MUSALEMA!

That means "God bless" or "Goodbye" in Arabic!
Pyew, I've finally the last portion of the best weekend I've had here. So many pictures, I can barely pick which ones to use.
So on the last day, we woke up extra early to go to the step pyramids, which are less popular but prettier (so they say). When we got there, I was so surprised to see palm trees! And so much green!

But I suppose that must be why they say that the Nile was known to be such a lush area.

And the pyramids! Super cool. We visited a whole bunch of tombs, and I felt like Indiana Jones, climbing down narrow shafts and touching the walls of symbols that were carved thousands of years ago.

So much sand everywhere!

Hustlers like these tried to get us to pay them to take pictures of them. I did it on the sly.

I WAS SO EXCITED TO SEE HIEROGLYPHICS!

Seriously, we were sweating by the time we got to the rooms of tombs. Lots of bending and crawling in small spaces. Good thing no one was claustrophobic!

Look at that!! It was surreal seeing these things.

And the coloring is even still there!

We weren't supposed to take pictures, but if we paid the guards 15 pounds (about three bucks), they let us. Crazy! First time I ever bribed anyone.
But it was all amazing! As I was standing in those stone rooms with hieroglyphics marking it from floor to ceiling, my mouth was open the entire time. I couldn't believe I was actually there!

We had to rush through the three tombs unfortunately since our flight was that day, but I was so glad we made the time to go there.

On the drive back, I think I finally understood that I was in a third world country. There were donkey carts, run down buildings, piles of garbage on the sides of the street... the hour and a half ride back home felt like ten minutes because I was so absorbed by the sights that I have never seen before.

A rug shop! So pretty.

Lots of garbage.

Goats on the side of the street!

Lonely donkey.

And with that, it was time to go home to a snowing Brussels. Wish I was still there!

I am so glad I got to go to Cairo--it was my first experience being in Africa, in the Middle East, in a Third World country. And it was really different from anything I have ever seen before, and it was a really big eye opener. I wish I could've stayed for longer!

And I am so thankful that we had the Kane family with us, as well as a tour guide and driver, because I feel like our experience there wouldn't have been nearly as good without them. It was really easy to feel unsafe there because everything was so different. But with good friends and a reliable leader, we were able to enjoy the differences instead of fear them. And I was so thankful for Kait as well--she gave us the student Egyptian experience, and her generosity was so refreshing.

I WANT TO GO BACK! poo.

Let's see if I can get through finals, and then I'm off to Italy for a week! YIKES!

AYWAH!

That means "yes" in Arabic!
Today is my last day at work, and I'm celebrating by writing my blog instead of doing work. HEH. I mean, why do my tasks efficiently when I'm only rewarded with more work? This is the mindset of a slacker. shoot! But true, no?

Anyhoo, so continuing! After dinner with the Kanes, Lauren and I went to meet Kait to go to the bazaar, Khan el-Khalili! It was so cool. It was my first experience being in just a group of girls in the streets of Cairo, and it was a little disorienting. Men kept talking to us, trying to get us in their shops, but also telling us how sexy and spicy and beautiful we were. Sometimes they would just call after us as we walked by--I had quite a few shouted conversations that went like this as I walked by:
Man: JAPAN!
Me: NOPE!
Man: CHINA!
Me: NOPE!
Man: MONGOLIA!
Me: NOPE!
and etc until we were finally out of earshot of each other.

Now I understand why women would go completely covered here. I'd do it too after awhile! And I'd look like a ninja too with only my eyes showing. But the interesting part was that all you had to say was, "No thank you" to their advances, and then they'd smile and say, "Have a nice day!" These were the most pleasant hustlers I've ever met. And a lot of them kept saying, "Hello! Welcome to Alaska!" I have no idea what that meant.

Anyway, so at this bazaar, you HAD to haggle, and you had to haggle rough. I was told to immediately ask for a third of the price they were asking for, and it became kind of a fun game of facial expressions. I think I mastered the "EHH...." face before asking for a different price.

