Just a note...

With the school year quickly winding down, things have quickly piled up. From papers to studying (to excuses), there's just so little time left. I've slacked on this whole blog thing, no question about that. BUT, I've decided that despite the fact that I'll be home soon, able to share all these stories with you in person, how it sounds written down versus how it sounds out loud can be two completely different things. I've therefore decided that I will continue this blog until I've let you know about more of my adventures (I've got a few stories). It may be gradual and may last all summer, but I'm going to do it. I'm not sure how many people actually keep up with this, but for those of you who do, thank you for keeping up with me, for encouraging me to update. 

I'm looking forward to seeing all of you again soon!

An Interview with A Camel

We're in AFRICA!

INTRODUCTION TO EGYPT

On February 19, I embarked on my most exotic and exciting journey yet—Cairo, Egypt. Ever since sixth grade when we did an extensive unit on ancient Egypt, I have been fascinated by the history behind the various dynasties and the legacy they left behind to fascinate and perplex generations to come. Needless to say, this weekend was a dream come true…

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

As soon as our plane landed (sometime after 2am), we headed to passport control to receive my most prized visa yet—for the nice, low price of only $15 USD! Once past this checkpoint, we were on a mission to find another Rome buddy of ours, Elizabeth, who had arrived earlier in the day. Elizabeth has a friend who goes to WestPoint back in the States, but studying for a semester in Cairo. Great thing about this chap—nicknamed Pappy—he is majoring in Arabic. A connection that knows the language, area, and customs…hmm, not a resource that comes around often…not for cheap anyway.

As we moved on past the crowds awaiting the arrivals, we eventually found Elizabeth and Pappy and followed them out of the terminal, but not before being bombarded by at least a dozen men trying to offer us “the best deal” on a taxi ride. Thanks to Pappy, we had one waiting for us and were off to the city in no time. After a 30-40 minute taxi ride, I realized Pappy and I were going to be friends, both enjoying a similar sense of humor and enjoyment for giving people a hard time. When we passed the Nile on the way to our hostel, I couldn’t help myself and asked Pappy if that’s where Moses had been. Without missing a beat, he responded, “Yep, right there.”

*Random note—Our hostel was located in the middle of the Nile. The Nile’s width is massive. All of the pictures I got of the Nile are only one side of the Nile, with a landmass of sorts splitting it into two.

**Song of the day—Walk Like an Egyptian by the Bangles

YOUNG JESUS, THE HARD ROCK, AND UNLIMITED DRINKS & WINGS

The next morning we were awoken by the morning call for prayer.  It was pretty hard to sleep through this, which I imagine is the intent, so we got started for the day. Now, I’ve had a Muslim roommate before, but seeing all of the locals gathered in certain areas of the city, sandals or shoes disregarded for the time being, and being among the very few people walking about, it really hit home that we weren’t in Kansas anymore (or Rome for that matter).

When we met up with Pappy that morning, he led us to the trains and off we were to Coptic Cairo—the Christian section of the city. This was probably one of the biggest surprises I had during the weekend, having no previous or extensive knowledge on the Christian population in Egypt; but, it was a nice surprise. You know the stories that you heard at Religious Ed as a child or even at mass about Jesus as a child? Well, if you’re like me, you may have just taken it as is—Joseph had a dream to take Jesus and Mary and get the heck out of town, they flee and we don’t hear much about Jesus until he’s twelve or so. Well, that whole period of exile—Cairo! Well, supposedly anyway. As we entered this walled area of Cairo, we descended some stairs with a sign above head reading “The Crypt of the Holy Family…Where the Holy Family lived for some times.”  At this point, I’m losing it…Really?! I knew it was Egypt, but I had no idea! Here?! Wow!!!  (Ok, so I’m easily excitable, especially when things click like they did just then.)

We spent a good couple of hours exploring the narrow streets of this old, Christian area, stopping into the various synagogues, churches, etc. It was amazing being able to see a side of Egypt that you don’t often, if ever, hear about. We even had the chance to stop into St. George’s Chaplet, which is where he was tortured. The chains (again, supposedly) which held him to the wall are still there. After taking off your shoes to step into the small sanctuary, you ease your way through the dense crowd to take a turn at placing the neck shackle around your own neck. If you choose not to wait for this very popular experience, you can look along the walls at the various icons and representations of St. George taking on the dragon.

*Random note—Just an observation we made this day…the smell of feet is universal. That’s all.

