What a Great Week!

Wow! What a great week! The very best thing by a long shot was that we finally got air conditioning at work! Now I'm not sweating through 8 hours of 97 degree heat in a leather chair. It's so much easier to get work done in the office now. I also found a great restaurant near work where I can get pretty good food for really cheap. It's called mohandas which means "engineer"--not really sure how they came up with that name, but they have good food. I usually get three things--baba ghanoug (mashed up chick peas with spices), tamaya (fried bean curds with lettuce and sesame sauce) and eggplant. It's so much food and it only runs me about 3.5 LE--that's not a bad deal at all! If I'm in the mood for something non-vegetarian, it's a bit more expensive, but they have shuerma (meat) sandwiches which are pretty good. They also have fries and potato chips which are nice sometimes when I'm missing American sandwich shops. So basically my diet consists of a variety of vegetarian dishes shoved in a pita and an occasional beef sandwich. I love it.

Another thing that made this week particularly pleasant was that I now have real work to do. My first few weeks were slow and boring because I was still training. Now I actually have a list of things to do and it feels good to be productive. I'm not positive that internet marketing is my life's passion, but it's interesting enough to keep my attention for a summer--and it's paying the rent and living expenses, so I can't complain.

One night this week, Ma'andi and Omar and I met up with a group of students from the University of Illinois, who had an AIESECer among them. They're here for 3 weeks studying Islam, visiting mosques, and seeing the city. We went to a shisha cafe called Arabesque, which has become one of my favorite places to hang out--they have the most amazing juices and yogurt-fruit smoothie kind of drinks, and shishas of course (which are a thousand times better here than they are in the states--and way cheaper).

Yesterday I got off work and headed out to Harry's Pub with my flatmate, Harrison. It's a karaoke bar on the first floor of the Marriott hotel. We all sang karaoke to the wee hours of the morning and it was surprisingly a ton of fun. Tonight was a going away party for Kathleen, one of the ex-pats here who is moving to Lebanon tomorrow. We went out for a felucca ride on the Nile, and then to a Korean barbecue restaurant, which was expensive but delicious. It's a really great community of foreigners here in Cairo. I've never heard so many amazing stories and interesting backgrounds before in my life. Everyone has been so welcoming and helpful and just generally fun to hang out with, although I am known as the baby because I'm by far the youngest person here. Kathleen, who's leaving, is the second youngest at 20. At the age of 18, this puts me at least three years behind everyone else, but I don't mind. I'm having the time of my life, and being young just means I've got plenty of years left for more adventures.

So some of you have asked to hear a bit more about daily life in Cairo. Well, for me at least it goes a bit like this...I get up (usually around 10:30) and shower and dress and whatnot. Then I head down to the supermarket on the bottom floor of my building to buy a candy bar or something to get change. I have to make sure I always have exact change for my cab ride because it's a pain to haggle with the driver for your change. It's about a 10 minute ride to work in Dokki. The rule is that you have to be at work between 9am and 12pm and you have to stay for 8 hours. I generally get there right at noon because I usually end up staying late to talk to my boss, Adam, who's in California. I grab a cup of coffee and some kind of pastry for breakfast and get started on my work. Although the Egyptians in the office tend to get lunch around 2:30 or 3, I get too hungry and can't wait that long, so I usually take my break at 1:30. Depending on how much work there is, I get off around 8pm and head home to Zamalek.

It's a strange workday because it starts so late, but it is nice that I don't have to get up early. I should probably starting waking up a little earlier so that I can study Arabic or do something more productive than sleep. The problem is that I never go to bed at an ordinary time because this city never sleeps. I've realized that part of the culture shock in coming here has been the transition to a city of 22 million people from little old Hagerstown, Maryland. I've never lived in a really metropolitan area before, and so I do miss the quiet, the clean air, and anything that is green. Cairo is a wonderful, lively, exciting place to live, but I like my mountains and lakes and fields and trees. I won't make judgments about Egypt in general just based on Cairo, since I've heard that the oases and coastal areas are beautiful.

I should be sending out postcards tomorrow or the next day (assuming I can figure out how to mail them), so be sure to check your mailboxes in a few weeks...or months, depending on how fast the post is here. I miss you all and am always looking for an email from a familiar face/email address!