New Blog

I have a new blog, it's here.

I'm just saying.

Last day in Egypt

So it's my last full day in Egypt, and I went to buy some breakfast. Of course, Egypt just couldn't let me go without being Egypt, so an old man, one of maybe three on the street, starts screaming at me. I turn and he's yelling, "Where are you from? Hey you! What is your name?"

An uncomfortable minute-long discussion of his travels in America followed, and then he invited me to come sit with him for a while. Luckily, I had chores needing attending to, as it is my last day.

And good thing, too.

Some of the few...

...items I've checked off my list of Life Goals:

Climb Mt. Sinai
Get scuba diving license
Scuba dive in Dahab
Go to Siwa and see the oases
Visit religious sites in Israel
Visit Jordan (Petra, specifically)
Successfully complete the year in the Arabic Flagship Program

Small World

I saw Sister Jensen, the old Stake Relief Society President back in Austin, a couple of days ago at Church. In Egypt.

How small of a world is that?

A Sign

I use a battery operated razor by Gillette, it's called the Fusion. I don't know why anyone would use anything else, it's fabulous:



Anyway, last night I noticed that the battery light was blinking. I didn't even know it had a battery light until I saw that. It took a little over a year to use up that battery.

I guess it's time to come home.

Not the hardest test in my life

With my academic partner and her mom praying for me, I think I just passed my Philosophy test.

The really hard test was my Business test last year. I won't publish my score, but if you ask I'll tell you (asking in the comments doesn't count). Man that test was the hardest test I've ever taken in my life. The only reason I didn't get a zero was that there was a section of true or false, and I had to get some right by chance.

One more test to go from about the seven tests and five presentations we've had to give in the last two weeks.

Blech

Guys blowing kisses at me is something I will definitely not miss about Egypt. It's just weird.

Salaam

Yesterday a four-year old girl stuck her hand out of the window of the car next to us and told our taxi driver, "Salimni". He shook her hand, and she did the same to me. I shook her hand. She did the same to Tammam, and he shook her hand.

Yup.

My 101st Post

I deleted some old entries, so the numbers are a little off now, but this is my 101st post.

This fly has been in the room for the last three and a half hours, terrorizing us all. I've tried using my shoe against it, then a rolled up piece of paper. Nothing worked.

Nothing, that is, until I grabbed a Starbucks bag. That fly never saw it coming.

So I grabbed some tissue to pick the fly up off the floor, and on my way to the trash can the tea lady said, "No, let me" and took the tissue from my hand.

And promptly threw it out the window.

Welcome in Egypt.

Politics

I think 'esoteric' is a pretentious word. Is it? Is it a word that people use to seem intelligent? Or do they use it because it's really the word for that context?

Also, I went for a run this morning on the Mediterranean, and I saw several guys spray painting graffiti on the rocks that stop erosion, and on the tunnels that go under the street. Stuff like "Big Brother is watching you" and "A hungry mob is an angry mob" amongst other things.

Hmm.

Unrest?

Big Bang Theory

A little known fact: The tea lady wasn't always the tea lady.

My first summer here, she cleaned the place up. When I came back, she was running a side business out of the kitchen, selling tea, coffee, juice, and cookies and crackers. Oh, and chips too. I respect people supplementing their income with a side business.

Anyway, the tea lady gets mad at me sometimes for being at the Dar early, or staying late, or coming on the weekends, and doesn't really try to hide it. Today I got here just as she did, and she finally caved and just gave me the key and told me to open the place up myself, she was talking with a friend.

To paraphrase Sheldon Cooper:

I AM THE KEY MASTER!

The End of an Era

John left at 5AM this morning. I carried a bag downstairs for him and saw him off.

So get this: John went out to eat with us last night, saw some friends before he left, and sat at a cafe for a while, and then came home and studied Arabic on his last night here.

Now that's dedication.

Oh, and he cleaned the place up and moved out all of his stuff, which was refreshing. Tammam and I took out a bunch of trash too, and the place has never been cleaner. I love throwing useless nonsense out. It's the minimalist in me.

