Evacuation

I'm heartbroken to report that my summer abroad program has been cut short - due to the recent unrest and uncertainty about Egypt's future, my group has been ordered to evacuate Egypt. The UC program's insurance kicked in and is flying us to Paris and then straight home to the United States. I won't get to see the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, visit the new library in Alexandria, or snorkel in the Red Sea. I tried to see if I could spend a week and a half in Europe and then take my normal flight home in mid-July, but unfortunately my airline company would charge me too much money so I won't get to use the evacuation as an excuse for more siteseeing. The only bright side to all of this is seeing my family early and spending part of the 4th of July with them (after my plane lands in San Francisco in the early evening).

I'm still partly in shock by everything and not ready to come home, but part of me is exhausted and resigned to our departure, especially after the crazy day it's been. I woke up this morning only to hear the news of our evacuation, ran around Zamalek to buy some last-minute souvenirs, spent hours looking up hostels in Dublin/Paris/Frankfurt/Berlin, packed everything and tried to fit all of my souvenirs/textbooks into my suitcase, and Facebook-chatted with many concerned friends and family members. The day is only going to get longer, considering that we're leaving to head to the airport in less than an hour and I'll be arriving in SFO about 26 hours from now... Hopefully I can get some sleep on the plane!

I have too many regrets about my time here in Cairo. I wish I'd talked to more local people (instead of mostly shop owners and taxi drivers). I wish I'd taken more pictures. I wish I'd bought more gifts at the bazaar. I wish I'd tried more food (and more flavors of ice cream at a local sweet shop I discovered yesterday). I wish I'd blogged more! Right now, all I can do is prepare myself for a long flight and hope that I can turn my shortened abroad experience into a dynamic law school personal statement...

Bazaar and Protest Prep

With the June 30th protests coming up tomorrow, our professor took us to the bazaar today for some shopping before the excitement begins. We visited Khan al-Khalili, which is the largest and most popular bazaar in Cairo. I didn't see any other shoppers there besides our group, which probably meant that tourists are staying away from downtown Cairo right now. Poor shopkeepers... and poor us, since everyone was determined to charge extra for everything!

The bazaar was made up of winding alleys filled with shops, bored-looking shopkeepers sitting out front waiting for customers to come by. As soon as we approached, their eyes lit up and they called out to us about all of the items that we just had to get that were exactly what we were looking for! All I knew was that I wanted some scarves to give as presents, so I wandered in and out of shops aimlessly for a bit, probably disappointing the many store owners that kept trying to give me prices for everything I looked at. Some of the shopkeepers were friendly, others aggressive, and many more aggressively friendly. I actually had one shopkeeper pull me into his store to show me scarves, so I was glad that I'd dragged my friend Rusty into the store as well... the young man started demonstrating all the different ways I could wear his beautiful scarf, and as soon as he "accidentally" groped me I hurried out of the store and told him I didn't want the scarf. I don't want to know what would have happened if I hadn't had another guy with me at the time - thanks, Rusty!

That one incident aside, I had some great conversations with some of the shopkeepers and many of them were thrilled that I made an effort to speak/bargain with them in Arabic. My group had our professor help us negotiate (since she was always able to talk her way into the most reasonable prices using her rapid Egyptian Arabic), but I was able to successfully bargain on my own a couple of times and got a great deal on a few gorgeous scarves.

We stopped shopping a little bit too soon for my liking (although it was probably a good thing, since I hadn't planned well and didn't bring enough Egyptian pounds with me to buy too many items) and went to Al-Fishawy Café for tea and coffee (as well as hookah for some of my classmates). It was nice to sit and relax for a bit, especially since the tea was delicious! A couple of young boys came up to us and tried to get us to buy hairpins, so Angelica and I bought a couple. We probably overpaid, since the youngest boy was so happy that he gave us a handmade bracelet in addition to the hairpins for free. Honestly, I didn't mind overpaying - it was only $3 to me, but it was a few meals for him.