I didn't take any pictures, but there were just stores and stores of lanterns, hookahs of all shapes, sizes, color, flavors (everyone smokes in Egypt! I thought everyone did in Europe, but EVERYONE does in Cairo), spices, mini-pyramids, silver jewelry, etc.

We got back at around 11 pm, and the bazaar was still bustling at that point. Cairo is like Madrid in that it's really a city that never sleeps. The stands run almost all night! When we got back, Kait and I skyped with our friend and then headed off to bed at 1 am, and the computer lab was still busy!

The next morning, the Kanes+2 went to the largest mosque in Cairo, the Mosque of Ahmed Ibn Tulun. I love Egyptian architecture with the intricate patterns and heavy use of domes and arches.

Young women chatting and sketching the mosque.

Jules at the top of the minaret of the mosque!

Then we headed off to the Gayer Anderson house, which was a man's house that was turned into a museum. He had collected artifacts from all over the world, and each room had different cultural themes, like the "Turkish Room" or the "Persian Room" and etc.

Such nicely done woodwork.

Look at those beautiful words carved on the side of a marble table!

By that point we were starving, so we went to the bazaar to get some food. Our server loved us--he stared each one of us deep in our eyes and asked us if we wanted an Egyptian husband. HAHA And of course he told us how beautiful we were. Mr. Kane started bargaining out the dowry he would give for Jules hahaha

And then we headed off to the citadel! There was a mosque inside it which was beautiful.

View of Cairo from the top of the citadel.

Domes!

Structure in the middle of the mosque.

Lights inside the mosque.

Afterwards, we went on our second trip to the bazaar where I embraced my love for the Arabic words and bought everything I could that had Arabic. My room is going to look so cool with these things decorating it when I get back to the States!

And then finally we went on a felucca ride on the Nile, which is basically a small boat ride. It was so nice!

The Nile is actually pretty dirty, but it was super cool. No alligators unfortunately.

Then Lauren and I went back to Kait's where we giggled and attempted to learn Arabic for a couple of hours before finally going to sleep before the last day in Cairo :(

I feel like my photos look really dusty--effect of Cairo sand?! It's still in my converses too.

MUSHKLAH AY?!

That means "What's the problem?!" in Arabic. Kait taught me to say that, but I never ended up using it because the weekend was AWESOME!

Lauren and I woke up early to meet the Alex, our tour guide/friend.

Here he is! He's a student at the American University in Cairo and studies Egyptology too. Dark and mysterious, and a halfie! Egyptian and English.

Then we went off to meet the Kanes! Jules' family is so cute. They're so silly and funny, and it was really fun being an extended part of their family for a couple of days.

And then we headed off for the Great Pyramids! It was about a 45 min drive, but when I got there, I couldn't quite register that I was actually looking at one of the last few Wonders of the World.

FKDFDKLFJkldjflkdkf.

Camels! They weren't actually that pretty at all. Lots of spit.

What was amazing though was that people started to take pictures of US, instead of the pyramids! It was amazing--everywhere we went, people stopped us to take pictures of us because of Jules' and the Kanes' blue eyes and pale skin and my asiannness. They even touched our hair and faces! It was so strange. We could barely get anywhere without being bombarded, and children would come up to us to ask us our names, and little boys would tell us that they love us and miss us. Alex had to be our bodyguard as we moved from pyramid to pyramid, but they would follow us! It's strange thinking that I'm in someone's vacation photo album in Egypt.

Lauren, Mr. Kane, and Jules (especially) being the creator fascination.

Look at all those people! And camels and horses!

Egyptians would hustle the tourists, luring them to take pictures with them by saying it's free, and then asking for money afterwards. They did this to Mr. Kane, but he was like NAHZ. Throughout the weekend, people would do that to us--give us services we don't want (like give us "tours"--or useless information), and then ask for money.

It did cause some funny moments though!

