So at last, hello from Egypt!

After a three-day orientation in D.C., my 24 classmates and I (and a study abroad advisor from the University of Utah, which is somewhat hosting our trip because of their established program in Alexandria) hopped a plane for Egypt. We spent our first three days in Cairo, partly to overcome jet lag, and partly to visit the sites. Partially, I should add, to adjust to the lack of available wifi internet.

We arrived sans luggage, thanks to a harried layover in Frankfurt. In the hallways on our way to customs (where we got a SWEET visa), we paused to have our photos taken. Was this a continuation of Brazil’s fingerprinting hulabaloo of ten years ago? Actually, those devices on tripods were thermal imaging devices that took our temperature – ostensibly, to screen for H1N1. (Apparently the eight AUC students who just arrived and were diagnosed with H1N1 didn’t…have fevers when they arrived?) I stood and smiled like a moron at the thermometer. After departing in a coach bus with blissful A/C, we stopped briefly at the Sofitel Le Sphinx hotel in suburban Giza (here, “suburban” means far enough away from Cairo to be considered another city. Not that it’s filled with endless identically-stamped houses, like the word “suburb” conveys in the U.S.). At the hotel - just a mile away from the pyramids (al ahram) - we hopped back on our new best friend (the bus with air conditioning) and drove to the Nile. Specifically, a dock on the Nile in the heart of downtown, amidst the high-rises and elite neighborhoods. The buffet on this Nile cruise could have been swill, but we were weak with hunger and a little queasy from the length of the plane rides. One plate of cruise swill, and sleep began to steal our life essences. The belly dancer who came on after the mediocre karaoke singers could have been plated in gold, but we sat on the back side of the boat in the warm river breeze and devoted every ounce of energy to ensuring the continuation of our parasympathetic systems. (Side note: to turn on the electricity in the hotel, we put our electronic door key card into a slot on the wall that activated the electricity. Cool!)

The morning of Thursday the 4th, we were up and out of our hotel by 8 a.m., rushed to the bus by a pressing schedule complicated by Obama’s Egyptian arrival. Dressed in our rumpled clothing from two days previous and passing a lone stick of deodorant among us, we looked nostalgically at our gathered suitcases that had been freshly delivered and sat next to our bus, tempting us to dive in and salvage clean underwear, socks and sunglasses. But our schedule wouldn’t allow for this ravaging, and we piled on, only to pile off one mile later in the unforgiving 8:30 sun.

Cairo reminds me of Louisville a little, in that its air sears the throat and burns the eyes in a remarkably endearing way. In Louisville, this is because traffic pollution and the local meat processing plant spew love and Care Bears into the Ohio River Valley which traps it until a particularly frisky breeze stirs things up. In Cairo, this is because tens of thousands of cars with unregulated emissions convalesce with triple-digit temperatures…and the Sahara Desert. So Thursday, our 45 minute stop at the pyramids were enough to let us gaze at these most historic human-made structures, soak in their unabashed local normalcy and sweat through our undershirts. Back on the bus, we drove for about four minutes and unloaded at the resting spot of our good friend abu al houl – the Sphinx.



The distribution of foliage is remarkable in Cairo. Look at Google Maps, and you’ll see a strip of green running through a sand-colored country. That’s the Nile demarcating civilization’s historic spread. Essentially. In Cairo, standing on the far east side of the city at the Citadel built on a natural high point, you can see across the tree-strewn city, pick out the path of the Nile by the extravagant high-rises lining it, and see the desert and the ahram on the west side. On the ground, canal offshoots have been dug to spider-leg water to other regions of the city, and from those canals, smaller trenches branch out irrigating smaller and smaller farms until the water table can no longer support them. Then, the desert draws a literal line along the west and east sides of the Nile, remarkably clear both on a map and in-person.

At 11 that morning we were shuffled off the premises so that the area could be secured for Obama’s imminent (five hour following) arrival. There were - honest to Paul Simon - policemen on camels stationed on the surrounding dunes to secure the area for his visit. (E-mail me for photos - the connection here is too slow to upload them to Blogger.) After lunching at an outdoor under-tarp food place (where the vegetarians on the trip were given salty vegetable soup in place of plates of meat), we were treated to a televised broadcast of Obama’s live speech in town – dubbed in Arabic. The combination of Classical Arabic mixed with his measured English prevented most of us from understanding more than three words in a row, but knowing that he was speaking live in the very city we had just landed in sent a little shiver of pride through our sheens of sweat.

