Italy: an account of a very random two weeks.

Let me begin by saying that not a single thing on this trip was planned more than about 24 hours in advance, except for my hotel reservation for the first two or three nights before Christina got there, my hostel reservation for my last few days after Christina left, and a general idea of taking some trains to some random cities. :D

I arrived in Rome around 7:30am after a 3am flight from Cairo, with no plans other than a hotel reservation for the first couple of days. The first task was to figure out how to get from the airport to my hotel without paying a ton of money… I ended up finding some random small shuttle company with a driver who gave me a small tour of downtown Rome on the way to my hotel. When I got to the hotel, I drank a delicious espresso, five cookies, then passed out until around 3pm. I decided to take the first day or two as relaxing days since I knew Christina and I were going to be doing a lot once she got to Italy and I needed some rest from Cairo life. So, I spent a lot of time in the hot tub at my hotel, then headed to the nice restaurant in the hotel. I had pasta with some delicious cream sauce, a juicy steak with olive oil and some sort of delicious seasoning, and the sweetest fresh tomatoes. It was all amazing and wonderful until the stinking hotel waiter decided he liked me and kept asking me out. I told him that my friend was coming into town and so I was busy, then very awkwardly and quickly left for my room. I'm fairly certain that he called my room and maybe knocked on my door later that night, but I didn't answer either. The next day, I ordered room service breakfast, spent more time relaxing in the hot tub, then wandered the streets for a while, getting oriented in my Roman neighborhood. I found a delicious little restaurant where I ordered the first delicious salad I have had since I left Colorado, a very nice thin crispy Italian pizza, white wine, and creme brulee. My first few days of attempting to speak Italian generally ended up with me muttering some strange mix of Egyptian Arabic, Italian, French, and English.

Christina arrived on my third evening in Italy, and we went out for a spectacular first meal in Rome. After eating delicious pasta, salad, chicken, fried zucchinis, and the most amazing tiramisu I have ever tasted, and drinking an liter of rosse wine between the two of us, we wandered the streets by our hotel making stupid jokes and having serious discussions. We finally got to bed, then the next day headed out on our first day of adventure. Step one: drag suitcases through all sorts of random streets trying to find the nearby train station to get to downtown Rome where we had reservations at a hostel for the night. After a lot of navigating and some failed attempts to ask for directions in Italian, we finally got to the hostel. From there, we wandered all over downtown, picking random places on our map and trying to find them, while stumbling pretty much accidentally on all of the great monuments. We had delicious cheesy gnocchi and pasta for lunch. Yummmmm! Later in the evening, we found ourselves in a beautiful piazza, full of fountains, artists, and musicians, where we sat down for an amazing pizza dinner. Then it was back to the hostel to catch a few hours of sleep before the next morning when we would be taking a train to Naples to stay at our next hostel and get pizza in the place pizza was invented!!

Goofing off in front of the Colosseum:

In the morning, after a slightly weird free breakfast at the hostel, we headed to the train station, bought tickets to Napoli from a kiosk in the train station, figured out through trial and error how to catch the train, and hopped on. After we got on, a railway employee came through collecting tickets, and told us we had to change trains at some stop that we promptly forgot the name of, except that it was short and started with an "f" (a description that fit several of the upcoming stops it turns out...) - and it dawned on us that we had probably gotten on the wrong train. Oh well - it all worked out in the end - we somewhat randomly got off at the correct "f" stop and transferred trains to the correct train and got to Naples just fine. Napoli is a big, dirty, rough city, full of stereotypical Jersey-shore-like dark skinned loud italians in leather jackets, and also a lot of rough looking sea-faring men. I absolutely love it. We checked our bags at the train station, and set off on a mission to find pizza!! Some random guy on the train had told us that the best pizza is along the harbor, so we cut through some random rough neighborhoods and jay-walked Cairo-style a lot, until we eventually found a pizzaria. Best. Pizza. Ever1!!!!! I had a seafood pizza and Christina had a stuffed crust cheese basil and tomato pizza. As was becoming a tradition, we topped off the delicious meal with some nice italian cafe espresso. Yum yum yum yum!!!

