First full week done

Today marks my first full week completed living in Doqqi.

These are some pictures from last night, same place as yesterday along Qasr al-Nile in Giza. It's interesting that the most recognizable buildings of the Cairo skyline, with the exception of the Hitashi building, are all hotels.




This is Midan al-Galaa' (midan means square) in Doqqi, which connects Tahrir Street with Giza Street. Along the right is the Sheraton Cairo hotel, which is one of the best hotels in the city and attracts many Westerners. Just beyond Midan al-Galaa' you can take Kubry al-Galaa' (kubry is bridge) across the Nile and into Gezira/Zamalek and then downtown.



I was disappointed to find out the AUC sports facilities won't opened for an indeterminate amount of time (I'm guessing 2-3 months). The facilities look extremely impressive, even to an American. The athletic director explained that AUC is sort of blazing a path with this construction, as it will probably be the biggest athletic facility in Egypt when it's completed. In Egypt, the highest level of sport are the Olympic national teams, followed by the club-based teams. The various sporting clubs in the Egyptian cities recruit athletes who are considered professional athletes. Below that are the university club teams, although they play at a lower level of competition than NCAA teams in the USA.

As a result, I decided to get membership at Gold's Gym in Giza. It's only a couple minutes walk and it's open 5am to midnight so it'll be worth it. It's located on Qasr al-Nile (same place as the pictures from above and yesterday) and sits on a houseboat in the Nile, so the views are pretty nice. The only thing that was really different was seeing prayers to Mecca on prayer rugs in the locker room. Also, mostly everyone was wearing pants in the gym, for modesty's sake I suppose.

I haven't run since I got to Cairo but now I have a gym where I can. I still haven't found any place that looks okay for a longer run. I have seen a few people running on the streets in the past week, some Westerners and some Egyptians. The women that I saw running were covered head to toe as they normally are, which I expect must be very uncomfortable.

I discovered the Alfa Market yesterday which is a few blocks from Midan Al-Galaa'. It is a supermarket with a combined household goods, clothing, and sporting section. It's the closest place to a Wal-Mart that I've seen. This is going to be my grocery store from now on, as it has great selection and lower prices than Metro. Mostly everything is cheaper than in America even after adjusting for currency differences. (There are 5.55 pounds per American dollar.) The exceptions are imported goods, especially any sort of candy, ice creams, peanut butter, and canned fruits and vegetables.

I have my first two classes tomorrow, Computer Oranization\Assembly Language Programming, and Microeconomics. If possible I would like to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow, but I'm not sure where to find it.

Pictures

Today was my first gomaa (Friday) in Cairo, which is the Muslim Sabbath. The streets were quiet this morning and many stores were not opened. The mosques announce their services through the loudspeakers starting around 11am, I think, and are done around 1pm. Many stores begin to open around 2pm. However there were still many people who were not attending services.

I took some pictures in Giza along Qasr Al-Nile. The section across the Nile in the pictures is Garden City.





This is Tahrir Street in Doqqi, which is the main street that is a few blocks from my street.



I had my final Survival Arabic class this afternoon and afterwards we went to Filfilah restaurant in Downtown with another one of the classes.

A book on Martin Luther King in Arabic, which I couldn't pass up for a mere 8 L.E.

Week before classes, continued

The past two days was a continuation of my Survival Arabic class, which continues to be an excellent choice. My final session is tomorrow at the Downtown AUC campus. I am a little slow with responding to the questions, as it takes me awhile to process the questions and formulate a response, but I am beginning to understand parts of the conversations I hear from the Egyptians around me. One of the most difficult parts now is to resist the temptation to speak in fusha (Modern Standard Arabic, which I had been learning) and accustom myself to the 'ameyya (public/colloquial arabic) words.

I tried to put some of the phrases I learned into use when I went to a linens shop yesterday. I needed to buy a towel so indicated to the shopkeeper what I wanted, how much was it, which one I liked better, et cetera. The owner understood me but answered in English, which diminished the point of going there.

