Surviving Arabic

Survival Arabic is impossible. Arabic is the hardest language I've ever attempted to learn. Even if I manage to get the pronunciation right, it's impossible to remember. Orientation started off with confusion, disorganization, and a lot of waiting in lines. After spending a whole day on campus, I managed to accomplish nothing except for collecting a free messenger bag of AUC goodies (yo-yo included) and learning that I am simply hopeless when it comes to learning Arabic. Priorities at the moment lay in getting my student ID, a bus pass, a school email address, and a student visa. It's a shame that the technology doesn't exist to get any of these things done before the international students arrive so they don't have to spend a week running around a campus finding remote rooms in maze-like buildings. Oh wait, it does... grrrr.

We had our first adventure out into the nightlife of Cairo last night with some other AU students and a couple new friends, only to end up at a Mariot because everything is closed for Ramadan. So much for local culture, but we have four months. Tonight, Emily and I went on a quest for a phone card and got to see a little bit more of the neighborhood. It's marvelous. We stopped into a nearby wood and silversmith shop. The old man who owns the shop was very amusing. We looked around at his beautiful work and I ended up purchasing a small camel figurine. He gave us scarab beads that are supposed to bring us luck, and wished us to find the men that are lucky enough to have us. He also asked us what we drank as babies to make us so pretty. I would like to mention that these compliments were post-purchase, so they must be sincere. These past few days, I have kind of fallen into a lull of trying to get nonsense done at AUC and attempting to deal with the 100+ daily heat by seeking out all air conditioned places. For all of those who told me otherwise, the heat isn't that dry.