After the pizza, we headed back to the train station to get to our hostel in the neighborhood of Portici (still in Napoli). The hostel was called Fabric, as it was an old fabric factory. What a cool place! The rooms were nice, the breakfast was edible, there was free wireless internet (hard to find in Italy it seems...), and best of all, there was an attached nightclub/bar with live music and some yummy appetizers. We had a fun night eating and drinking more Italian vino, then went on another random walk around the random neighborhood.

The next day, we took the train back to Napoli, then a ferry to the island of Ischia (aka heaven on earth), where we took a bus to a hotsprings spa (check it out: http://www.negombo.it/ ) and spent the afternoon soaking in pools and getting massages from beautiful curly haired Italian massage guys at the massage center of the spa. Amazing. Afterwards we ate yummy dinner at the harbor while waiting for our ferry back to Napoli. We were *planning* on trying to get down to the Amalfi coast that same night, but that soooo didn't happen - we didn't even get back to the Fabric Hostel to retrieve our luggage until almost 11pm. Thank God, Fabric (which earlier in the day had told us that they were completely booked) had a room for us that we ended up staying in and having a really fun night. After putting our bags upstairs, we headed down to the club because there was a live band playing some good Led Zeppelin songs (actually playing them really well too). We had a couple of drinks and sat up close to the stage. The band members kept looking at us, so after the show, Christina wanted to try a little experiment and see if the band guys would come talk to us. We were randomly arm wrestling when the lead singer came up to us and started talking in Italian. My couple of glasses of wine had loosened up my tongue/memory, so we managed to use my Italian skills and start talking to him. The rest of the band came over, and we ended up hanging out with them until around 2am, when we decided to go to sleep so that we could actually get to the Amalfi coast the next day at a reasonable hour. It was a very random and fun night.

The next day, we hopped on the Circumvesuviana train towards Sorrento, and got off in a town called Castellamare. From there, we were supposed to catch a bus to the small town of Agerola where we had booked a room at a bed and breakfast. Castellamare was an odd place - very confusing to navigate without a map, and full of these streetside fish markets - one of which had a wide variety of dead fish on display including sting rays, and some live octopi in a bucket! We nicknamed this town "stupid town" as we were confused and lost for at least an hour or two trying to find the stupid bus stop to get on the stupid SITA bus to Agerola which we didn't even know how to get tickets for (and never actually did get tickets for). Luckily, this strange skinny blond Brittish lady who lives in Morocco helped us out and told us which bus to get on and then which stop to get off at. The bus took us up the side of a mountain, through all sorts of crazy zig-zaggy sketchy very skinny roads with cars going really fast and vespas zipping by. We could see Mount Vesuvias from the mountainside - an active volcano with explosive potential that overlooks hundreds of thousands of homes - scary! We continued on the bus through many small villages until finally arriving at the Piazza San Lazzaro at the center of the small cliff side village of Agerola. What a view! Looking out over the sea, it was impossible to discern where ocean turned into sky. We were so exhausted by this time, we went up and down a steep hillside trying to find the bed and breakfast until finally we gave up in our lostness and asked for help. A nice local man took pity on us and drove us there - it really was a beautiful place! Our room was the "Poseidon room, and had a beautiful mural of the sea god painted on the wall. The Italian lady who worked the desk was really sweet - her name was Maria - and she told us that later that night, since it was Good Friday, there was going to be a big parade and a re-enactment of the Passion of the Christ. Christina wanted to go, so we decided that later in the evening we would try to meet up with them. In the meantime though, we ate some gelato, hopped on a random bus, and ended up in the coast town of Amalfi. I wish that we had more time to stay in Amalfi or Positano or Sorrento - these are extremely beautiful little seaside towns - with the stereotypical Italian villas stacked on the cliffside. We had a delicious lunch in Amalfi that afternoon, then walked up and down some winding market streets, found a really pretty church, bought some limoncello and souvenirs...

