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.