Advice from Egypt

I have been in Cairo for one week and here is what I have learned:

 

1) If a taxi honks at you don’t look, IT’S A TRAP!

2) You can pet the cat, but don’t scratch its tummy unless there is a sink nearby.

3) Don’t smile at the beggars. They are probably not having a pleasant day.

4) Always look both ways when crossing a one-way street.

5) Avoid dark alleys. The police might be guarding them.

6) Never walk past the same person twice, if you are carrying a map.

7) The “0” is a “5” and the “.” Is a “0.” The “7” is also a “6” but this mix up causes less problems.

8) Pedestrians don’t have the right of way. They have whichever way they can get.

 

Had A Bad Day Again (Cont.)

PROLOGUE: Saturday was alright. I spent about four hours walking around Cairo looking to an alarm clock. The clock a brought counts perfect 35 second minutes when plugged into a wall and refuses to run on batteries. As the sky matured slowly towards a dark yellow-brown I realized that I was had to buy something quick. I compromised on a 12 L.E.. (about $2.30) plastic affair that seemed to be able to handle a reasonable load of tick-tocking. Gleefully I strode back to the dorms prize in hand. I finished off the night making extensive plans to meet a fellow undergrad student the next day. Heidi, the other student, and I would meet at campus at 11:00 and she would help me take care of administrative issues and get me into the 5 day Survival Arabic class which she had gotten into for free. With anticipation in my heart I lifted my pencil and put a big “X” through the box labelled “get to bed early” on my agenda for the day. With that I hit the lights and rubbed together my cold feet under the refreshingly chilled sheets.

THE CLOCK STRUCK ONE: I was wrenched from near-sleep by a tremendous torquing of my body as my limbs attempted to keep in line with my twisting stomach. Immediately I was awake, but the stomach goblin which had attached me in the dark was no where to be found. I tried to relax and roll over but just as my conscious began to slip away the goblin would return. For over half an hour I battle my inner(organ) demons. Every time, just as I began to tame my sense of ease they would return, led by the goblin, and begin to poke and prod. Finally, I surrendered. I turned on the lights, walked around a little and went to the bathroom. I sat in the bathroom for over 15 minutes waiting for my stomach and chest to calm down. When I thought I was ready, I returned to my bed, stomach still grumbling slightly, and tried again to sleep.

From what I have managed to piece together, about five hours later there was a loud, piercing, repetitive noise. I flailed. I kicked. I bit and I scratched… and the noise went away.

I awoke refreshed and rolled over to look at my clock. My $2.30 alarm clock. My $2.30 alarm clock without a snooze. A snooze. A snooze? You know the thing you press and it wakes you up again in 5 minutes. Yeah but. Or maybe 10 minutes. Yeah but. It depends on the alarm clock. Yeah but my $2.30 alarm clock doesn’t have a… So what did you…?

It was 12:25 and I leaped out of bed. My meeting was long gone, but I didn’t know what else to do. I leaped out of bed and rushed downstairs followed by a trail of expletives… just to show willing. I was just in time to catch the shuttle to campus.

After I brief search I managed to find the advising office. A few people in line later and it was my turn to meet with an adviser and put together a schedule. I will skip most of the details and complications and say that I will be taking: Writing (I have to take an exemption exam), Library Skills (mandatory and 0 credits), Microeconomics, Philosophy, Arabic (I have to figure out whether I need to take a placement test… I don’t know any Arabic), and Introduction to Islamic Art and Architecture.

I thanked my adviser and rushed off to see if I could get into Survival Arabic. I still didn’t have a school ID so every time I entered a building I had to explain to the guards that I was a new student and was working on getting my ID. I tracked down the office of a woman named Hamdia. She is one of the Arabic Studies finance people who I had been told to talk to about getting into the class. Naturally, she had no idea why I had been given her name and didn’t know any reason why tuition would cover the Survival Arabic class. Dejected but slightly relieved that a four hour a day Arabic class would not be one of the things I had to deal with this week, I left the building. I walked slowly down the block towards the library. I had been informed that the ID office was near the library entrance. I asked one of the guards outside the library where to go to get an ID. He pointed at a door to my lift. I went over to it and the guard said, “Push.” I pushed on the door, but nothing happened. I pulled the door handle up, but the door did not budge. I pushed down with all my weight… still nothing. I stepped back and looked confused. The guard chuckled and pointed at a sign taped to the door, “Look.” The sign read, “Office hours: Sunday-Thursday, 9:00am-2:30pm.” I looked at my watch. The watch read, “Tough luck kid. Current time: 2:34pm.” At that moment a farewell hunk sounded from across the street. I turned as a great old engine rattled to life. It was the shuttle bus heading back to the dorms. The shuttle honked again and I was on it heading home.