The view from our bed and breakfast in Agerola:

Later, after a bit of confusion about which bus to take, we got back to town to find that the church services that Christina wanted to go to were already in session. (I apologize for the somewhat terse uninformed description of these people's religious rituals... but I really had no clue what was going on. :D) There were a bunch of random people dressed in white outfits with leaves on their heads (maybe they were supposed to be druids or something, I have no clue). After singing some churchy songs in Italian, everyone went up to the front of the church to greet a statue of Mary holding Jesus, then waited out front of the church. The tree people in the white outfits then went inside and got the statue - bearing it on their shoulders, and we began to follow them and a band (that was playing music that sounded like it was from one of those old religious story movies - ominous/powerful/epic, but it was almost making me laugh because it reminded me of Dad making fun of the movies) down the street. When the band took a break, they started these chants, that went something like Santa Maria madre di mia... Santa Maria full of grace, etc etc. The whole crowd was echoing them in unison. We walked, and we walked and we walked some more. Then we walked some more. And my leg started cramping. And my foot was killing me. And the whole thing was truly a mental exercise in patience. I could tell Christina was fading too. Finally, we got to a second church. The whole time we had been walking, we thought we would be ending up in a park somewhere and seeing the re-enactment thing. Buuttttt instead, they all went inside the church, repeated all the steps I described above that happened in the last church, then began walking more. We really had no idea where we were or what was going on at this point, but decided to keep following when they left the church in hopes that we would reach this park and then follow them back to San Lazzaro (we were by now on the complete opposite side of the valley and had no clue how to get back). But, instead, after more walking and walking and walking, we found ourselves at the strangest possible place to be in a foreign country with people you don't know at night - a graveyard. Aaaaaaaaaand at this point, we decided it was time to get the frick out of there. Christina asked around and found someone who spoke English, and he told us where to catch the bus back to San Lazzaro. We walked all the way back to the second church we had visited, and saw no sign of the bus... We were standing by a bus stop, contemplating hitchhiking when these two young Italian men offered us a ride. They didn't speak much more than a few words of English, but between that and my few words of Italian, we managed some basal level of communication. The kindly took us all the way back to San Lazzaro, and dropped us off at a local restaurant because I had told them that we were hungry (partly because we were hungry, but also because it was a good way to avoid their invitation to go to a disco in Salerno with them). Christina and I had some delicious wood oven pizza and some local wine. When we left the restaurant, the two lads were of course waiting for us again. :-/ So, since they were nice enough earlier to save our butts from wandering around lost, we hung out with them for a little while before making them drive us home because we were tired.

The next day, we slept in a while, then took the first bus out of town, aswe were already feeling a bad case of small-town fever! We (pretty much as usual) had no idea where the bus was going, and of course we ended up back in Stupid Town/Castellamare. From there, because we hate the place and wanted to get out of there ASAP, we took the train to Sorrento. Sorrento was an absolutely beautiful town - we got some really delicious fish and pasta for dinner at a random restaurant, after wandering around a bit. We then caught the bus back to Amalfi, which turned out to be a really nice scenic drive along the coast through Sorrento, Positano, and Amalfi. We got some good photos.  While waiting for the bus back to Agerola from Amalfi, I chatted with this random guy about the political situation in the middle east (mostly Egypt). It was a nice chat, and reminded me how much I was missing Cairo.