Around 4 o’clock the same day, per Pappy’s recommendation, we met up with some of his schoolmates at the Hard Rock Café, Cairo. Of all the Hard Rock Cafes I’ve run into, my first one is in Egypt. Go figure. Anyway, we meet up with Pappy’s 15 or so friends (names escape me, but I could make them up if you asked me to) and for the next four hours enjoy unlimited beer and buffalo wings, and of course, some nice conversation. (Thanks to my Italian eating experiences, I was able to keep eating for the majority of those four hours—in my opinion, though, they didn’t refill our plates often enough.) Although Americans made up the majority of the group, there were a couple of Egyptians present. We talked for hours on the stereotypes that Americans have of the Middle East and Muslim countries and got some fresh perspective on the matter. It was very enlightening to hear the other side of the story rather than relying on what the media tells us.

*Random story—In the Hard Rock bathroom, posted on the doors of the stalls are signs which read No Drugs or Nuclear Weapons Allowed. I enjoyed a laugh about it with two other guys in there at the time. “Silly Egyptians!” one of them said. “Haha where are you from?” I asked. He laughed as he proclaimed, “EGYPT!”

In the course of those four hours, we ate a lot, danced to YMCA in front of the entire restaurant (well, I did anyway), got a little tipsy, and just really enjoyed the company we were in. A handful of us ended the night by going to a sheesha bar where we learned that hissing was just a way to grab someone’s attention. (I’m loving the culture I’m picking up here…we picked up some useful phrases as well.) We enjoyed some talk with the WestPoint boys—politics, world affairs, and highly-classified-but-let’s-not-go-into-too-much-detail sort of things. Not frustrating at all. I can keep a secret…think they’d buy that?

*Soundtrack of the day—The Prince of Egypt

**Most useful phrase a tourist in Egypt can learn—La shukran…No thank you

MOSES—THE AWKWARD RIDE, COMING SOON

Day 2 in Cairo was like Christmas for me. I woke up that morning with GREAT (see where this is going?) anticipation of the day ahead of us. After a short train ride, we were in Giza, for you know what! We jumped in a couple of taxis and told them to take us to the pyramids…so naturally, they took us to a great place where we could rent camels to ride to the pyramids, for what we were told was “great deal.” Uh huh. Pappy was skeptical, but gave in in the end. While the girls all jumped on camels, I was given a horse. Wait? Didn’t I pay for a camel? For some reason or another, the remaining camels where we were weren’t in working condition (damn recession has even the camels getting cutbacks), so this cowboy rode the horse down the street at a less than manly speed. After I dismounted, I was given quite a surprise when the camel I jumped on stood up. Hello, Mr. Camel.  Ci-OW!

We got along pretty well…the camel and I, that is. Then, Pappy jumped on. Now, neither of us were too keen on this idea, especially considering the surplus of girls we were with (4), but we went along with it anyway. I didn’t care too much, and Pappy claimed not to either, but he kept making jokes which hinted at his discomfort and I’m mean, so I had no choice but to take advantage of this (yes, no choice)—let’s leave it at that. We were still friends by the end of the journey, and that’s all that matters.

After discussing the tips we gave with our less than satisfied camel guides, we hopped off the camel train (Moses, Tiger, and Mike) and did a little exploring around the pyramids. Let me just say, seeing the pyramids in a picture is one thing, but standing next to them is…wow. To imagine these massive structures in all their glory is hard to fathom, considering how great they still are today…We climbed some of the large stone blocks at the base of the Great Pyramid for photo ops, then got down before the Tourism Police could catch us. As we headed towards the Sphinx, my excitement never died down. We’re in frickin’ Egypt, we kept reminding ourselves.

That night, we traveled into the old marketplace, Khan-al-Khalili  to experience the twirling derwishes (sp?). I’m not entirely enlightened on the subject, but what I was told is that it is basically a way of worship—a long prayer, if you will. With one man singing the prayer, a number playing instruments and dancing, and a handful more spinning in circles with colorful, round-at-the-bottom garments, it was a cultural event to be noted. One of the twirlers spun in a circle for a good 30+ minutes without stopping and even moving around to the music in the process! But, as impressive as that was, I have to say that the man playing castanets was much more entertaining and really worked the crowd.