Had A Bad Day Again

My first bad day wasn’t so bad. Basically, I woke up early and in high spirits with I desire to accomplish… anything. Unfortunately, it was Friday, which is the Islamic holy day. So nothing much was open, unless you wanted cigarettes or some falafel. Also unfortunate was that I didn’t find any of this out until after walking about 2 miles across town to the AUC campus (the fact that the shuttles weren’t running should have been a clue). And yes, since good things come in threes, I discovered that although the international student services was the one place open on campus, (skip ahead 45 min. in a waiting room) no one could help me. Apparently, “international student” means “study abroad” and “services” means “tell Cole a bunch of other people to talk to.”

To Be Continued…

Martino

I was about to go to bed when a young man walked up and asked if he could sit down with me for a smoke. I said sure. We got to talking and he mentioned that he was only in the dorms until September 1. Me too. Then he said, “I will be getting an apartment, but they don’t have it set up yet or something.” Me too. I asked his name, and he said it was Martino. My name is not Martino…but the the name did ring a bell, or at least it put padding inside a bell and then lightly tapped it (we arn’t allowed to be loud after midnight). As it turns out Martino might be one of my apartment mate. This would be swell because we are getting along nicely already. Martino is a book lover, but not, as he explained to me, a bibliophile, “because a bibliophile, part of being a bibliophile is you love the books themselves. Like you maybe are a collector or… but I love the stories and the words.” Martino is 28. He went to college for “the Poetic and Rhetoric.” Then he took off a year. Martino did not work. He did not travel. He did not look for love or party. Martino took that year off and read. He just felt there were some books he was missing from his vocabulary and should read before going to grad school. He even read Parzival.  History and philosophy are like fifth and sixth languages to Martino. English and French fall third and forth unrespectively, and second, just behind Italian, is esoteric knowledge.  I hope everything works out and we get to be apartment mates.

Indian Spices

The flight felt like a dream. I kept having to assure myself that I was actually the person eating pretzels and trying to get my seat to recline. My imagination simply seemed to reject that my will would put it in this situation. To make the dream even more convincing, my mind had incorporated parts of my subconscious. Often when I slumber characters from books I am reading or movies I have just seen squirm under my eyelids and join the jolly cast of my mental motion-picture. And sure enough strait out of Snakes On A Plane came the friendly, not actually gay, steward. He had this delicious Austrian accent that he would use to celebrate simple sentences like, “Ahh, maybe you like to try the vegetarian? It is very nice, I think, very good, because of all the spices. You know, like Indian spice, so it is very nice. I think we have no more of the chicken. So, maybe you like to try the vegetarian?” He wore his yellow-blond hair down past his ears and made cute, conspiratorial faces at me every time he gave me extra water or a refill on my tea.

I went in and out of sleeping dreams and waking dreams waiting for someone to pinch me, but no one did, not even the steward. Instead a little man ran into my subcansious and beaned me over the head with a blunt piece of reality. Then he ran away laughing and sing, “It’s all you man. It’s all you.” I rubbed my temple and went to the bathroom.

Ear Cups & And A Plane For Kairo!

I hugged my parents goodbye and was on my way.

On route to Frankfurt I met a UW-Madison student who will be traveling through France with her parents during the 2 weeks before school starts. We dialogued (to be honest it was a lot like talking) about school and traveling. She wanted cups to put over her ears to reduce the pressure change at take off and landing. The stewardess was so confused by the request that she brought the girl ear plugs instead and asked if they would do. They wouldn’t. The girl did an intentionally bad job of hiding a look that said, “What, like no one’s ever asked you for cups to put on their ears. You’re a stewardess.” In the end she chewed gum and I read her “Cosmopolitan.” I learned all about spinning like a top and back scratching. I started looking for a man to drive wild but then the plan landed. I wished her a happy trip and rushed off looking for a plane to Cairo.

I looked and looked but never did find that plane to Cairo. I did eventually come across a place called Kairo, and I figured if the city was anywhere near as cool as the name then it was good enough for me.