That night, we got back to our hotel to try to figure out how to get to Florence the next day (which was conveniently Easter Sunday). In the morning, we discovered that there were no busses running due to the holiday, but Maria was kind enough to drive us all the way to Stupid Town and to the train station. We ended up getting stuck back in Rome that night, because there were no trains between Napoli and Florence that day, and by the time we got to Rome, it was too late to catch a train to Florence from there too. Luckily, we were able to get a room in the hostel that we had stayed at previously in Rome, and had a nice dinner in front of the Pantheon (no big deal, right?) :D.
From the hostel that night, we decided that we still wanted to go to Florence, and booked a room there for the next night (Christina's last night in Italy). We caught the 10am train to Florence the next morning, where we stayed at a very nice hostel that was refreshingly easy to find. We were starving, so got a map, and walked around downtown (having our usual accidental encounters with all the exciting monuments) and eventually sitting down for a lovely meal of pizza, pesto, and tomato/fresh mozzarella salad. As usual, the waiters were in love with us, and asked out for a drink later, to which we said yes (but weren't sure yet whether we would actually show up). We wandered around randomly some more after that, and realized that Florence is a pretty cool place! Lots of art, and neat buildings. We did some shopping, bought some cheap things (Italy-cheap is of course still expensive by my Egypt-cheap standards). Then we went back to our room, freshened up a bit, and headed to the restaurant from earlier because as Christina put it: "I'm not opposed to using these guys for free drinks!" And use them we did.... We got free french fries, 6 drinks between the two of us, and a free cab ride home (plus 5 extra euros, because the boys gave us too much money for the cab ride). Plus, the two guys were Albanian, and actually pretty decently interesting to talk to. Unfortunately for them though, I have such a thing for Egyptians that I just don't feel attracted to European men anymore. Uh ohs...... The only hotties that Christina and I saw in Italy (besides of course the exceptions of the massage guys on Ischia) were very Arab looking. Haaaaahaaaa.....

In the morning, we unsuccessfully tried to go to an art museum, and ended up just having espresso and dessert instead, then headed back to Roma. We had a disappointing last Christina/Kerry meal in Rome, and I dropped Christina at the train station to go to the airport. I stayed at our familiar Rome hostel again that night, in a dorm room with three guys (random right?) - one young guy from South Africa/London, and two elderly men who sounded British. I like hanging out with men. They are simple and funny. They teased me for taking too long in the bathroom, and I teased them back about being gross stinky men. In the morning, I hopped on a train to Naples, on my way to spend my last few days of vacation back on Ischia (my favorite spot we had been to).

Ischia. is. so. freaking. gorgeous. and relaxing. I love it. It was the perfect choice for my last days in Italy, as I super badly needed a rest from all the crazy non-stop traveling that Christina and I had done. I stayed at a cute hostel in Ischia, where I met some super nice people (study abroad students studying in Rome). I spent the following day with them back at the Negombo spa - very relaxing, and I soaked up some nice sunshine! That same night, after another delicious Italian meal, the nice lady who ran the hostel drove us to the island's natural hotsprings, each of us with a bottle of local wine. Basically, this entailed climbing down several flights of stairs in the cliffs to the shore, where people have piled volcanic rocks up to create pools in the shallow part of a sheltered bay, boiling hot water from the hot springs meets the cool seawater, mixing together in the pools, and creating a pretty freaking amazing experience!! The stars were out in full force, and it was really beautiful to sit there with nice friends on the edge of the ocean in relaxing warm water drinking good Italian wine.
I woke up in the morning and tried to get out of my room (the handle on the inside of the door was missing) and realized that I was stuck inside. I plugged my phone in and called the phone number on the hostel's website, and the guy I talked to literally told me: "Sorry, but I'm not there right now. Can you climb out the window?" HAHAHA. So I climbed out the window and unlocked my door from the outside. For the remainder of my time in Ischia, I ate more fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, did more shopping, sat on the rooftop terrace and read for a while, ate more good food, drank more good wine, etc etc etc.

Saturday, I packed my bags, took the ferry to Naples, the train to Rome, the train to the airport, and my plane back to Egypt!! When I got to the airport in Rome, I heard people in front of me in line speaking Egyptian Arabic and got really excited!! I could wipe the stupid grin on my face for the entire rest of the day. Egypt Egypt Egypt Egypt Egypt I love it so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D :D :D :D


So yeah. That's Italy. I'll put more pics up later, my internet in sucking again.

Love,
~Kerry

Travel, languages, birthdays

It's official.... and I can say it in 3 different languages:

I'm going to Italy tomorrow / Andro in Italia domani / haru7 italy bkra!!!!!!

I will be flying into Rome, staying at a hotel for a few days until Christina arrives there on Sunday. We are purchasing EuRail passes so that we can take trains all over Italy whenever/wherever we want! We have been asking around friends on facebook and collected contacts staying in various Italian cities who we will be able to meet up with and get tips on places to eat/go/what to do for fun/etc. Unfortunately I can't say I'm excited in Italian or Arabic because saying such a phrase in either language has a provocative connotation... but in English... I'm sooooo freakingg excited!!!!!!

