Shazzam! Brand new start!

Hello everyone!

So, I'm in a brand new town, trying to figure out how life works here.  I've been here on the Red Sea coast for the last couple of days.  I think I got in two night ago.  Anyway, it was a mad rush to try and find an apartment before it got REALLY expensive living at a hotel.  Good news!  We found one!  It took us almost a month to find a place when we first got to Cairo.  But we managed to find one and get moved in in less that 24 hours here. 

Just figuring out how to do life in a new town is kind of a bummer.  I've realized that as much as I rebel against a schedule any time that I have one, I really am a creature of habit at heart.  (Mom, if you're reading this - stop laughing!)  This from the man who hasn't been on time to anything for the last two years :)  Leaving behind friends in Cairo was tough.  But I've been invited to a wedding in Cairo in about a month, so I think I'll be heading back for that.

In Cairo there was a really big community of ex-pats.  So finding friendship and relationship was pretty easy.  But it's been a little tougher here.  There aren't many ex-pats here, so finding community has been a little harder.  Most of my social interactions are in arabic too, which definitely limits my ability to interact.  It's strange.  I think I'm kind of a funny guy when I'm speaking english, but I just don't come across as funny in arabic.  It's hard to speak freely and crack jokes when you have to think about everything you say to make sure it makes sense.

No pictures this time, but I'll try to get some up in the next couple of days.  Au revoir . . .  (Yes that's French for you Jerome!)

Road less travelled

Okay, so my sense of direction is legendary . . . for being terrible! Anyone who's every travelled with me knows to ask me where I think we should go, then go the other direction.

I didn't have much to do today, so I decided to try a little experiment. I know a lot of parts of Cairo pretty well, but still don't have a really good grasp of where they are in relation to each other. But, I had a flash of inspiration today. It's the same Nile in my part of town as downtown, right? So, I decided to try to walk from my house to downtown. No problem, right?

Three and a half hours and two liters of water later, I finally got to downtown. A summer afternoon was definitely not the right time to investigate this hypothesis! Let's just say that the one pound metro ticket is well worth it! My curiosity is appeased, and I will definitely sleep well tonight.

Rugby!!

Okay, I need to teach you guys a valuable lesson that I learned this weekend. Rugby and asphalt do not mix well!! Hence the picture . . . Yikes! I was heading out to Dahab with some friends for the weekend, and was waiting for our bus to arrive. We had a rugby ball and some extra time, so we were playing in the parking lot. Long story short, I took a pretty good fall on the pavement. But don't worry . . . I broke my fall with my face . . . so I'm fine!

It's funny, I was laying on the ground right after it happened, and was wishing that I had a video of it. Just being able to see it would have made the experience worth it. But, no worries. I'm hard-headed enough that no real damage was done. I think I'm lucky I still have all my teeth and didn't break anything.

Celcius / 5 * 9 +32 = Little Bunny Foo Foo

So, it's gotten hot lately . . . Really hot! One thing I'm still getting used to is the Celcius scale. It still sounds funny to hear someone say, "Oh my gosh, it must be forty degrees today!" So, I thought I would make you a conversion chart just to get a rough idea of how Celcius and Fahrenheit line up:

25 Celcius 77 Fahrenheit
30 Celcius 86 Fahrenheit
35 Celcius HOT
40 Celcius REALLY, REALLY HOT
Above 40 Dave turns into a nudist and lives in the refrigerator

And what do we do when it gets really hot? We eat rabbit! I was talking to a friend the other day and we decided to get a rabbit and cook it for dinner. So, after class a couple of days ago I went to the market to buy a rabbit. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn't expecting a fluffy little bunny that you would see in the pet store. But nonetheless, there he was, little bunny Foo Foo. So, I chopped up some vegetables and Foo Foo and voila! Dinner. I would tell you not to look at the picture if you're squeamish, but that wouldn't do you much good since the picture's at the top of the page and this sentence isn't.

A lot of folks are starting to head back to the States for the summer. I just had a really good friend take off last night, and another one is taking off tonight. This place is going to feel like a ghost town soon. Well, it's Cairo, so it probably will always feel crowded. But you know what I mean.

So, all in all . . . Life is good. A little warm for my tastes, but good.

AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Sniffle . . .

The turtles are dead! Not sure what happened. I went to feed them tonight and they didn't budge a bit. I know this sounds callous, but this was probably the best time for them to go. Now I don't have to worry about taking them when I move. But . . . bummer . . . I liked those guys.

How exactly does one go about burying a turtle in Egypt? I've got to figure that out pretty soon before they start stinking up the flat.

Bikya . . .

Hey guys. Sorry for the long absence. Here's a story from this last week . . .

So, we have some guys here who ride around the city with carts on the front of their bikes. They're called "robobikya" men. Basically, they will take anything that you don't want that they think they can fix and sell to someone else. They'll take stuff that seems absolutely worthless as long as they think they can make some money off of it. They ride around at all hours of the day and night, and are usually yelling the word "bikya" at the top of their lungs. After a while you get used to them. Anyway, a couple of days ago I was walking to class in the morning. I had just gotten up, and wasn't really awake yet. I heard "bikya," so I looked up to look for the robobikya guy. The only person I could see on the street was a lady pushing a baby in a stroller. The robobikya guy was around the corner, so I could hear him but not see him. In my confused morning state, it took me a minute to figure out what was going on. I kept trying to reconcile the lady pushing the baby with "bikya." My first thought was, "Oh my God, did someone just sell their child?" Not sure if it seems funny now, but it was hilarious when it happened!

Sand and rivers (of sand)

Hey guys.

So, we had a sandstorm yesterday. I like sandstorms here. The whole world feels heavier somehow. It's kind of like fog that you can brush off. Not a good day to hang my laundry out on the line though.

I got a package from some friends back home today. It was such a welcome surprise. They'd told me that they were sending something, but I completely forgot about it. It was kind of like Christmas. Magazines, skittles, a key-chain, and best of all, a video of all my friends from back home. I think I've already watched it at least three times. There's something about familiar places and voices to make you feel loved and valuable. It was like a taste of home.

I don't know if you've ever stepped into a river and stood in it for a while. In the beginning, you're really aware of the current and the feel of the water against your legs. But after a while, you just get used to it. I feel kind of like that right now. When I first got here, everything was so different and I felt like I was aware of everything. But enough time's gone by now that I feel like I'm kind of getting numb to a lot of stuff. It comes in really handy in some cases, but it's a little surreal at other times. I find that sometimes I just feel a little numb to life. Just kind of going through the motions in a semi-somnolent state of existence.

I bought some new jeans last week and had to retire some old ones. Too many holes to be decent any more. But I decided to try and keep them useful for a little bit longer. I cut out all of the pockets, and am sewing them all together to make a big "pocket bag." I'm sure it'll look a little strange when it's done, but I'm betting it'll be utilitarian too. Okay, maybe it'll look strange. I'll post a picture of it when I finish it.

Okay, that's it for now . . .