Then we went to the part of town of the Coptic Christians which is a language and a form of Christianity that is completely different from the Western version. It was really quite interesting, but it was forbidden to take pictures in this part of town. We had to go through security to get to it, and a policeman yelled at me for taking a picture. Whoops.

But it's a pretty picture! Worth being reprimanded.

And then we were pooped, so we went to have dinner where we had Koshary, a traditional Egyptian dish made of as many carbs possible--thin pasta, tube pasta, beans, and bits of potato, but DELICIOUS, and Foul, a bean dip, and Tamia, which was like falafel but more flat and wide like a burger patty. Delicious!

Mas manana/plus demain! I need someone to speak spanfranglish with me.

SHOOKRAN!

That means "thank you" in Arabic. And I got to spend Shookran day in Cairo. That's Arabic for "Thanksgiving" (roughly).
HOW COOL IS THAT?!
So on Friday, Jules, Lauren, and I got to le BXL airport at 4:30 AM to leave for Cairo! We got there around their 3 pm, and I could immediately smell the difference. It wasn't a bad small--it was just different. Smoky? Exotic? Spicy? I'm not quite sure, but it reminded me a bit of Taiwan, but not quite. But I suddenly realized that I was in the Middle East! And Africa! Holy crap! We walked out of the airport, a little nervous because we were warned of the taxi drivers who swarm you and are a bit overwhelming, but it was fine. We got overcharged (naturally), but it was okay because we just wanted to be safe and at Kait's house quickly.

The first thing that really stood out to me was the presence of policemen EVERYWHERE. There were more on that day because the president flew in on the same day, but on all the other days, it's basically they same. There are some every couple of meters away, and it made me nervous because if there's security, that usually means that there's some trouble that's brewing, but I was nervous for no reason. Cairo was later described to me as the best form of organized chaos--these policemen were just organizing the chaos, just in case.

Just chillin'.

And on the way to Kait's, it was so cool seeing hieroglyphics and drawings decorating the highways. And the sun! It was so beautiful--so red and orange and perfectly circular as it descended into dusk. I wanted to take a picture, but I was too nervous. I am ashamed of how much of a pansy I was.

Hello, Nile River!

We got to Kait's after an hour and a half of traffic (there is SO MUCH traffic in Cairo at all times of the day), and I was really impressed by their driving skills. They are crazy people on the road--so much weaving, ignoring of the lines, no traffic lights working, people crossing haphazardly in the middle of nowhere--and yet, there weren't any accidents! So impressed because I would never be able to do it.

Bumper to bumper (or sometimes bumper to... other parts of the cars because it's not always in straight lines) traffic

Parliament elections were going on too, so there were a lot of campaign signs.

And then we met up with Kait! We share a mutual friend, and I was so surprised that she offered to let me and Lauren stay with her since we didn't know each other that well. But after spending more time with her, I could see why she would--she's just naturally such a nice and welcoming person, and I was so happy that she basically gave us the opportunity to come to Cairo because we wouldn't have came otherwise.

After a long nap, we went to her Thanksgiving dinner that she and her housemates organized, and it was so fun! I love Thanksgiving. I met so many people from all around the world, and they were all so friendly. I met this girl who was studying in Amsterdam for grad school after growing up in Texas, and I realized that I WANT TO DO THAT TOO! Life goal has been found. heh.

After dinner, we turned on the music, and I was so delighted to see the boys be the first ones to get up to dance. They were the half Egyptians--half Egyptian half Irish, half Egyptian half Saudi, half Egyptian half Irish, but they grew up in Egypt, so they didn't have the weird machissmo thing that American guys have. And they were adorable! Halvsies are always so pretty.

Belly dancing and laughing

This guy had the funniest expressions hahaha

Candied yams, lovely people, dancing... what else could I ask for?

Day two coming shortly!