And for those who care, I will be returning to Colorado on the afternoon of July 6th.

Learning languages is possibly one of the most frustrating, time consuming, and annoyingly fun things to do. I so so so so wish I could stay in Egypt longer than through July, because I feel like I am just now getting a footing on learning Egyptian Arabic - I can understand more of the random blurbs of speech I hear around me every day. Speaking of course is still kind of not happening..... but one of these days insha'allah that will change. :)

It was my birthday Tuesday! Last Friday night a bunch of friends and I went to a club called Purple here in Cairo to celebrate my birthday and another friend's birthday. It was a fun night - lots of dancing, friends, and not a lot of sleep!! Then Tuesday night, myself, Christina, Said, and a friend of Said's went ATV riding by the pyramids (same area we went horseback riding at previously), which was super fun!! One of the headlights on the ATV I was on kept flickering on and off - very convenient when you are racing through the barely moonlit desert trying to avoid things like random holes and huge sand dunes! Then we decided to go on a faluka (sailboat in the Nile) and have a drink, from which point on my night got wild - as a 21st birthday should. I blame Christina for being the instigator. Anyways.... upon my return to Colorado, I can't wait to go dancing with my ladies!! As Tess so poetically put it: "Bar-going men of the world... beware!"

Other than the birthday.... life has been as mundane as it can be in such a place like Egypt, where you are likely to see all sorts of strange things happening on a daily basis. I wonder how many skinny Egyptian men can fit on a moped going through heavy traffic? So far 4 is the most I've seen, but I'm betting that Egypt will best that soon.

April 5th (happy birthday Kayla Metheany) was AUC's international day, where students set up booths and do performances representing their countries. There was a lot of delicious food, and some fun performances too - my friend Hassan performed a song called Ba7ebek ya Masr (meaning I love you Egypt), the folklore troupe danced a couple of pieces, another girl I know did a dance for Cuba, and my friend Nancy did a folkloric dance with a large groups of people representing Palestine (I think). It was fun. Here is a picture of myself and my friend Mia (she's Moroccan, we like to bellydance together), Nancy's dance group, the folklore troupe, and my friend singing:

OK, I think that's all for now.... I'm going to go review some more Italian. :D Love you allll!!!!!!
~Kerry

Italia

I just spontaneously bought myself a plane ticket to Italy from April 16-30th!!!!!!!!!!! Another lifelong dream about to come true (insha'allah)!!!!!!

On my agenda will hopefully be: Rome, Venice, Tuscany, and the Amalfi coast. I'm flying into and out of Rome, but will be taking trains and stuff to places around Italy!

I'll post more details as I plan them!!

HAPPY EARLY BIRTHDAY TO MEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Italia, here I come...

Reporting in.

Hey guys!
Really not much news to report over the past couple of weeks.... I've been doing a lot of dancing and socializing, working, and actually a rare couple of hours of studying! :D

In case you care though, here is what an average Kerry-day in Cairo is like. The weeks since I last wrote have basically consisted of this:

