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?