So far my ATM card only works in one particular ATM, Bank Audi. There are ATMs almost everywhere you look in Cairo, although most of them are not enclosed in a glass room like in the US. Many are just installed in the side of a building and are accessible without leaving the sidewalk.

Yesterday when I went to get my AUC ID card, the service was unavailable, but I was finally able to do so today. After that I was able to use the AUC library for a bit. It is a spacious and modern facility, and certainly beats the Quinn Library at the Fordham Lincoln Center campus. It appears to be bigger than the Walsh Library at the Rose Hill Campus, but I'm not sure whether or not the collection is larger.

The commute from Doqqi (or Downtown) to New Cairo is long, but the bus is comfortable. So far the buses have only been filled to about a quarter of their capacity, but I expect they will reach full capacity after classes start on Sunday. The bus to Doqqi makes a stop on Tahrir Street by the Tahrir Cinema. From that stop it's about a 5-8 minute walk to my apartment.

Since I live a few blocks away from a mosque (I don't think it's possible not to in this city) I hear the call to prayer resonate several times a day. Although I think in the past they would use the minarets for the calls, but now there are loudspeakers placed throughout every neighborhood. There is one a few buildings down from my apartment. I'm not sure how many times a day the prayer is called, but I have heard it at 4:50pm and 6:50pm.

Here are some pictures along the bus route in New Cairo:

Second day at the new campus

Today was my second day at the new AUC campus in New Cairo, located about 35 miles outside of the city.

One of the AUC professors gave a great lecture today on the greatest impact of Egypt on North American culture. His argument was that the Great Pyramid of Giza (located about 3 miles from my apartment by the way) contributed more to American culture than anything else from Egypt. Charles Piazzi Smyth was a British mathematician who formulated a book that examined the relationship of the British inch to the Great Pyramid. After measuring the dimensions of the pyramid in inches, he was able to formulate a convincing argument which stated that the Pyramid was divinely inspired and predicted the covenant of Abraham and the birth of Christ. As a result of the book he published, he gained support for continuation of the British measurement system. He believed it to be divinely inspired, and sought to oppose the metric system developed by the French. His influence eventually forced Congress to adopt the inch as the official measurement, and to reject the metric system. Although Smyth's assessment is no longer accepted, it still used the Great Pyramid to influence an important aspect of Western society.

The same professor, who is also an administrator, told us honestly that they were aware there were hassles within the AUC administration and that they will be resolved as soon as possible. A few things at AUC have been disorganized but I appreciated someone saying that they were aware of them, rather than pretending as if they didn't exist. Luckily I had no trouble registering with any of my classes, though I know a lot of students did.

I attended the second day of the intensive Survival Arabic class, which had only one other student attending. I would highly recommend this course for any future study abroad students who come to AUC, as I have picked up so much in the past two days.

The return to the city from the new campus, however, highlighted perhaps Cairo's biggest detraction: traffic. We were told that there was a big accident in the city so we could not take Qasr Al-Nil Bridge, which is one of the two bridges that crosses the Nile. As a result, it seemed every car in the city was trying to go across 6th October Bridge. I enjoyed seeing part of the city I had not yet seen, but after two hours on the bus I decided I would get off and walk. I ambled around Mohandeseen (the name means "engineers"), which is a wealthy district just north of Doqqi.

The biggest difference I noticed between Mohandeseen and Doqqi is the quality of the apartments and stores. Mohandeseen's apartment buildings are taller and in better condition, and there appeared to be, generally speaking, more expensive-end stores in Mohandeseen.

In Mohandeseen I passed the Shooting Club on Nadi al-Sid Street. In Egypt, organized sports are generally reserved for the wealthy upper class. Some kids can be seen kicking footballs (soccer balls), but generally sports can only be played at the sporting clubs. Sporting clubs are large gated areas with lots of different fields and athletic facilities, along with locker rooms and perhaps other facilities. They are the equivalent of country clubs in United States, as they require an expensive membership that one typically holds for life.