On school days, I wake up earlier than desired to catch the bus. Sometimes I miraculously manage to leave my apartment 15 minutes before the bus is scheduled to leave so that I can stop by the grocery store downstairs and grab a water bottle and a candy bar for breakfast. Usually though, I am running late and leave approximately 7 minutes before the bus is scheduled to leave. More often than I should, I end up sleeping through my first class.
The bus ride takes anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get to campus. I usually use this time to listen to music, catch up on emails (the bus has wireless internet, which is totally sweeet), and sometimes do the homework that I didn't do when I should have the night before. When I get to campus, I get a hot cup of green tea with mint and three spoonfuls of sugar and usually burn my tongue. If I wasn't able to go to the grocery store before the bus, I go to the convenience store on campus and get a muffin and a candy bar. Then I sit in the sun outside whatever classroom I'm going to, chat with friends, and wait for class to start.
Mondays and Thursdays, I have my developmental biology class from 8:30-9:45 (those are the worst days, since I have to wake up at 5:30am). The class is fun though, there are only about 6 students, and the teacher is really nice. We talk about detailed genetics and cell biology a lot, which is a lot of new material for me, since I am usually a "skin-out" biology person. Although I am usually only half awake, it is a really excellent class. The teacher and a couple of students are trying to do something where we can visit local high schools to try to encourage students to major in biology when they go to university.
Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, I have my two Arabic classes - Egyptian colloquial (Amaya), and formal Arabic. My Amaya professor is really great - she is really funny and good at making the class fun. Her son, who is our age, hangs out with us sometimes and helps us practice what we are learning in class. I recently gave her my dad's pizza recipe (modified to using ingredients available in Egypt). The formal Arabic class is a bit harder, but I still like it. The teacher is a bit stricter, but I think she has a great sense of humor. Mondays and Thursdays, I stop by the class that I TA for between my two Arabic classes to pass papers back and check in with the professor.

I finish class every day by 12:45. I usually go to the salad bar on campus and get a something that *almost* satisfies my cravings for the delicious salads at home. They are missing some key ingredients though, like spinach, avocado, manderine oranges, croutons, almonds and balsamic vinaigrette, but it still makes for a pretty good meal. Monday and Thursday, I go to folklore dance practice from approximately 1-5 (but I'm usually fashionably late and take lots of random breaks). Sunday and Wednesday I go to the gym (sometimes), where I run on the treadmill, do the bicycle thing, some ab stuff, and stretch. The gym has a great women's locker room, where I take a shower after working out, then try off in the sauna - very relaxing after a good workout. Monday evenings, I try to go to a Zumba class at the gym (latiny workout dance class - very fun!). The class is also offered on Sundays and Wednesdays, but I don't usually stay on campus long enough to go on those days. When I'm bored on campus, which happens a lot, I sit outside the food court in the sun with random friends and talk about nothing special. It's a very easy going lifestyle.

I don't have classes on Tuesdays, but come to campus for a few hours to work at my TA job. I attend the general lecture for the Scientific Thinking class and help the students with their worksheets if they need it. Then I help the teacher grade papers and input them into the online grade system for the students to see. Pretty boring, but I like the subject matter and I actually really like being a somewhat teachery role - a good sign since I someday want to be a professor!

Thursday evening, the weekend begins! My social life on the past couple of weekends has really taken place primarily at night, and I sleep through a lot of the days. It is a lot of fun, but it's starting to catch up with my immune system! ;)


Life is good.
I bought the most beautiful jacket in the entire world. It is red, leather, and smells like a saddle shop (for those of you who know the glory of this smell...) Here is a picture:

The dance costume that I have been having custom made for me is also finished, and I picked it up on Tuesday. it is SO SO SO SO SO gorgeous!!! If you want pictures, email me and I'll send them to you.

Also on Tuesday, while we were at Khan el Khalili getting my costume, we randomly ran into a guy we had met recently and had a very random experience. Apparently it was the birthday of this historical Sufi guy associated with one of the famous mosques near the marketplace, and there was a big feast/celebration going on. The guy we ran into wanted to show us how they were celebrating. We followed him inside a random building, where we sat with a bunch of Egyptians and listened to a group of men sing beautiful Arabic songs about Islam. Everyone, including us, was given delicious food (lamb, rice, potatoes, and dessert) and tea. It was a really wonderful cultural experience, and I'm really glad that it randomly happened! The singing was really incredible! I continue to be pleasantly surprised by all of the warmth and welcoming that I receive from Egyptians.

