Oh Egypt...

I would like to recount a few of the conversations that Carrie and I have had with various Egyptians in the past 24 hours:

Numba 1 - this happened in a shoe store at the biggest mall in Africa, talking to one of the employees:

Him: Hello, are you looking for anything particular today?
Me: No.... just browsing.
Him: Where are you from? Germany?
Me: No..... Colorado. America.
Him: Ohh USA very nice very nice.... You tourists or you live here?
Me: We live here.
Him: Oh, how long you stay in Egypt?
Me: We have been here since January, and are leaving in July.
Him: You have lots of friends in Egypt?
Me: Yes........ ?
Him: Egyptian friends?
Me: Yes...... ???
Him: Can I be your friend too?
Me: Um..... maybe later?
Him: Here, I take your phone number... I take you to see Egypt, ya know, the pyramids!
Me: We've already been there..... :-/
(at this point, I fake a phone call to a friend "waiting at a restaurant for us")
Him: Phone number?
Me: We have to go..... we'll stop by later........... maybe.......................... K bye.


Numba 2 - We were leaving our apartment to go to a nearby cafe. When we got to the sidewalk, these two guys starting saying things like "wow, you are so cute, so beautiful, so sweet" etc. but we just ignored them, as usual, and kept walking (at a quick pace). When we got to the Cafe though, we obviously had to stop walking, because we were looking at a table. The freaking guys had followed us there... 5 blocks....... and now were standing right in front of us going "why won't you talk to us, please just talk to us?" So finally we looked at them like "are you serious?" And here is how the conversation went:
Them: Hi we are (insert names that we promptly forgot here). What are your names?
Us: Kerry. Carrie.
Them: You guys looked so serious...
Carrie: We're on a mission.
Kerry: A mission to find tea and shisha.
Them: You guys are really pretty, can we have your phone numbers?
Us: Um. No.
Them: Why nottt??? we just want to be friends?
Us: We have lots of friends already.
Them: Do you live here?
Us: Yes. We're sisters.
Them: But what about when your mother is trying to call one of you, and you have the same name?!?!
Us: We have different moms. same dad.
Them: oh..... (very confused). Can we have your numbers please?
Kerry: OK..... 1-800 ........ hahahahaha
Carrie: I don't .... have a phone .... ? hahahaha
Them: Are you guys stoned or something? You are laughing a lot.
Us: What the hell? No!! Maybe we are just happy people...... We are having fun.
Them: We can have fun toooo! we just want to hang out! Be friends!! So can we have your phone numbers?
Carrie: Are you f***ing kidding me? You just followed us for five blocks, asked if we are high, and you really think we are going to give you our phone numbers?!?!
Kerry: Seriously.... Gotta work on your strategy guys.....
Them: Uh.... Here, call this number!! 010...... (starts telling me his phone number, trying to get me to call it so they would have our phone number)
Us: You really think we are THAT stupid?! Wow.....
Them: OK, well..... I guess we will see you guys again because we all live here. And we can be friends!
Kerry: Whatever....... bye.
Carrie: Great, so if we see you again, I'll smile politely and say hi.



Numba 3 - this is between us and our friend Wafa'i while sitting at a cafe on the Nile around 1:30am:

Carrie: I love the brain!! (we were nerding out about psychology and biology)
Wafa'i: Have you guys ever eaten brain??
Kerry: Um no........ but that sounds awesome!!!
Carrie: Grosssss..............
Wafa'i: How about liver??
Kerry: I'd try it...
Carrie: Grosssss........
Wafa'i: Want to go eat liver and brains?? right now??
Kerry: HELLS YESSSS!!!!
Carrie: Count me out. I'll watch.
Wafa'i: Yalla bina! (let's go)

So..... we went first to a liver restaurant, AKA we pulled up to the curb next to one of the few restaurants still open, and Wafa'i brought back some liver sandwiches. They were soooooo yummmyyyy!!!! But Carrie still refused to try. Her loss. Bahaha.

