Price check on aisle four, price check on aisle four

I went to a tiny grocery store (it fits about three or four people) and asked how much the detergent costs. The man answered in Arabic, "Nine pounds if Allah wills it".

Well maybe He doesn't. Maybe He wills only eight pounds. I mean, now there's doubt. Right?

Scared to Death

While at a rest stop on the way back from Sharm al-Sheikh, I was chatting with Nour and Miim-Yaa when Miim-Yaa gasped and pointed at the ground behind Nour and I. Both Nour and I jumped, and turning, we expected a cockroach, a scorpion, a snake, something unpleasant.

But no.

It was a kitten. She gasped like death was on it's way because of a cute, cuddly kitten, thus almost sending Nour and I to our graves on account of a heart attack.

It was a very keyed up trip back home after that.

Fo shizzle my nizzle

We went to Sharm al-Sheikh this weekend to climb Mt. Sinai and go snorkeling. To get there we rode a bus for 12 hours, doing everything the third or fourth best way (going the long way, stopping at a fly-infested zoo so that the bus could fill up with flies, getting off the bus at the end only to get back on in order to drive fifty more feet).

When we climbed Mt. Sinai, I hadn't slept for twenty four hours. I hadn't eaten in a long time, and I didn't have enough water. It's a three-hour or so hike, but a couple of us did it in about two hours, so we were moving pretty fast. The higher we got the colder it got, and I gave Katlyn cause for concern when I started staggering near the summit. Just a combination of exhaustion with lack of oxygen. She lent me her small long-sleeve shirt (which made me look huge, yeah) to keep me from freezing to death up there. A group of us made it though, and huddled together to stay warm until we could watch the sun rise. Very fun times.

Snorkeling in the Red Sea was also fun. I've been out to Ras Mohammad before, but this time I went off a boat and saw a manta ray, which was really cool. There were speakers on the boat so we could dance, and someone put on "I'm on a boat" by Adam Samberg and T-Pain, which was appropriate (in an unedited inappropriate way).

I got really sick the night before we left, it was just my turn I guess, so the twelve hours back was miserable. Luckily for me though I got to sit next to Nour, who knows Levantine Arabic, French, and English, but doesn't know English slang. I taught her some common terms, and she asked me, "What does 'junk in the trunk' mean?" Hilarious. Someone else had already taught her "fo sho" which was hilarious, just imagine someone speaking fluent English but confused when people say things like "Get up out of my grill". Very fun.

My favorite was when she asked, "What does 'shizzle' mean?"

Friends in Egypt

Oh. My. Goodness.

We all have to meet with Language Partners so we can be assured of speaking Arabic at least four hours a week. I met with mine for the first time today, and he was very happy to meet me.

A little too happy.

In fact, he was so happy that he said we can be best friends, like brothers. He then said that we could be like one person.

One person.

We went to a cafe to talk, and he told me to call him anytime that I'm free, that we're not just language partners, but friends, and we don't need only four hours a week. After the cafe, we walked along the beach and he wanted to walk arm-in-arm. I told him that that's strange to me and we don't do that in my country. Wanting to get away, I told him that I was heading back to the school to meet a friend in order to catch a ride home.

We went back and I thought I gave him the slip, but a while later I ran into him again. Turns out his mom works at the school, so he was still with her. My friend was still with his language partner, so I had to try and escape. Thinking quickly, I asked if anyone had seen my friend, and we all started looking. That split us up and I got away.

On a side note, best taxi ride to school and back EVER today. To get there, the driver went crazy down back streets and all sorts of unheard of ways, so we got there really fast and he didn't argue about the price with us. On the way back, we got the taxi in the middle of the road. Another driver yelled at our driver for stopping in the middle of the road and sped off. We caught up to him at a light and the two drivers commenced screaming at each other, all the while I'm sitting in the middle of them (in the front seat). It was kind of uncomfortable. The rest of the way home we chatted our driver up, and my buddy was willing to pay a little more so that we didn't have to fight with him. Fight might not have been the word that he used, though.

Egypt is hilarious fun sometimes.

Second in the series of The Hospital Lectures

At the same visit as the earlier post, I was awaiting diagnosis in the doctor's office, away from the examination rooms. While there, a man came in and sat down with me, and several nurses and workers came in and out to talk to the doctor, and the phone rang the entire time and he answered it every time it rang. So it was pretty hectic, but I was missing class so the longer it took, the better.

So the man that came in and sat down had his blood work done right there in front of me and then he and the doctor got into a shouting match. They tried to yell each other down, and then each answered their phones in the middle of the argument while the other one kept right on yelling. Suddenly the doctor turned to me and prescribed the medicine without having resolved the yelling match.

I then wished peace upon both of them and made a hasty retreat.

First in the series of The Hospital Lectures

So Molly here's where I'm going to cut and paste from my letter to you into my blog: I went to the hospital today for an x-ray to determine whether the pain I've been feeling lately is kidney stone related. I went yesterday and the doc prescribed something for inflammation but I insisted on an x-ray so he humored me. After the x-ray the doc took me a little more seriously because they found a kidney stone right away. They sent me down for an ultrasound and a urinalysis. They found two more kidney stones and sent me back to the doc. He prescribed some medicine, and I'll see him again in two weeks.

But that's not the story.

The story is that for the urinalysis I went into the restroom and found that the toilet wouldn't flush. In the hospital. Then, when I tried to wash my hands, there wasn't any soap. In the hospital. So I thought, "I'll just wash with water", and I reached out and broke the metal handle off of the faucet with my hand. In the hospital.

Lucky for me I had plenty of alcohol hand sanitizer that I used liberally today.

Three broken ATMs, long walks, and a taxi ride later, I have the medicine he prescribed. I can't wait to go back.

Wouldn't you know...

I've been to Egypt before. I lived here for two months last summer. My program took me to all of the usual tourist places, and some that weren't so usual.

At pretty much every place, it cost less for Egyptians to do things than Americans or Europeans. I don't just mean that cabs are more expensive (they are), but I mean that the sign at the pyramids reads that Egyptians pay an Egyptian pound, Americans pay fifty, and Europeans pay sixty. Those numbers are just off the top of my head, but you get the picture. To see the mummy exhibit in the Cairo Museum costs Egyptians only a pound, and anyone else one hundred pounds. Seriously.

So last night I went to the local train station to buy tickets to Cairo, and the price I paid last year was nearly doubled this year. I couldn't believe it, but I need to go so I paid for the tickets. I got home and one of the dorm supervisors saw us walking in with our tickets and yelled at us, "How many times do I have to tell you? If you are a foreign student, the tickets are half off!"

For reals?