Safe travels John.

The 100th Post

And my hundredth post would be about Saba.

We went to the Middlebury end of the year party at the male dorms the other day, and Saba got there quite a while before Tammam and I. So being the sensible person she is, she did the only thing that made sense:

She posed as the Assistant Director for the Flagship Program and was taken on a tour of the facilities. She enlisted two Egyptian students we know, and they went right along with it. Then the Director of the dorms, a guy I don't really like, took her around and showed her how everything was up to code. If she had another girl with her, they would've shown her the individual rooms.

Hilarious.

Adult Onset

So I'm lactose intolerant, and every time I want to eat something I ask if it has dairy products in it, just in case.

People always apologize to me for adding cream or cheese, but just once I want someone to say, "Yes Tom, it does have dairy in it. I've been slowly trying to kill you with dairy for years."

Or something like that.

Egypt Construction Destruction

These guys took sledge hammers and knocked down the building behind mine. How manly is that?





Only at the end did they bring in a crane to wreck the rest of it.



Now the only trouble is that the view to the street isn't blocked by that building anymore, which means people from the street can see into our building. The Brits told me that they now get harassed inside their own house, from the street.



Welcome in Egypt.

11th of May

Katie and Imogen left Alexandria today and are headed off to Luxor and Aswan. From there I think they'll go to Jordan, and maybe a couple of other places, I can't remember. Then back to Cairo to fly back to England and maybe France.

I'll paraphrase a bit of Imogen and I talking today:

Tom: Imogen, you only have one hour until you have to go.
Imogen: Oh man, I haven't started packing yet!

And of course, our nutjob landlady came down to give them trouble. You better believe I'm getting all of that nonsense taken care of days in advance, 'cause there's no way I want to deal with that kind of stress at the last minute.

Safe travels, Katie and Imogen.

Train Travels

I've taken the train to and from Cairo maybe, I don't know, sixty times. It is insane the inordinate number of incidents that happen on that train. This Friday's trip went smoothly to Cairo, and then on the way back someone seemed to think I was sitting in his seat. No worries, let's compare tickets. Hmm, that's odd, they both say Car 2 Seat 57. Oh wait, mine has a different date written on it.

Yup.

The guy at the ticket booth sold me a ticket for Sunday, not Friday. I guess when I said I wanted the two o'clock to Alex, he thought that meant two days from now.

Heaven was smiling on me today, and another seat was open, so I sat there. But seriously, what's up with that?

My Nutjob Teacher

So my teacher has a goal to kick out at least two students every class. I'm serious. I've never seen a class go by that he didn't kick someone out for a minor infraction. I'm not sure how he sees these infractions, since I feel like he's always staring at me. It's weird.

Yesterday he scheduled a class from 1PM to 2PM. We got there to find out that he was teaching until 1:30. Class didn't start until 2:10. It's a weird system.

Good thing I went though. He point-blank asked me where Robert and Katlyn were. They had to go to work (it was an extra lecture). Hopefully him seeing me a lot will correlate with a good grade.

Sorry Abinadi, Andrew, and Gavin

When I left my apartment in Austin, I left behind a pull-up bar that was mounted into the door-frame. Months later I remembered and wrote an apology note, but what goes around comes around and karma got me.

A roommate just moved out, and left piles of trash and dirty dishes behind him. Poor Tammam moved into his room and had to clean it all up. A full bag of trash was taken out after that, and that was just from the bedroom. Yikes. I mean seriously, he couldn't get his trash from the counter to the trash can, which resides probably four feet away.

So I'm sorry again, Abinadi, Andrew, and Gavin. Please forgive me.

In related news, does anyone in Alexandria want a chess set or a tea set before we junk them?

In the interim

With all of the moving out and in confusion, I couldn't make it to Cairo for my weekly Church experience.

So I took this quiz instead.