Then, we went to a brains restaurant. Cow brains to be precise. I was shwaya worried about mad cow disease..... Carrie asked "are they gelatinous?" which did not make me want to eat them more. Wafa'i wouldn't let me look inside the pita full of brains before I ate them, because he said if I saw what was inside that I wouldn't eat it. The brains were ... moist. and squishy. Definitely violated the texture law. But they didn't taste too bad. I couldn't really do more than one bite though. Now I can say I've eaten brains. Whooooo!! Check that off my lifetime to do list!! :D


All in all.... In addition to the AWESOME dance party that took place in Carrie and I's living room earlier, I would say it has been a very productive day in Cairo. <3

The latest...

Hi everyone, the rare non-busy moment has arrived..... so I guess I'll update my blog. If my writing today doesn't make the most sense, it is probably because I'm sick, and my brain is not functioning at peak condition... I guess I haven't written in a long time, so this might be a lengthy entry:

Tuesday May 31st was a very interesting day. The *plan* was: wake up at 6am, take 7am bus to campus, take final exam at 8:30-10:30am, take make-up exam from 11-noon, work on TA stuff from noon-1, leave campus at around 1:15 to go pick up Carrie and my friend Megan from the airport, then hang out and meet our dance teacher Kaya (also coming into town that day) at her hotel and relax, etc.
Here's what actually happened: I stayed up until around 2am being quite unproductive, and set two different alarms to wake me up in the morning for my final, and was planning on studying on the bus on the way to school. I woke up feeling surprisingly rested.... which made me think to check the time... and it was 8:45am - my final had started 15 minutes ago and it takes an entire hour (on a good day) to get to campus!!! I jumped out of bed and got ready to go in a matter of about 5 minutes (kind of a record for me), jumped in a cab, told the cab driver in really bad arabic that I was extremely late and he needed to drive very quickly... turns out he was kind of an angel and got me to campus in 40 minutes, so that I still had about 30 minutes to take my exam. However, I was not able to do that crucial last minute studying that usually gets me A's on exams, so I basically completely made up the answer to every single question on both my final exam and the make up exam afterwards (both for my developmental biology class). To make things worse, in the middle of my rushed, completely fudged final exam, Carrie calls me from Amsterdam. I tell my TA "sorry, but I really need to answer this phone call..." and I step outside. The conversation goes like this: "Hi Carrie, I'm in the middle of a final exam." "Hi Kerry, I missed my plane.... they are re-routing me through Paris and I'll be getting into Cairo around 8." "Sh**. Well, I have to go finish my exam... call me in an hour if you can, and try to email me your flight info." "K, bye."
So, I finished my exams..... grabbed a nasty piece of pizza and set off to the airport to pick Megan up, with a friend of a friend who has a car here. After a lot of confusion, we managed to find her (she had somehow exited the airport at the place where you usually drop people off for departures, not pick them up for arrivals.... oh Egypt...). We got back to Zamalek and had a nice lunch, catching up and talking about our traveling adventures. Meanwhile, I was texting/calling just about every Egyptian man I know with a car to try to find someone to take me back to the airport and pick up Carrie at 8ish. I eventually got a couple of friends to take me to the airport, and a different friend to take us back to Zamalek. I feel so immensely grateful for all of the wonderful people who I have met here who are willing to help me out when I need it..... Anyways, my reunion with Carrie was so amazing!!! Needless to say, there was a lot of tearing up and squealing involved. :)

The next two days were jam packed with as many possible touristy activities as we could fit in, as Kaya only had a couple of days in Cairo and wanted to see all she could! We went camel riding at the pyramids (during which time I discovered that I have become actually OK at not letting us get ripped off by people trying to scam tourists), we went shopping at the Khan el Khalili, went to the tanoura (whirling dervishes/sufi dancing show) downtown, rode a faluka on the nile, smoked shisha at a couple of great cafes, and had a fabulous girly slumber party in the super ritzy hotel that Kaya was staying at (involving lots of chocolate cake, red wine, and giggles). It was a tiring couple of days, but so so worth the fun and memories!!