THINGS YOU MOTHER TOLD YOU NEVER TO DO…TAKE 1

So, you know how your mom told you to never talk to strangers? Yeah, well that’s pretty much impossible when you’re traveling, especially when you’re traveling abroad. Here’s the thing. Pappy didn’t want to go to the twirling derwishes that night (something about a bad experience at one, I don’t know), so he pointed us in the right direction and off we were. We went, enjoyed ourselves, and afterward had only the slightest idea where we were/needed to be. Awesome. So, a random guy with a papyrus shop had showed us the way to the twirling derwishes earlier and told us to find his shop after. Ok. So, the girls wanted to find this shop after so we could ask where to get a taxi. I don’t know. Well, I’m just following along at this point, not quite sure what we’re doing, but making sure that we don’t get separated. A guy asks us (apparently we looked lost...It’s ok, sir. I’ve got my internal GPS handy. But thanks anyway.) what we’re looking for. One of the girls tells him. Don’t try this at home kids. So, he leads us through the old market to a very shady looking building, which held inside its walls on the third floor, Said’s Papyrus (pronounced Sa-YEED). I’m completely stoked when we walk into the store because this is exactly what I was looking for upon coming to Egypt. (Quick note of comfort: I was being very cautious and was totally aware of our surroundings during this whole little excursion.) Long story short, we ended up staying at this shop for about an hour and a half, meeting the family who owned the shop, learning some of the meanings behind the artwork, and sharing in a cup of homemade tea (Did I mention not to try this at home?). All in all, it was a good time and we ended up leaving with a souvenir or six. Only in Egypt!

“PICTURES FORBIDDEN”…YEAH, BUT NOBODY SAID THEY’RE NOT ALLOWED, RIGHT?

So, the next day, after recounting our adventurous night to Pappy (he just shook his head at us), we headed off to the museum.  The Egyptian Museum (up to this point anyway) was easily my favorite non-art, historical museum. Having the largest collection of ancient Egyptian, well, anything, this museum was spectacular.  I especially enjoyed the large variety of relics from the various dynasties, the massive sizes of some of the finds, the floor dedicated to King Tut, and of course, the challenge presented to me of taking as many pictures as possible (Scientific fact…more or less: Your desire to do something when you’re forbidden to do so increases that much more.) Although there is practically an entire floor dedicated to the famous teen ruler, the King Tut room, which held his famous and very recognizable mask, had to have been my favorite.

Later in the afternoon, we headed to the Citadel—an old fortress with a huge mosque in the middle of it. Having never been to a mosque before, this, like the majority of things I encountered in Egypt, was a new experience for me.

Take your shoes off before entering. Before you even enter into the building though, you find yourself in a large, tiled courtyard. The mosque itself—Mohamed Aly’s Mosque—is large on the inside with plenty of floor space for the hundreds of worshipers that would normally gather there. The round glass bulbs, which dimly light the place, hang from the ceiling in a circular pattern, with a couple of chandeliers to keep them company. We took all this in and moved on yet again.

CAIRO WAS A BLAST

As we left the citadel, we split up into two groups for a couple of hours—3 girls to shop with Pappy; Tommy, Brighid and myself to walk to the old marketplace to look for authentic souvenirs. This was fine by us, considering Tommy had walked to the citadel to begin with and had a general idea how to get to the marketplace; plus, it would give us an opportunity to see more of the city outside of a taxi.

So, off we went. Traveling through dusty streets, experiencing so many exotic sights and sounds along the way...I felt like I was in Disney’s “Aladdin” (don’t worry, I held back from singing…I may have hummed though). We bargained for our trinkets, walked around for a little bit longer, and caught a taxi back to our hostel.

That night, our final one, we enjoyed a nice meal at a chic restaurant located along the Nile. It was going pretty well, the perfect conclusion to an awesome weekend. Then Pappy’s phone rang. It was one of his WestPoint friends. “Khan-al-Khalili? No, we’re not there, why?” He listened, and we watched as his face suddenly grew serious. “Thanks. Call me if you find out more,” he told his friend. At this point, we were obviously all curious. He then tells us what he had just been told. A bomb went off in Khan-al-Khalili less than an hour ago. Wait, what?! The story changed so many times from that first hour until we arrived back in Rome, but the fact of the matter was this: we had all been in that area the previous night; Tommy, Brighid and me, only a few hours earlier. It was close enough to hit home and really make all the violence that occurs in the world more than just news; that night, it became a reality. We all just sat in silence, not sure what to think or say. We were lucky. A French girl who was on a class trip unfortunately was not so lucky. Let’s just say, we said our prayers that night as we headed back to the airport…for all those injured, the French girl and her family, and out gratitude for God watching out for us.

*On a personal note, despite the unfortunate event that took place our last night in Egypt, it really was a dream come true. With as many police per square foot as there are churches in Rome, we honestly did feel safe…maybe a little too safe considering I got yelled at for taking pictures of even the Nile…Yeah, like that stopped me.