Home Sweet Home

Tammam and I moved out yesterday. The night before we talked to our landlady, and things got a little heated. By that, I mean that she personally insulted Tammam several times, started yelling, demanded a raise in our rent above what she previously demanded, and wanted more for a security deposit. It was a very uncomfortable hour-long talk. It ended with, "Pay up or get out" as the conveyed message.

So we packed up, canceled classes, and moved out. All that really means is that we looked at apartments while all of our stuff was sitting in our friends' houses in our same building. And we did this secretly, so that we could leave at any time should our landlady try to go nuts on us again.

Well, I wanted John to leave here feeling the best he could about a bad situation, and he wanted to talk to her, so we went. In the most unpredictable turn of events, she reversed every single decision that she had made the night before and couldn't have been more reasonable with us. It was unbelievable. And she offered us chocolates, too.

And so now we're back. Home sweet home.

What a crazy 24 hours.

Microbuses

What is the plural of microbus?

Yesterday I saw a taxi zooming along next to a microbus and the passengers were making change through the windows. It was amazing. And probably really dangerous, and a pretty common occurrence.

I get down on Egypt sometimes but one thing I do like is the feeling of community here. Kind of reminds me of the Latter-day Saints sometimes. In a microbus this morning a lady got on with two children, and the man next to me picked up one of the children and held her while the mom was trying to get her other child and her bag situated. Makes me think of a Latter-day Saint family moving in to a new neighborhood and the ward comes over to help out.

"Who is that driving away with your kids?"

"I don't know, someone from the Relief Society I guess."

An Unexpected Poem

My friend Hayley wrote a poem, and I was pleasantly surprised by it.

The Academic Partner Chronicles

If you'll remember my last post about Aya, she knows when I'm not paying attention.

So sometimes she asks me questions about what she just explained, while I sit there and try to think of the dim recollection of words that were just spoken to me.

Today she gave me a piece of candy, and we started the lesson. After a while I started exhibiting signs of sleepiness, and she asked, "Do I need to give you another piece of candy?"

She did need to.

Amazing

So I just read Dan's e-mail about what we accomplished in only three days, and he mentioned that we visited: 3 countries, 2 continents, and 8 border points.

In three days.

That's nuts.

My Academic Partner, the Psychic

I have a new academic partner, Aya, and she's a psychic. She knows exactly when I'm thinking, "Hmm, this is boring, I think I'll try nodding off". Or, "Hmm, this is boring, I'll try to sneak a glance at the clock".

And then she calls me out on it.

Maybe it's not ESP. Maybe she's one of those people that can tell you're lying by looking at you, like the guys in Blink, or that TV show that I've never seen and can't remember the name of. Maybe all she has to do is look at you and what you are thinking is evident all over your face.

Or as Tammam would say, YA FACE! Like Dave Chappelle.

Welcome in... Jordan?

I went to Jordan the other day, saw Wadi Rum and Petra, stayed a night in the desert and in Aqaba.

We were held for several hours at the Israeli/Egyptian border, and most of us were questioned and our passports were taken for a while. Luckily for me, they didn't stamp mine. Unluckily for pretty much everyone else, theirs were stamped. Poor Dan had his stamped after he filled out all of the appropriate paperwork, too. Simone's was the only other that wasn't stamped, so two out of seven isn't bad, right?

On the way back, my bag was searched at the Israeli/Jordanian border. They found Harry Potter 3 in Arabic, and that necessitated a questioning. Suspicious reading, Harry Potter.

Honestly, though, that wasn't so bad and I feel like it's just part of the experience. The real thing was the scam in Egypt. Our friend had to pay 200LE to get through because some scammers were working with the police that were stamping passports. Scammers and police are synonymous in Egypt. I'm not joking. The guy went and told the cop not to stamp her passport, and she had to pay for them to write her a letter of permission to enter the country.

