Arrivals

Well, friends & family, I've come and I've seen Cairo. But unlike the Romans, I left it pretty much unconquered. So that, I'm sure, will be a relief to you. You are not reading the blog of a conqueror. Just a traveler (minus dog named Charlie). So with the references out of the way, welcome to my blog! And, for the moment, welcome to Egypt!

I feel as though I keep needing to repeat this point to myself - You are in EGYPT. Got it? Not yet? EGYPT. I still haven't quite gotten it yet. But I'm figuring it out, as sand becomes more ubiquitous and I remember that it's not supposed to be in the 70s in January. It is in the 70s today! On January first! I'm not complaining, don't worry, but it's a little hard to remember that it's supposed to be January when it feels like April.

So I hope that you, my faithful blog readers, are desperately awaiting tales of my adventures. From here, then, I will recount my adventures!

On Tuesday, which seems soo long ago, I arrived at the airport to meet up with my tripmates. I had met most of them before, but I met the others then, and we began the long wait. We got together at 3 just in case anything went wrong, but nothing did, so we got through security well in advance of our 6:30 flight. Which was mysteriously delayed, due to technical difficulties, until about 8:00pm. So we tacked another 5 hours onto the front of our eleven hour flight, which is shocking in retrospect and maybe explains a little more how long the flight seemed, but wasn't too terrible to actually experience. Then, of course, there was the eleven hour plane flight, in which slightly grumpy flight attendants growled at those of us who didn't speak Arabic to return to our seats and not ask for such luxuries as extra glasses of water. I passed the time sleeping, waking up to take Tylenol (remember my wisdom teeth? I do... :( ), and watching whatever inflight movie was playing without mustering the effort to plug in my earphones.

We arrived in Cairo at 2:00pm Cairo time, 7 hours ahead of New York, and bought visas (very pretty stickers you got to put in your passport yourself! I thought about including a picture, but what if it's illegal?? No Egyptian prison for me, please!). In a haze of jet lag, we stumbled through the airport, collected our bags, moved through a very minimal customs and fell into a small bus hired to pick us up and take us to "Happy City Hotel." There, we played cards and spoke slowly to one another in desperate attempts to stay awake until dinner at 6. But the walk to dinner certainly woke me up. Cairo, you may have heard, is famous for its traffic. I don't know what you've heard, but it's probably true. We were petrified. Every intersection is unmarked, and you simply dash between the cars whenever you think you might be able to make it. This involves expecting cars to stop for you that maybe won't. They usually don't. Which means you leap backwards out of their way, heart pumping, and try to collect your wits for a second attempt. So by the time we got to dinner, I was awake enough to ask what to order, learn the Arabic word for thank you (shokran!) from a tripmate who just finished a semester abroad in Jordan (Sarah), and eat very safe, non-bacteria filled foods before fleeing back to the hotel and to bed.

New Year's Eve dawned a little brighter, though my roommmate Camille and I slept through our alarm. But why did I just say "though"? That was one of the best things that happened on New Year's Eve. I love sleeping! So, to rephrase, New Year's Eve dawned promisingly, as Camille and I ate a slightly rushed breakfast after a much needed but slightly illicit eight hours of sleep. Then the entire group braved the traffic jams again, to arrive at the Mugammat.

This building, off a 10-lane circle (a nightmare to cross! Luckily we were a group of about 15, which gave us power against all the cars), looks like something that would make Stalin, or maybe the East German Police****, proud. The only difference was that its tiny banks of windows were arched, which gave them a slightly less ominous feel. Still, inside they took our passports and had us sit in a line for a looong time, waiting to get our visas extended for three months. The chair beside mine was empty, and at one point an Egyptian man sat down beside me and casually lit a cigarette. I turned helplessly from him on my right to the large "No Smoking" sign on my left, unable to say anything in Arabic but thank you, which I figured was inappropriate to the situation. He only left after he'd finished his cigarette, stamping it under his foot and leaving the butt on the marble floor. Eventually, our wonderful and accommodating guide Ashraf, who had begun taking care of us upon our arrival at the Cairo Airport and will hopefully never stop, sent us all off into the city, promising to wait himself to retrieve our passports and visas, as long as we signed a sheet authorizing him to receive them. Obviously we did, and rushed off to purchase cell phones!

Again, my inability to speak the language infuriated me. Irene, a girl who came on this trip two years ago and is doing thesis research for two months this year, took four of us to buy phones, which was very helpful, but it was infuriating to know I couldn't function at all without her. Still, she found us phones for about $40 each, including some minutes, and I felt much safer in the large city knowing I could call Ellen if I ever needed help crossing the street or finding my way back to Happy City Hotel. (Ha! I just wanted to say the name of our hotel again. Isn't it hilarious??)

I spent the rest of the day wandering the city with several tripmates, and finding cheap meals at strange places (one was highly recommended as Cairo's equivalent of Starbucks. This was certainly true, but it didn't deserve any recommendations), exploring timidly, and whiling away the hours until our 8pm New Year's party at two former students' apartment. This apartment was located past a courtyard hookah cafe, up about eight flights of crumbling stone stairs, but really quite pretty. We stayed for a little while, but I was tired! Jet lag, I guess, lasts much longer than one day. So we headed home to the hotel at about 10:30, where I showered and then met my new buddies on the rooftop to wait for midnight and watch fireworks. At midnight, we couldn't hear a sound anywhere in the city. We counted down and cheered, but, subdued by the silence around us, we only did it quietly. Then, a few minutes after we thought it had turned 2010, we heard the distant pop of fireworks. They were, however, obscured by a building next to our hotel. After all that waiting, all we saw was Cairo's smoggy gray sky, and two Egyptian men watching wrestling on the rooftop bar of our hotel. Slightly disappointed, we slunk downstairs to pack, sleep, and set our alarms for 6:00am.

We spent the first day of 2010 on a bus. As we moved from 7 am to 7 pm, from Cairo to the Dakhla Oasis, we watched the rock begin to disappear, the sand redden, and the greenery vanish, until all of a sudden, just discernible in the twilight, we caught sight of more greenery, and here we were in the Oasis.

The dig house, where we're now staying, is incredible. We have delicious meals served to us (well, I've only eaten one, but it was great!) and really friendly people taking care of all of our daily needs. So far, it feels more like a hotel than an excavation house.

We'll see what it's like when we start classes tomorrow...

LOVE,

Callie