That's everything I can think of for now.... Love you all! <3

Horses, Dahab + long overdue update on everything :)

Hello everyone! I guess I'm a bit overdue on my weekly updates...
Mom, I apologize in advance that so much of this blog entry is copied almost word for word from emails I've already sent you... but I didn't feel like re-writing everything :)

I'll start with the horseback riding, since that's where I left off last time: It was a completely surreal experience. It was dark by the time we got to the horse place, but my friend Said told us it's normal to go at night. His friend knows some people, and hooked us up with really high quality Arabian horses. Like horses that would cost a lottt of money in the states. Holy crap so beautiful!! There was a chestnut stallion in a red saddle that I was so in love with... I was originally going to ride him, but he was definitely waaaay too much horse for me being so out of practice. Instead I rode a beautiful dark brown mare. The stable was literally like a house with a little yard out of which we rode onto the streets of the edge of Cairo, passing people on atvs, donkeys, cars, etc. The horses didn't spook at any of it, although they were certainly typical high strung Arabians who wanted to just let loose and run. As usual with Egypt, nothing waits for me to prepare mentally or hesitate or remember how to do whatever we are doing, and I just have to jump in and improvise as we go... We went down the street at a canter, reaching a break in the wall next to the road and entering the desert. Over a hill were the pyramids, like a scene from a movie. We were galloping through the desert faster than I have ever gone in a horse, it was like the most legitimately awesome experience ever!! We finally reached the top of a huge dune, where a camp was set up and we dismounted and had tea. While we were there, I got to ride around on the back of Said's friend's atv, flying over dunes and coming really close to falling off several times. So so so much fun!!! As we went home, it felt like being part of of a heard of wild Arabians... I was holding onto the saddle so tight that my left arm was useless the next day - like it was shaking if I tried to put it in certain positions.... Amazing. Unfortunately there are no pictures because it was dark out and Christina and I forgot our cameras... Oh I was soo saddle sore... I think my butt got bruised.

Sooooo then couple of days later, we set off for a weekend adventure to the beach:
Thursday night we left on a seven hour overnight bus ride to Sharm el Sheikh then took a cab the additional hour to Dahab. We got to our hotel around 5:30am and got two rooms - me and Christina shared and Said got his own. We slept in until about 11 and then got up to enjoy the rest if the day on the beach. It is so so so beautiful there... You can see Saudi Arabia across the sea! The landscape in Dahab is like mountainous desert that eases into the beach. It is a very small town where people go to get away from things and relax. There were plenty of people chilling in bikinis, so I wasn't shy about joining in - there are all these restaurant/hangout spots along the beach where you can go and eat and spend time in the sun. Apparently there are usually a ton of people there, but due to the revolution, we had a lot of space to ourselves. :)

Anyways, we woke up and went out to breakfast on the shore, then took a jeep ride to a different part of the beach about 15 minutes down the road. There were all these tents set up for people to spend time on the beach under and around, each with its own bedouin dude and family there to make you tea and cook for you if you want. It was very relaxing, just what I needed for a quiet escape from Cairo. Christina and Said went snorkeling but I didn't want to get wet because I was feeling cold already from the breeze, so I just laid out in the sun listening to music and napping on and off. After the sun started going down, we headed back to town and ate dinner on the water again. We had really delicious grilled fish and veggies. Mmmmmm!!!

After dinner, we walked around a bit and scoped out the shopping, which was fun - a lot of fun art shops actually! We talked to some atv guys because Said wanted to go off-roading in the morning to see the sunrise. I went to bed as soon as we got back because we were going to have to get up early (4am) for atvs, while Christina and Said decided to stay up all night and just go to sleep after we got back in the morning. You safety-freaks will be pleased to know that I wore a helmet on the atv! It was super fun! We first went up a road to a ridge where we watched the sunrise. Then we went into the desert and rode around on a bunch of trails and took goofy pictures of ourselves pretending to be badass :D. Freedom is amazing.

When we got back to town, Said and Christina needed sleep really badly since they had stayed up all night, so they took a long nap while I went and tanned more on the beach from about 9:30 to 1:30 in the afternoon. I put sunscreen on, but missed a bunch of random places, so now I have awkward sunburn splotches everywhere. Heheeeee!

