So, I think its about time to hear about my experiences! So far its been my traveling stories and preparation. Well here's what's been going down!
In the past week, me and three other people arrived early for our Arabic training because none of us spoke a bit of the language. We are here on a two month intensive language program, so they wanted us to get the basics and we covered what most would have covered in two weeks! So far it doesn't seem toooo hard. BUT i know it will get pretty complicated soon, but I think that'll be the cool part because its fun challenging yourself and learning languages is even more fun in a group because its easy to make jokes out of everything and everyone when you totally butcher things!
Anyways. We have class from 9am to 1am and the rest of the day is ours. So every morning us girls walked to school--me Shauna and Gabby--who are freakin awesome btw! We were so worried that itd be hard to form relationships, but we automatically clicked. I think we knew things were going to be the BAM (thanks Shauna) when we tried for 20 minutes trying to figure out how the air conditioner in our rooms worked! and kept making up functions for the buttons...
And we walked the beach--after having crossed under the tunnel because the street that separates us from the beach has 6 lanes of traffic haha which we "aren't supposed to cross" . And these little boys kept making these hissing noises at us--which we learned is the Egyptian cat call...suprisingly we haen't gotten it a lot (more because it's very disrespectful and I guess the younger boys havent really been taught!) but they all yell "I love you I love you I love you!"
I've also found the term walk like an egyptian is basically a death wish for any foreigner because they are playing frogger like NEVER before! Cars DONT stop, and honking is a favorite past time, but everybody just walks like a foot from the cars...but im getting used to it!
So, we've got crossing the street, our wonderful first year arabic class, cat calls (snake hisses) --which during the first week of freakin boot camp was the four of us--shauna, gabby, jared, and me...we had 4 hours of class and then like 3 hours worth of homework--but it went by fast (if you count the napping and trips to Carrfour (which is Alexandria's mall with a huge walmart like supercenter in it). Jared was always on top of his work, us girls kinda slacked off, but we got it done!
Now Carrfour City center is the most legit place ever. Best clothing stores I've ever seen. These Egyptians are VERY fashionable. I think I'm going to come back with not only a bunch of souveniers but new clothes hehehe
Also, the street comes alive at night. Everyone is friendly during the day and at night. We've started going running in the mornings (Shauna our alarm clock wakes everyone up at 6 to go and run....Gabby and I alternate days. We also alternate on the days we go to our gym...I think the owners like us. They brought in an "aerobics" instructor who took pride in her rainbow jazzercizing outfit....pictures are to come. There's designated times for guys and girls at the gym...which I think is pretty cool and is a norm over here.
One night we all went for ice cream and walked the Corneesh (not sure how its spelled, but that's how it sounds!) The corneesh is that really big street I was talking about--well i guess what you can call a sidewalk is extra wide and at night people are selling corn and stuff. Well we eventually got to the ice cream place...which is basically a stand and there are no such things as lines in egypt. you stand there waiting to give your money and you've basically got to force it into the guys hand where he will give you a receipt and then you go stand in another line.
This is when we found out our celebrity status...everyone wanted pictures with us...especially Jared (he's the blonde headed blue eyed broad that accompanies us!) so that was fun...we played with the kids some and eventually headed back. By this time many of the other students had also began arriving--we like them...they're nice! Half of us took a taxi back (we'd walked about 3 miles) and half walked back and came across a carnival! We are always finding something new! We also went to a Baklavah store...it was legit.
Thennnn we also went to a festival the following day....there was a lot of Egyptian dancers and singers. It was really neat. We invited a couple of our friends from the gym and even officially met the rest of our group which totaled 24! TWENTY FOUR americans in EGYPT! thats not really all that are here haha. plenty of tourists and other students from other programs! But yes at the festival one our girls starts dancing with this adorable boy who knew sooooo many different moves. It was SUPER CUTE. and eventually we all started dancing with them and then some other Egyptians joined in and it was a big dancing party! We had so much fun and took so many pictures. and had so many pictures taken with us. And the little boy who was the life of the "festival" was like "Welcome to Egypt forever! Thank you forever!" It was awesome. Definitely the highlight of the trip so far.
And on top of that, a lot of the younger people speak English and have been learning it since they were like 6...so we were still able to communicate with them and they were all asking for our emails and facebooks...YAH facebooks haha
but I think that's enough for now! Stay tuned for more
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