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!
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.
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!
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