So much yay today. Hehe, rhyming.

I am so over this semester

Dear Santa,
I know that I haven't written to you in awhile, but I think that this year I'll write to you in hopes that I get just something off of this rather impossible list of things that I'd like for Christmas.
I'd like the immense amount of drama that my friends have created recently to go away.
I'd like to go home.
I'd like to see a face from home.
I'd like a Reese's Cup. White or milk chocolate.
I'd like all of next semester to be as awesome as the middle half of this one was.
I'd like to be able to keep in touch with the true friends I've made this semester.
I'd like everyone who stabbed me in the back, lied to me, or made me feel like crap this semester to realize that they're assholes, because if they don't realize that now they might go through their whole lives thinking they can treat people the way they treated me, and eventually someone won't be as much of a doormat as I am and might actually put them in their place. I'd like to say I look forward to that, but I'd actually rather that that didn't happen, because that would mean that they're truly as mean and hypocritical as they've seemed this semester, and if that's true that means other people will have to put up with what I've had to deal with this semester.
I'd like to get some mail from friends back home, so I don't forget that they exist outside of a computer.
I'd like a really great hug.
I'd like some crab rangoon.
I'd like to be able to keep in mind that this is not my real life.
I would like to be able to go somewhere by myself and not have people doubt my safety.
I'd like a back rub. I have terrible knots in my shoulders.
I'd like a really plush mattress.
I'd like my life to stop being a bad Lindsay Lohan movie.
I would like one night out to go as planned. As I planned.
I'd like to be done with finals
I'd like to finalize my winter plans.

I guess some of these are more likely than others, but that's what I want for Christmas. So Santa, I hope that I've been good enough this year to get at least a few of these. Thank you very very much,

Happy holidays,
Amanda

I should really be writing a paper

I got the keys to my apartment today!! I forgot to take pictures, but Tamera did and she's gonna tag me in them when they go up on Facebook. I had to sign the lease because I'm the only one who had a photocopy of their passport with them. It's in Arabic, so I have no idea what I signed, I'm gonna have someone Egyptian read it to make sure all the information is correct and that I didn't just sign my soul over to the devil.
I'm having a really hard time focusing on my work, though. I want coffee, but I only have 15LE on me because every pound I could take out of the ATM today had to go to rent and deposit on my apartment because one of my roommates is broke so I'm paying her rent until she gets her disbursement. I don't mind at all, she and my other friends were more than amazing when I was broke earlier this semester, but I can't take any more money out until tomorrow, so it'll be koshary for dinner tonight and whatever's in my room (corn flakes) for breakfast tomorrow. But I want coffee. Hell, at this point it's moving more toward need. I just can't seem to get any writing done. And I think coffee would help. I'm gonna borrow money from someone so I can get coffee.

Apartment hunting in Egypt: definitely a new experience

This afternoon was crazy in a completely Egyptian (and less sketchy than last night) kind of way. I got a call from a realtor person around noon asking if I could look at some apartments with him at 3. Thanks for all the notice, but yeah ok, sounds good. I call Tamera and Matt to make sure they can come, then call him back to confirm. We meet at the Dokki (pronounced doh-ee) metro stop at 3. We look at a place that we really like, but it's too expensive. We look at a place that felt like the 70's puked on it. And it was wall to wall carpeting throughout. In purple. And one entire wall of the living room was mirrors. It was an odd place. Think we'll pass. We look at a place that seems okay, but I didn't really like it. They we're ready to say yes, but I just didn't really want it. I felt bad, but I would've been unhappy there. That was it for the afternoon, the next places we wanted to look at the landlord wouldn't be home until this evening. So we went back to Zamalek for a few hours.
We decided to order Chinese food. MISTAKE. We called the place to order because I had been having trouble with the website. Based on the website what we ordered would cost about 130LE for the three of us. We waited the hour for it. No food. We called. "Five minute." Twenty minutes later. No food. We call. "One minute." Twenty minutes and another call later, it gets here. LE 250. UH, NO. We bring out my laptop, which shows the menu. We call and argue with the restaurant. At this point we only have a half hour until we need to be in Dokki. We tell them where they can put their food. We were ripshit. And starving. We had waited almost two hours for this food by the end of it. And we didn't even end up with it. We got koshary and rushed to Dokki, fuming.
We are taken to an apartment a ways farther from the river, by Dokki's second metro stop. first impression: it's an alley. It turned out not to be, it was actually decently paved and private/too small for cars. Upon entering I notice something else: no elevator. We climb up to the fourth floor (not too bad, at least) and discover an apartment that I like at least somewhat better than the last one before dinner. this one has seafoam kitchen cabinets, rock hard mattresses and strange couches and chairs. There are two columns in the living room, which are hella cool, I'm totally a fan. And thw color of the kitchen is adorable. And its CHEAP. We were sold. We asked all the technical questions, turned on all the faucets, inspected (and questioned the realtor about) the strange looking thing that claims to be our washing machine. We gave our landlady (who seems nice) a 500LE deposit and we'll be meeting up with her on Friday to give her first month's rent and a one month deposit, and give the realtor people their commission (a half month's rent). I HAVE AN APARTMENT. It's very exciting. And we can move in anytime after Friday afternoon when we give her the money.

In which I learn to love corruption

The beginning of my week went by pretty uneventfully, there was a book sale on campus and I bought some textbooks and a couple of novels all for around 100LE ($17.50). I'm excited for the novels, I'll be reading them over break hopefully.
There was an African dance thing on campus yesterday to promote the MAU, the model African Union, and it was pretty entertaining, especially because there was a man dressed in a gorilla suit which seemed to have nothing to do with anything. As I said, entertaining.
On the way home my wallet got separated from my things and ended up getting left on the bus. After a short freak out session the desk people called the bus people who called the driver and he found it, but today is a holiday so I can get it from school tomorrow. Crisis averted, but I have no ID, debit card, or room key until then.
Last night began one of the holiest days of the Islamic year, the new year. This means that last night in Cairo was dry. Except that we'd been having a crazy couple of days, so we weren't really feeling the "no alcohol" thing. If you're not Muslim it's not actually a problem, the only problem is that nowhere sells it. We found a place (which is not as sketchy as it sounds) and set of to a place to drink. Here's where the love of corruption part comes in:
Some police men came by and were obviously looking for trouble, but since most of us were foreigners we were safe (we weren't actually doing anything wrong). Unfortunately our one friend was Egyptian and they were giving him quite a bit of trouble. He's not actually a Muslim and so from what I've gathered he was allowed to drink, but his name was a Muslim one and so they assumed he was (and if he had denied it they would say he was lying). At this point we call our other friend who had left to get some cigarettes, and he comes back. Now this guy is apparently connected in all the right ways because he calls up someone and has them talk to the cops. Problem solved. Living in a place like this really makes you appreciate networking.