I finally managed to drag the sleepy ones out of bed at two ish, and we walked around and went shopping and did a nice amount of nothing hanging out and chatting at restaurants and such. We ate some delicious Indian food. After dinner, we went back to the hotel, packed, and hopped on the 10pm overnight bus back to Cairo. I slept almost the entire way, including basically sleep walking through an army checkpoint by the Suez canal. We got delayed for about an hour or two at the canal waiting for the tunnel under it to open up for us... Which messed up my plans to get to class on time in the morning for a 10am exam... But I finally made it back to zamalek where I got onto the next bus to campus and made it in time for my 11:30 class and a different test. I was feeling surprisingly rested after such a long trip home. The day after, I made up the colloquial Arabic exam I missed and aced it - my professor said that she was very pleased with my level and progress :).


The week since then has been a whirlwind of busy-ness.... The class that I TA for had an exam this week on Thursday, so I was grading papers like crazy to get caught up before the exam-grading rush. Tuesday night I stayed up really late doing pretty much nothing - just chatting with friends on skype - I was so exhausted on Wednesday that I slept in until noon and missed all my classes :). I intended on spending most of Wednesday afternoon studying for a biology exam that I had on Thursday, but I somehow managed to waste the entire afternoon doing nothing as well. I don't know what is up with my brain... I just couldn't motivate to be productive at all this week! Finally Wednesday night, I ended up going salsa dancing (where I danced *horribly*), then going to get food at a yummy Egyptian drive-up place around midnight. This was a brilliant move considering that I then had to wake up at 6am the next morning, catch the 7am bus to campus, and read 3 chapters of my developmental biology textbook before my exam at 8:30. I really have no idea how I did it, but I still somehow managed to make it to my exam on time and feel pretty good about most of my answers. I guess I will find out if my confidence was justified or not when we get our exam scores back...

Last night (which doesn't even feel like the same day as the Thursday during which all this biology exam crap happened) was Saint Patrick's Day... Which I celebrated by eating Pizza Hut, watching The Hangover, staying up until 6am, and sleeping in until 1pm today. Now I am sitting on my couch, trying once again to motivate myself to do something productive, and failing. But at least I'm writing this blog entry and posted some pictures on facebook. Good job Kerry.

Here are some pics from Dahab!!

Restaurant next to our hotel, right on the water:

Our hotel - gorgeous right?

View from a road up above town:

The town... and the beautiful ocean:

From our ATV trip... We were all exhausted and goofy:

Me next to the ocean:

Christina and I being goofy again:

Good Dayyy!!!!

I had a fricking great day today!! Maybe it is just an infectious good mood that I caught from somewhere, but whatever it is, I love it!!

This morning, I ignored my alarm several times and didn't have time to do the dishes before I left for the bus, which was fine with me. :) I had a kit kat and gummy worms for breakfast. Very nice! Then the wireless internet on the bus was actually working for once (I somehow keep getting stuck on the bus with no internet... which sucks when you are a slacker student and rely on the 1 hour bus ride to look up the answers to your homework online) so, I got to do some last minute vocab studying for an Arabic test that I hadn't studied for at all.
Class sped by as usual, since I have a great schedule and finish by 12:45 at the latest every day. Then I just chilled on campus - had some gossip catch up time with some friends. Good stuff. After that, I went to the gym and did my treadmill routine and some ab stuff, followed by a nice cold shower and then the awesome sauna in the women's locker room!! Thennnnnnnn my friend wanted to practice some salsa dancing moves, so we looked up some advanced move combinations on youtube and practiced for a while. I decided I needed to buy some nice shoes for dancing, so we went to the big mall City Stars and went shoe shopping. At City Stars, there is a branch of "On the Border" - the Mexican restaurant - I got chicken enchiladas and they were so. f-ing. good. yesss!!!!!!!! I got my delicious Mexican food fix FINALLLLLYYYY!!!!!!! so so so tasty.
Tomorrow we are going to go either horseback or camel riding behind the pyramids. I'm so excited.

I am in such an amazing happy mood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wheeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love Egypt. I love dancing. I love LIFE!!!!!

Musiqa

I danced alone in my living room for hours this afternoon and it was amazing. Everywhere I go here I find music - even the guy in the grocery store below my apartment sings as he restocks the shelves. I woke up yesterday and started singing in my bed.

Nothing expresses and makes sense of this strange world like song.

Thank you mom and dad for giving me a musical childhood, I finally understand why this is so important. I am so in love with life!