A few days later, Megan, Carrie, Said, Said's friend Aldo, and I all decided to go up to Alexandria for the day (my first time in Alexandria ever). On the way up, we stopped at this strange zoo thing, where you drive around to different animal exhibits and actually get to have really up close interactions with them. We held baby lions, fed hippos with our hands, had monkeys climb all over us, fed ostriches and llamas, etc etc. It was really fun, except that I really felt bad for all the animals... wild things should not be kept in such a small space or be so comfortable with people. After that, it was back on the road to Alex. It is truly a beautiful city. Different from Cairo, but still very Egyptian... The sea was so beautiful. We ate some really delicious fish (a must-do in Alexandria), saw the castle, walked past the library/planetarium, which made me miss my planetarium in Boulder, and settled down for shisha and tea at a cafe by the sea for a few hours. Again, a long day, but very worth it.

Photo credit to Megan for these shots:

Since Alexandria, Carrie and I have been going to a lot of dance costume fittings that we are pretty excited about :) Can't wait to post pics, and bring them home to dance in!!!

A couple of nights ago, Carrie and I got invited to go to an Egyptian wedding, something that I've been wanting to do for a while. I don't really know the guy who invited us all that well, but that's how it works here.... everybody just treats you like family. He picked us up in Zamalek around 5:30 (told us that the wedding was going to start at 6.... Egyptian time), and took us to his family's house for lunch. His family was so so sweet, and his mom brought us some really amazing food, and good tea too! Then, we got in his car and proceeded to wait around, drive around, and wait around for 3 whole hours - with the air conditioning on full blast.... Which is when I started to feel like I was getting sick. These Egyptians don't mess around with their air conditioning. It's serious business, not for the faint of heart or for people like me who get cold easily! Finally, around 10:30 or 11pm, we got to the wedding. The entrance of the bride and groom was really fun - a great group of Egyptian musicians were playing and everyone was clapping and cheering. My friend told us that we were "pretending to be Egyptian" so we weren't supposed to talk to anyone...... We are SOOOO obviously not Egyptian.... but oh well, nothing bad came of that... After the entrance, we stood and watched the bride and groom exchange some vows (I think), and then everyone started dancing. We were the only un-veiled women there (other than the young girls), so we were pretty unsure how much and what style of dancing was appropriate... so we didn't dance much at first. Then they opened up this huge buffet of food. Carrie and I were already super duper full from eating at my friend's parents' house, so we told him that we didn't really need any food, which we thought that he understood. But before we knew it, he came out with two GIANT plates full of meat, rice, dolma-like things, plus about five smaller plates full of desserts!!! It is very insulting if you don't eat food that people give you in Egypt, so I look at Carrie and tell her that we better just take one for the team and eat up.... She is looking so full that she might burst and tells me that she might have to pull the rude american card at some point soon, and just not eat. We picked at the rice for a while, and started eating desserts (which were easier to eat than the other food), and this is when I started texting my amazing friends who get me out of trouble that I get myself into in Egypt.... things like "will you please come rescue us from this wedding? Can you call me and pretend to be my boyfriend who is angry that I am at a wedding with a different man and wants me to leave??" Eventually, our friends Ahmed and Haisam came and saved us, but not before we felt so so so so awkward not knowing anyone, feeling rude for not being able to eat the food, and trying to hide in the bathroom, etc etc. Throughout the whole evening (especially after the freezing car ride) I was feeling sicker and sicker, so that when I finally got home, I could barely function, and now I feel like I have strep throat.
Yup, definitely a night we are going to look back on and laugh.... I feel like almost every American I know in Egypt has some sort of story like this... haha!

Anyways.... Carrie, Said, Megan, Aldo, and Megan's brother all went to Dahab for the weekend, but I stayed in Cairo, since I am sick and need to rest and get well. My internet is dead again, so I am currently back at the AUC dorms in Zamalek pretending to be a resident and using their internet. I'm really starting to miss home pretty bad, especially while I'm sick and craving my mom's chicken soup. But this last month with Carrie will be fun and full of dancing and adventure, and then I will be home, and back to my wonderful life in beautiful Boulder, Colorado, which I have really come to appreciate so much more than I used to throughout all these months of the unfamiliar.

What a crazy journey this has been so far.... Emotionally, spiritually, and in every other way.... moving to Egypt, staying stubbornly through a revolution while simultaneously going through a rough break-up from a very serious relationship, feeling constantly confused, but gloriously happy, dancing, singing, eating so much food in Italy, meeting so many truly amazing people, getting to know myself better....... Yup, I love my life.

Love you all, see you July 6th!!!!!
~Kerry