Wednesday:
Went to the lecture I mentioned last post. It was this Imam, I guess, and his wife, talking about ameliorating relations between Islam and the West. It was in English and mostly not that interesting—the wife especially seemed unable to focus on anything other than her own life story ("It all started one dark Friday the thirteenth in Kashmir"), but the cool part was that we got headphones through which we could hear someone translating into Arabic, and while I couldn't get all of it, and hearing the English certainly helped, I was still surprised by how much I could understand of what they were saying in Arabic translation—like, most of it was straight up Al-Kitaab MSA (!). So that was cool. Walked back with Matthew and chatted about gay identities (or lack thereof) in the Middle East—also cool. Did lots of Arabic homework—less cool. But you know. Classes.
Thursday:
So I had really wanted to go to an Umm Kulthoum-themed puppet show (!!!) in Zamalek. This was largely because of the Pop Culture in the Middle East class I took last semester—I have probably read/watched waaaay more than is necessary about Umm Kulthoum and ideas of modernist/nationalist discourses and Egyptian authenticity. But also because, dude. Puppets singing "Inta Omri," can you imagine?! Awesome.
Anyway, I tried to get other students to go with me, but they all offered lame excuses like, "Puppets freak me out." Haha. Or they didn't know/care who Umm Kulthoum was which, um, is that allowed in Egypt? Even for our generation? Dunno.
Anyway, I texted Matthew being all needy, like, "come with me!" and while that didn't happen, he ended up hooking me up with a couple of his friends who were planning to go. Only turns out they were planning to go to a DIFFERENT puppet show. Like seriously? How many of those are there on one night? But I guess puppets are puppets, and puppets are exciting, so we traipsed over to the puppet theater and attempted to buy tickets, only they were SOLD OUT. Really? I never thought puppetry was really a huge thing in Cairo, but now I'm starting to wonder...
Anyway, we pretended to be clueless tourists, we don't speak Arabic, can we please just go in for five minutes to see?, etc. So they let us in without tickets, and we watched the first ten minutes of the show, and then they made us leave. It was fun. Something about dreams (أحلام), I dunno. Couldn't understand most of it, but I swear to god one of the songs they did sounded exaaaaactly like this other song I know (also because of that pop culture class I mentioned). Aside from the lyrics I mean. See for yourself. I don't think I'm making this up...
(stage)
Anyway, after getting kicked out, we got koshari at this, I kid you not, five-story, neon-lit place with a pond and fake ducks inside. It was a little crazy. And a lot delicious. Om nom Egyptian food. I am going to miss this.
(Abu Tarek koshari)
After that we went to a shisha/coffee place and observed firsthand generational/class differences:
I love how the old guy with the amazing combover and his dice-game-playing partner are right next to the two young dudes with a laptop and bluetooth earpieces or whatever they're called. Like really? I mean cool I guess.
After that, went back home, then headed out to a bar/club with some of the girls on the program and their random rich boy Egyptian friends, who handily covered the cost of the night. Really the thing that made me happiest was that they played Cheb Khaled and Lady Gaga practically back to back. Haha. Yay. I thought I was the only person who would ever do that.
So anyway, that was Thursday.
Friday-Sunday:
Slept most of the day Friday as I always do on weekends. Lazed around. Uploaded photos to Facebook. Et cetera. It was one of the girls' birthdays so we went and got sushi for dinner at the hotel across the street, then went back to her place for cake. That was delicious. Later went to a house party with some girls studying abroad at AUC that one of the guys on the program is friends with. So that was ... something. It was super far away and took forever for the taxi driver to find, and by the time we were halfway to the tenth floor (the elevator was broken) we could hear the frat boys and smell the beer. Like, really, Americans? Really this is how you have to comport yourselves? So mostly it was just obnoxious.
Also obnoxious is how I invariably get read as like, a fourteen year old boy. This one dude at the party took it upon himself to approach me at least five times asking how old I was, when I was born, if I had an ID to prove it. Like for real? I mean I guess I could have whipped out my license and been all, "what do you have to say to THAT?" but it would probably have just created more problems than it would've solved because I look like a girl there. Meh.
Anyway, it was an adventure I guess. There were seven of us and on the way back we all piled into one taxi because they seemed really sparse. Like, we were glad to find even one. So that was fun. Thankfully they don't have that stupid rule like in Morocco where you can only have three passengers in a cab. (Still can't believe they actually enforced that.) So yeah, five in the back, two in the passenger seat, worked out totally fine, made it back in one piece. Go us.
Slept lots more on Saturday, went and bought notebooks, ate lots of deliiiiiiicious Chinese food (!!!!), did a bunch of homework, the end.
Went to classes today, there's a lecture on modern Egyptian history later that should be good, then more homework/reading.
Woo Egypt.
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