A quiet night on Amer Street from my apartment



After a few days, I'm still very pleased with my apartment. Though it's old and some things could be fixed, it's spacious and so far I haven't seen a street or neighborhood on which I'd rather live. Although Doqqi shares some of Cairo's pollution problem, it seems to be mostly on Tahrir Street and Doqqi Street, but I am far enough away from those streets to not notice it from my apartment.

First day in Qahera Al Gadeedah (New Cairo)

Today I managed to successfully navigate myself to New Cairo and onto the AUC campus for day 1 of orientation. Here's how it went:

Woke up early today and made my way through Midan al-Misaha to Tahrir Street, and I took the metro from Opera to Sadat. The AUC bus was stopped right next to Sadat adjacent to the old AUC campus. I was expecting to have to go through a bureaucratic mess to get on the bus, but I simply walked on with no questions asked.

The ride to the campus in New Cairo takes about 45 minutes from Downtown. It's not a bad ride, and the buses are actually comfortable. At times I could not help but think of how comedic the traffic situation in Cairo can be. The route from Cairo to New Cairo includes a long highway, comparable to I-95 in both width and number of cars per mile. Despite this, I saw some comedic sights including men crossing 4 lanes of traffic to get to work, construction workers sitting on the median or the side of the road, and buses and vans coming to a complete stop to discharge passengers.

New Cairo is an entirely different place. Aside from the fact that it is totally removed from the city, it is vast and expansive. Everything is completely new construction with modern technology and lavish landscaping. There are many schools in New Cairo now: American University of Cairo, Canadian International College, Future University, Misr International University, and some others. A Wal-Mart would not look out of place in New Cairo, as all of the buildings are close to the ground, but extremely wide, with huge parking lots and landscapes surrounding them.

I must admit that the new AUC campus is extremely impressive. The size of the campus rivals that of any campus I've been on. The engineering is very modern, though it has an Egyptian architectural feel. The downside is that the campus isn't finished yet, and I'm not sure how many of the student facilities will be available immediately.

On the edge of the massive AUC campus






I arrived at 9AM and had orientation for a few hours. It was good, but nothing interesting to mention. Afterward I found out that I could still register for the Survival Arabic 5 day class even though I was 1 day late. It turned out to be a great decision. The course is broken up by ability level, so I was in a class with only two other students, so I was able to interact with the professor directly. At first I was lost but only because the basic words in ameyya Arabic are completely different from fusha Arabic, like what, when, where, why, how, yes, and so forth. Furthermore, in Egypt they don't pronounce the letters qaff, dhal, tha, or zah, and instead replace them with other letters of the alphabet. Most of those replacements are easy to understand, but the qaff replacement is very difficult. Every word that is normally pronounced with a "q" sound is pronounced with a glottal stop instead, kind of like "aah." I finally realized why people never pronounce Doqqi literally as "Doqqi", but rather with a glottal stop, like "Do'ee".

After the class, the bus took me back to Doqqi on Tahrir Street which is only a few minutes walk from my apartment. Instead I decided to walk down Tahrir St and Doqqi St, and I discovered many great places along this way, including many fruit and nut stands which I expect to frequent, clothing stores, electronics stores, banks, a hospital, and restaraunts. I also discovered that the Bahrainian Embassy is located on my street and that the Ethiopian Embassy is located on the street parallel to mine, which is quite interesting.

I found a grocery store two blocks from my apartment, so I went there after I returned. It is called Metro and it has a modern, Western feel to it. I was able to buy some "normal" foods, including my favorite food, peanut butter, along with cheese, milk, coffee, and some strangely-shaped hot dogs. The milk here isn't particularly good; the only kind I have seen sold anywhere is sold in boxes and is not refrigerated. Eggs aren't refrigerated either. The food is relatively cheap even at an expensive grocery store like Metro, although the real American or British brand names often cost two or three times the Egyptian brands.

Peanut butter ("zabda fool al-sudanee")



Cheese ("gibna") and milk ("haleeb")



The cashier at the register seemed a little ticked off when I gave him 100 LE for a 60 LE order. Nate told me that small bills are very desirable and stores don't like giving out change, even two 20 LE bills. It's hard to find places that will give you small bills anyway.