While heading back from the bazaar, our taxis drove through Tahrir Square and I was able to get a glimpse at the protest preparations for tomorrow. Jonny and I joked that it was just like Occupy - and in a way, it was.

 

I'm excited to see what happens tomorrow! We're all staying firmly on Zamalek, where we'll be safe, but I know that we'll all be monitoring the news and waiting to see what takes place in the square. I'm praying everything remains safe and peaceful!

Movie Time

It's Friday - the Egyptian weekend is here! - and I just wanted to quickly update you all to say that I saw Monsters University last night! Super cute movie, and it was definitely an interesting cultural experience to go to a movie theater here.

Our professor was only planning to go with her son, but a few other people in our group (including me) really wanted to see the movie so we all ended up tagging along after class. We took a taxi (yet again) to the next island over, Rawdah, which had a theater showing the latest American movies. We bought tickets and 3D glasses, since the movie was 3D and they actually charge you extra for the glasses, and then took our seats. The seats were assigned and we had an actual usher show us where the row was, which was I've never had happen while seeing a movie. There was also an intermission halfway through the movie (it literally stopped mid-sentence, which confused me for a bit) so that people could go out and buy more popcorn or use the restroom. It made sense economically, but I still found an intermission a bit amusing considering the movie was only an hour and a half long.

The movie was very cute, like I said, and it was a lot of fun to read along with the Arabic subtitles on the bottom of the screen. Reminds me of when I used to watch all of my movies with Spanish subtitles during third and fourth year Spanish in high school! The actual dialogue was in English, of course. I loved having another excuse to practice my Arabic, although I guess I could have also eavesdropped on the conversations next to me... considering that a lot of the other patrons talked throughout the movie (and texted, kicked my seat, etc.). Either I was sitting by a rowdy family or theater etiquette is different in Cairo. Oh well - overall I had a lot of fun and it was nice to have a little taste of home again (even if was only an English-language movie)!

Egyptian Museum

Before class this morning, Caity and I headed to the Egyptian Museum. I had been sick when the rest of our group went and I was dying to go (plus Caity wanted to see everything again and was nice enough to go with me), so we headed to downtown Cairo to get to the museum just as it was opening.

The ancient Egyptian architecture, jewelry, and artifacts were absolutely stunning. We couldn't take pictures inside, although I snuck one of this adorable kitten sleeping on a coffin.

 

My first stop of the morning was the mummy room. It was creepy but kind of cool - there were a lot of mummified pharaohs in there in various stages of "decay." Technically they weren't decaying because of how carefully they were embalmed, but it's still hard to look at a graying skeleton and think, "Wow, he's holding up well!" I lingered for a few minutes to read the descriptions of each pharaoh before leaving the room for safer, less haunted areas.

The actual museum had artifacts everywhere. If Hogwarts was a poorly organized and poorly labeled museum, it would look pretty similar to what I saw this morning. The displays (if you could call them displays) were laid out haphazardly, sometimes by era, sometimes by artifact type, and sometimes by ruler. Most of the time there were descriptions in broken English (I suspect the Arabic descriptions weren't much better, unfortunately), but many sad pieces were left to stand on their own. However, the actual artifacts were incredible enough that I stopped minding the lack of historical context after a while.

Some of my favorites: Nefertiti's jewelry (enormous collection in a room that was actually air-conditioned!). An area I nicknamed "Valley of the Kings" (sorry, Luxor) that had enormous statues spread out in a large area surrounded by stairs. A section with artifacts from Ramses II, including a reference to the Israelites (amazing Biblical history right there). A whole aisle devoted to Greco-Roman influences that made me feel like I was on the wrong continent. Coffin Cat, of course (see above)!

I'd love to go back with a guide and spend hours going through the museum again, this time with the historical framework to understand each piece I saw. Oh well - I'm sure I'll be back in Cairo someday soon!

Less Tourism, More Politics

I want to talk a bit about the political situation in Egypt right now. I'm certainly not a native Egyptian and not as updated about current events as I would like, but I'm still watching and anticipating the June 30th protests that are coming up on Sunday. The other summer abroad participants and I have been instructed to stay on the island (where we'll be away from any protests in Tahrir if things get a bit ugly) and I'm just praying that there won't be a bloodbath across the bridge.