Parfait Week-end

I had a perfect weekend! Well, the week was pretty parfait too. Mon vie est parfait! Everything about my life is wonderful.
On Wednesday, I saw HARRY POTTER before it came out in America! I honestly didn't think the movie would amount to much, but I wanted to watch it before it was released America just so I could rub it in my American friends' faces muahaha. And it actually turned out to be really good! And I was so surprised that people here are pretty crazy about it too--the girl who got our tickets waited three hours, from 7:30 am to 10:30 am, to get our tickets for the showing that night. I couldn't believe it was that crazy even though it was the day after the premiere! And when we got to the theater, people were running down the aisles and scrambling over chairs to get a good spot when they finally let the huge crowd rush in. Good times! Makes me wish I went to a Barnes&Noble Midnight Madness thing when the books were released.

So in Europe, they have student-led groups similar to America sororities and fraternities, but they're academic based, so instead of Phi Kappa Delta and etc, there's a group comprised of only Law students and etc, and they go through a hazing process to get in. But unlike America, it's legal to haze, so throughout the semester we'd see people covered in flour, egg, maple syrup, and chanting around the streets. I heard it gets a lot worse (drinking, sex, nekkidness, etc), but it's almost always public. So on Friday, they had their initiation celebration, which was a huge and loud drunk celebration outside with beer getting sloshed everywhere. I went with my friend David, and he even had a guy pass out on him as we were walking by! So funny.

Instead of jackets with letters, they wore things like this. Not sure which I prefer... and they wouldn't wash them! That's why most of the jackets that were originally white were every other color except that after these parties.

"The Giant," their mascot... with a beer, of course.

They had trucks with a lot of vulgar, profane political cartoons like these, except most of them had famous politicians doing sexual acts instead. I was so shocked (am I a prude?), and David just kept laughing at me. I guess this is normal here? And so many drawings of penises!

Masses and masses of people at this huge outdoors shwasty fest! And see that guy with the funny looking hat on the bottom? That was part of their garb too.

On Saturday, as I've already posted, we threw an amazing Thanksgiving party. I only wish it lasted longer and that I had more energy to go through another 8 hours of it!

Then on Sunday, we went to see Guys&Dolls. I really want to watch the musical now! I'm sure Frank Sinatra is unbeatable.

Happiness!

I'm so happy that I got this opportunity to be here, but I'm so sad that I'm going home soon. I'll be home in less than a month! Merde! Zut alors! I still have so much to do! And I really don't want to leave this family. I feel like there aren't any more adventures waiting for me back in Jersey, and I don't have anything to go back for really (besides my friends, of course, but still). I'll have to start being responsible for my life again. That's no fun at all. I feel like I'm just constantly surrounded by happiness here in this family, so it's going to be hard to go back to Jersey where I'm moving to a house of strangers for the semester. I don't want to leave.
Merde!

Thanksgiving

I know I'm still in Belgium, but I miss my life here already.
Barbs, Marc, and I just threw an amazing Thanksgiving party--I'm pretty sure it's the best Thanksgiving I had, even though I was thousands of miles away from my family and most of my friends. The party was a huge success! Everyone had so much fun, and it was just such a nice big crowd of people who came even though we sent out invitations like 5 days before :p

The best part was being a co-host with Barbs and Marc. I really feel part of their family now, like I'm the random good friend who just happens to live and mooch off them. We stayed up until 1 am yesterday, planning games (and realizing that racing to eat a dry cracker on a string was not fun), dying tshirts with coffee, listening to "Gettin' Jiggy With It," and giggling of course. And this morning we woke up at 8 am to run around like crazy to buy the turkey, make mashed potatoes with spinach, green beans and caramelized onions, making pilgrim costumes, and giggling some more.

And the party was so fun, rushing around and playing hostess, being busy in the kitchen to avoid socialization when necessary, but then talking to wonderful people, drinking champagne and forgetting to eat, awarding people prizes of nose hair trimmers and pink ice cube trays, slapping cards during 10 rounds of intense Uno with surprisingly fun people, and ending the night chatting with Barbs about everything and anything in hoarse voices as Marc dozed on the couch.
I can't believe they're leaving in 14 days. I don't think it's Belgium that I miss already, but Barbs and this family.

This is what home feels like.