What a joke. I mean, really. I enjoyed the border tax scam, because I didn't have any stamps, so I didn't have to pay the tax. The guy wasn't too happy about that, especially since I was being obnoxious about it. He knew I had stamped another piece of paper, but couldn't prove it. That was fun. Dan told me that he crossed with Simone a time before and they didn't have stamps, so while she was eating Israeli brand chips the Egyptians were fuming because they couldn't prove anything and thus couldn't scam them this time.

Seeing Jordan only reinforced my views that Egypt is a blight on the Arab world.

Back again...

...and this time for good.

Tammam is living with me again. His neck and back have been giving him so much trouble that he was out of school for a week. When I first saw him, he was in a neck brace and could barely move, and when he sat up or stood it could only be for several minutes before he was forced to lie down again. Oh, and his water got shut off, and he was electrocuted by his light switch. So he moved over here, closer to people so we could help him out. And boy, have people really come through. Saba and Mona bought him all sorts of groceries, and then Robert cooked him breakfast and packed up all of his stuff and moved him over here, like a hero. Valerie came and cooked him dinner last night (I ate some too), while Sabry has been on top of helping him throughout the week. And Amin came over last night, and brought lunch/breakfast today (and gave me some too).

So he's doing better.

But if you live in Egypt, I think you should know that Tammam needs food. Lots of food. Food for two people. And don't put milk in it, I'm lactose intolerant. You're the best.

We will not go quietly into the night!

So our internet has been worse than patchy for weeks. It won't connect, when it does connect it is so slow that nothing will load, chatting has been almost impossible.

Repeated calls to the internet guy didn't help, either, and then Michael yelled at him publicly, so the relationship has been severed, to say the least.

Right when I was trying to download Harry Potter 6 from my friend's server.

Well, no worries, I'll just use the girls' internet downstairs. That worked for about a day, and then it would connect but nothing would load. How odd.

Until I got a phone call from Katie. Apparently the internet guy has my IP address and blocked me from using their service.

We will not be silenced. We will not go quietly into the night.

John's Birthday

List of weird things that happened on John's birthday:

We found out about the unfortunate passing of our friend's boyfriend's cousin, who was 24. John is 24.

The Pope issued a letter of apology to the Irish involved in a scandal. John is Catholic, and he has an Irish last name.

And lastly, John received birthday French toast because Katie wanted some. John is not French.



A birthday French toast cake!



Matches doubled as candles, and burnt into the cake.



John still loved his cake.



And I loved the French toast pyramid we made in honor of Egypt and birthdays.

Katie's Turn

I've dealt with a fire, Tammam dealt with a worse fire, and now Katie wrote about her turn.

Test, and a class

We had a test in Fushaa class today, it went terrible. It wouldn't have been so bad, but I mistook the word فنون for قانون and wrote 250 words about law, and not art. I talked to my teacher and I think I'll be alright.

Then I went to my first University of Alexandria class this semester. It was packed, like there wasn't sitting room, and there wasn't standing room either. And that was with more people piling in. People were starting to sit on each others' laps. We left to gather our thoughts, and someone went inside to announce that the class had been moved down the hall. It was a literal stampede. Like if someone fell, they'd have fared worse than Mufasa, no joke.

We all get packed into the next room, and we're sitting about as far away from the door as we can be, when we're told that this is not our class. So we hack our way through the jungle of people and chairs to get out, it took a really long time, and we gave up.

Welcome in Egypt.

It doesn't make sense...

I mentioned something political to my Egyptian boss, and he told me that it's inappropriate to talk politics with people when you're not from that country. He made it out to be a pretty big deal.

For reals? People here stop me all the time and ask me about Obama. What's up with that?

This is too good...

I was present during this Friday School lesson: Hayley's Story

And it was marvelous.

Egypt for the Elderly

I was getting off the train and an old lady was coming from the opposite car to get off at the same time. I motioned for her to go first, and then she insisted that I go. So I did. I thought that was a little strange, so after I walked a step or two I turned around to see that she was waiting for me to help her step down from the train.

She said, "Get back her and help me, why do you think I let you off first?"