Again, I'm not a native Egyptian. I won't bother to give you my perspective on President Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood, or what I think will happen on Sunday. But here's what I've noticed so far:

People are talking. Whether it's our professor, tour guide, or random foreigners that we meet at bars and conferences, everyone is talking about the upcoming protests, the government, the military, and what's going on right now.

Traffic is horrible because of the gas crisis - people are leaving their cars parked everyone and blocking the roads since they can't drive. (Someone in my study abroad group suggested that people are stockpiling up on gas and food for the protests, which might have exacerbated the gas crisis.)

My professor is nervous. Not for our safety, since Zamalek is one of the safest places in Cairo, but nervous that the university is going to overreact and send us home. As much as I miss California, I'm definitely not ready to go home - I haven't seen Luxor yet! I haven't seen Alexandria! I haven't snorkeled in the Red Sea! I've only been in Egypt for a week and there's so much left to see, so I'm hoping (for myself and for Egypt) that things stay peaceful on Sunday.

Conferences, Palaces, and Papers - Oh My!

I took it easy the past few days while recovering from that bout of food poisoning (not fun), but today I was feeling much better and was ready to get back into the excitement of city life.

Our professor canceled class for the day so we could go to a conference by Mosireen, a non-profit organization in Cairo that helped citizens to report on events during the 2011 revolutions.  The conference discussed the relationship between activism and media in Egypt, focusing on alternative media initiatives. I dragged myself out of bed early in the morning and hailed a cab with my classmates, heading to downtown Cairo. After wandering around for half an hour, we finally found the building where the conference was being held. The elevator was broken (just my luck) so we climbed up to the seventh floor of the building, where we found a tiny little apartment full of young, ambitious Egyptians (and a few foreigners thrown in!). I quickly grabbed some breakfast (ice cold water, yummy coffee, and chocolate croissants) and a translator headset, and sat down just in time for the conference to begin.

Although the speakers were interesting and insightful, most of our group ended up leaving at the lunch break to head home and work on our writing assignments. We stopped in a fancy looking teahouse and bakery to grab food before braving the traffic home. My cab got stuck for nearly half an hour once we got back to Zamalek, but we finally made it home.


I worked on my writing assignment for a bit but, lacking inspiration, headed out to the Cairo Marriott with Caity and Jonathan. We got lost on the way over and walked all over Zamalek until we finally made it to the hotel. The architecture was absolutely stunning – it was built by Khedive Ismail as a palace to house foreign dignitaries for the Suez Canal’s inauguration. The original “palace” is incorporated into the hotel and looks exactly like it would have during the 1800s, but with the unfortunate addition of the two hotel towers on the sides and a pretty but inauthentic garden and pool.

 

 

 

 

The three of us watched the sun set as we sat by the gardens and drank milkshakes (more guava juice for me), and then we finally headed back to work on our papers. The little field trip worked - I now have more material for my paper (on palimpsest effects in Cairo's architecture) and it's going well. Time to get back to work!

The Traveler's Curse

Some of you may be excited to see the post title - maybe I spoke too soon and one of my classmates did actually get possessed on the summer solstice? Again, no such luck.

Friday night after I blogged, a few people in my group headed out to a Thai restaurant for an early dinner. Biggest mistake so far for me. The vegetarian options on the menu all had oyster sauce and the restaurant employees assured me that they could make the dishes with soy sauce instead, so I decided to give the food a try. The dish I was served, however, had a distinctly non-vegetarian gravy and I've spent the past day and a half with horrible food poisoning. And it wasn't even from the infamous Egyptian water... sigh. Oh well - I learned my lesson and will be even more paranoid about what I order from now on.

I'm sticking to juice and easy foods for now - my appetite is completely gone but luckily my roommate Caity was nice enough to get me some juice boxes while I was in bed yesterday, and I'm hooked on guava juice now! Yummy.