Later that day we visited Memphis – once-capital of Egypt and home to a palace of Ramses II – and Saqarra, whose historic sites lie just feet away from the desert-line. Saqarra is also home to the Step Pyramid, and some of the most enthusiastic hawkers we’d seen yet on the trip. One of our classmates was “treated” to both a donkey and a horse ride, and the rest of us were amused until we remembered how hot it was and returned to the bus to end our long, hot, historic day.

Friday the 5th was our last day in Cairo, and we fit in just about everything we could in that remaining day. Another early departure took us first to the Egyptian Museum – absolutely packed, for Fridays are everyone’s day off. There was an entire room dedicated to Tutankhamen’s business, or, tombs (four in total, one having been stored inside the other) and the grand body-shaped caskets – three in total, again, one inside the other. Tutankhamen (name in old-school Egyptian: Tut Ankh Amen) himself is chilling in Luxor still, also known as the “Valley of the Kings.” We’ll be making a visit there in about a month. As you all probably know, he wasn’t that much of a big deal in his day – came into king-dom at age 9 and died at 19. The only reason we know who he is and revere his once-existence so much is because he and his grand belongings were some of the most complete and extravagant to ever be excavated.

After the museum, as the hottest part of the day approached, we visited Coptic Cairo and its famous “hanging church,” so named for its lack of foundation underneath. Then to Islamic Cairo, and the Citadel that overlooks the city. Finally to Khan El Khalily, a massive, extensive, dendritic market that snakes through square miles of Cairo.

This was our first real chance to test our bargaining skills.

We were equipped with haggling advice, horror and success stories, and anxiety sharpened by a one-hour time limit. I went in determined not to be ripped off - the hawkers at Memphis and Saqqara got me pretty good. A classmate advised me that “If you feel you got a good price, then you did. Don’t compare your price to the one others got.” These words rang in my head, and I headed out determined to ignore it and get a better price than any other khwagayeen. Shops lined both sides of every street with zero inches separating one from the other, selling loose-fitting men’s and women’s clothes, spices, perfume, toys, sunglasses, spices, hookahs, scarves, clothes, cloth, perfume and haakatha (those of you who know Arabic, you with me still?). I entertained a polite perfume seller who delighted me by following a few rituals I’d heard would unfold:

First, he called out a tantalizing price: one gram of perfume for one Egyptian pound (LE – one pound is about 30 cents). Sounded like a deal! He invited me and my two classmates in to his six-by-six foot shop lined floor to ceiling with beautifully blown glass bottles and jugs of potions with the deepest, darkest, subtle scents. He invited us to sit on three chairs lining one side, and he sat on the other, his knees almost touching ours. He asked where we were from, what we study, and though we tried some pigeon Arabic with him, our conversation reverted to English. He then pulled out a glass bottle about the size of an Ibuprofen container, and told us that was 80 grams. Ya3nee 80LE. Oops. But, but: because we were American, and his friends, he would give it to us for 60. Trying out the well-intended advice given by Egypt veterans, I offered him 20. He then got very offended (this is part of the ritual), and told us at length how long he and his father have been blowing glass in the family, and how long their family had lived in Egypt and worked out of this shop. Then he threw in two more bottles of perfume: three bottles times 80 grams should be 240LE, but because we’re his friends, he’d give it to us for 200. I offered 60. He offered to make us some tea. Eventually I walked out with three bottles of perfume and three decorative jars for 105 pounds – about $20.

After this adventure we had just 10 short minutes to make it back to the bus. My eye caught a backgammon board gleaming on a vendor’s table. We performed the ritual in fast-forward: I was initially offered 480LE, and walked away with the lovely board and its pieces for 110LE.

Were they good deals? Perhaps I could have gone even lower. But I got to practice these bargaining skills with the backup of my two classmates, and picked up a few unnecessary but wonderfully local items.

This was our last stop in Cairo, and three hours on the bus that night brought us to our new home: Alexandria. Suffice it to say for now that Egypt is a lovely, loving, rich place that I've just BARELY begun to see and swim in. My 24 classmates are amazing, intelligent, interesting compelling people, and this should be a fantastic experience. We've all worked extremely hard for many years to get here, and as I sit in the lobby of our hotel (=home for the next two months) I share this space (and sole wireless connection) with 6 of my peers. Four are hovering around a bootlegged copy of Harry Potter acquired from the Alexandria mall on the outskirts of town (dubbed in Arabic), and we're all dividing our attention between frantic spurts of internet availability and our homework. I’ll leave this entry here for now, and write some on Alex, our new home and the school in a coming entry. Again, if you desire photos, e-mail me!