Third Night

Nate invited me to another performance at the Townhouse, but this time it was an actual concert, not a play. In fact the headlining band was Wust Al Balad, which means "middle of the country," otherwise known as Downtown. Wust Al Balad is a very popular Egyptian band that I had actually heard of even before I came to Cairo. There were about 300 people there of all ages, with at least a third of them Westerners.

Three bands played Arabic music, with drums, guitars, vocals, flutes, and other instruments, and one band played a rock variant with Arabic lyrics.

The first band played traditional Arabic music driven by an excellent classical guitarist.



The evening's only rock band was entertaining, but not great.



This band was the best. The woman's voice was very strong and clear enough that I could make out a few words here and there, but I still had no idea what was going on. The crowd knew many of their songs, but I'm not sure if they were covers or originals.


This girl sang one song with no accompaniment.


This is Wust Al Balad, the main act. They were good, but not as great as I anticipated. The crowd loved them.



Afterward, I met a couple of Nate's friends and hung out with them for awhile before heading home a little after midnight. Downtown is safe at night, as it is well-lit, guarded by police officers, and the traffic dies down a bit.

The Third Day

First evening in the apartment, and I slept well. It is pretty chilly this morning though, about 50 degrees F with a breeze.

I decided not to go to AUC today because I realized it is just for late registration and I did not send my Survival Arabic registration form on time so I'm pretty sure I'm not enrolled in that. Besides, I wasn't entirely sure how to get there as of this morning.

I began the day with a stroll around the neighborhood, but I didn't go too far because I was nervous I would lose my way.

Door of my apartment. No apartment number or letter, it's just a door.



Looking down the stairwell from the fifth floor


After I returned and ate breakfast, I went back outside through the neighborhood and a little bit into Giza. I know my way around the immediate vicinity now. While there are sidewalks on the streets, nobody walks on them unless they must. People walk between the cars that are parallel parked and the cars driving on the road.

Many people have given me double-takes, which is understandable as there are few Westerners in this neighborhood. Even though I am not dressed unusually, I stand out with blonde hair (albeit shaved), blue eyes, and light skin. I am wearing sunglasses whenever I walk around, as I think this makes me stand out less. I have noticed many people want to see what type of shoes I am wearing, though I am unsure why. They don't seem to mind that I am here. Some of the teenage males give me funny looks, I guess because I'm a foreigner.

Whenever the cab drivers see someone foreign walking, they will beep their horns and slow down to offer a ride. I was even offered rides by a driver who saw me a block away while he was on his break.

After lunch I decided to find out where the AUC Downtown campus was located. I looked at the Google map of Doqqi for awhile, and I can now find my way around as long as I see either Masaha Street, al-Doqqi Street, or Tehrir Street. From my street I walk down Masaha to the intersection of Tehrir Street, and Tehrir goes all the way across the Nile. I think it only takes about 15 minutes or less to get into Downtown by foot, even less by metro.

The old AUC campus is right in the middle of Downtown so I walked around it, but I didn't go inside. Downtown is pretty easy to follow. Most of the buildings even in Downtown are fairly short, about five stories or less. The few that stand out in height are the hotels and the Mogamma, which is a government building. After that I walked deep into Garden City, where I passed a few universities and the Italian and Canadian embassies. I passed the American Embassy but it wasn't immediately visible where I was walking.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nile Hilton Hotel


Sadat Metro Station in Downtown. I think the red building in the back is the Arab League


More Downtown


I finally got a taste of the pollution for which Cairo is known. Around Tahrir Street and in Garden City there is a thick smell of petrol from the cars. It is not too bad but I wouldn't want to spend lots of time there during rush hour. Strangely enough, Tahrir Street is a popular dating spot with dozens of couples along the bridge despite the many lanes of traffic that run adjacent to the walkway.

The city is rife with police officers, with guards posted every 100 meters or so in the crowded areas. They wear black sweaters, berets, boots, and slacks. Many carry AK-47s around their shoulders. However, I see very few police cars. It appears the traffic is more or less self-regulated. Aside from the dangers of having to cross the street, the city feels quite safe so far.