Oh, and on the way back this morbidly obese gentleman decided to not only take up his seat, but my seat too. He also thought it'd be a good idea to take off his shoes and perfume the area with the smell of his unclad feet. It also dawned on him that he should share his music with everyone by playing it on his cell phone.

It was a good day to ride trains.

My New Old Roommate

Tammam and I were roommates on a train and on a boat, then on a train again, and now we're roommates for a couple more days. Why? Because his apartment burned down.



That's an interesting phrase, 'burned down', because the building is still there and people are still living in it, but his apartment is unlivable. He and Khaled are looking for a place right now.

Apparently there was an electrical issue and the outlet behind his couch in the front room caught fire, which spread to the couch and the table. Some glass shattered, Tammam heard it, and opened the door to inhale a bunch of smoke. He opened the window to breathe, and called Khaled who came running from the internet cafe a couple of streets over.

The only way to open the door was by either of their keys, so Tammam was considering throwing his keys to a lady hanging up her clothes on a balcony some floors away, so she could come up and open up his door for him to run out. I went afterward and looked at the balcony and it was really a one-in-a-million shot. He had three keys, so he actually thought, "I have three shots at this".

Thinking he was about to die, he said the testimony but continued yelling for help. Khaled arrived, and opened the door, and the fire was blocking his way in. He yelled to Tammam, who covered his face, ducked down, and ran.

So, we were dangerously close to being Tammam-less. Like for serious, he could've been asphyxiated. I left out a lot of details and some afterward story, but there it is. Ahamdolillah ala salaamatuh.

Puts things into perspective though. What's important to you, what you could do without. Turns out you can do without most things. But not without Tammam.

Oh Egypt

John and I walked back from the gym the other day when an older gentleman stopped us and asked, "Are you American? Or German?" I said that we were American, and his daughter said, "Hello... in Egypt!"

I couldn't believe how un-annoying it was.

Also, Katie got a box from her boyfriend, Happy Valentine's Day! Except the customs official ate half of her chocolate. Welcome in Egypt!

Cooking...

I've decided to start cooking more.

So has British Katie. You can (and should) read her latest blog post about it. She gives me a shout out, let's see if you can guess where.

Did you read her blog?

Good.

Because she just came upstairs and took two rocks out of our oven that used to be potatoes.

Thanks for dinner last night Katie!

Lesson... Learned.

So I work at the gym now.

I learned that it's a terrible idea to use the words I learned from the guys at the gym on my conservative female language partner.

I'm just saying.

A Public Confession

I admit it. I stole something.

Does it count when you don't mean to steal?

When I was in Israel, Molly and I got a cab, and the driver was quite mean. After a while, he kicked us out, and he tried to drive off with our luggage in the trunk. I grabbed everything out of the trunk, and in my hurry I grabbed a hoodie that did not belong to us. In my defense, it was the color of Molly's jacket, and I was trying to get everything out in less than five seconds.

Anyway, I ran after him to give it back, but he was gone. Imagine if he had left with our stuff, how fast he would've made off with it.

So when I got back to Alex, I gave it to my landlady to give to an Egyptian version of Goodwill. Does that make it better?

Me in Siwa

You may have noticed how I pick myself up with my face in this video. Yes, that's my head hanging down while I'm trying to raise my arms. I love the desert.

Perspective

Not going to lie: I don't have a ton to say.

I haven't blogged in a long time. And, maybe I have more to say than I thought.

Molly came to Egypt, and a cat bit her. We had to get her a rabies shot.

We also went to Israel, and almost avoided seeing any touristy churches. In fact, I think we only saw two (and we were there for ten days, one of those days being in Bethlehem).

Then I found a new love for Glee when Molly and I watched it in Alexandria. 'Cause that's what you do when you vacation in Egypt, right? Watch TV?

I can't wait to get to the States and get a job that makes a comfortable amount of money.

And finally, Hans Sweeting is one of my favorite people in the entire world. If we were playing Ultimate Frisbee right now, he'd say, "You're not going to touch the frisbee all night".

Oh, and pictures are worth a thousand words: