The night before we decided we should leave our hostel at Eight so that we could get to the bus stop by 8:30 and have some cushion. I woke up at 7:45 giving myself the more than enough time to get ready by eight. While I’m getting ready Evan headed down to grab a quick bite of food. A few minutes later he runs back in the room telling me that apparently we had only paid until the night before… oops. As a result we both had to pay for the extra night and needed to remove our bags from the room before we left for orientation. Luckily, we had become good friends with the manager, Mahmoud, and he let us keep our bags in their storage room while we went to orientation.
So we left a bit late but got out with little incident. We got to the bus stop and jumped on one of the 5 waiting busses. After about fifteen minutes of waiting the bus departed and we were on our way to campus. I don’t believe I’ve mentioned it yet but these busses are nice. They are charter busses with comfy seats and AC. Allot nicer than the city busses and make me feel a bit pampered. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised considering the fact I’m going to an American University..
Anyways we get to campus and join up with some acquaintances of ours who we knew were also part of ALI. We spent the next fifteen minutes looking for the Mary Cross Hall which they told us was in the University center. Well it turns out that ALI is not very good with maps because it is in the upper campus in an entirely different building.
We finally find it and take our seats in a small auditorium style classroom. We then sat through five hours of lectures from ALI. It was boring for the most part, however we did get free lunch out of it and I did get to meet more people from ALI and expand my social network at AUC. The lectures where your typical what to expect in Cairo and AUC. We did get some useful info regarding student visas and found out about free trips that are offered as part of the university. Some of the trips sound pretty fun and I would definitely like to see some of the sights offered (Luxor, Aswan, Alexandria).
We also found out or placement for classes. I was placed in Intermediate in colloquial which is where I wanted to be but was placed lower in formal… I this is mostly due to the fact I had an hour to take the three hour placement test…. However, they told us we can move if we feel improperly placed so I’ll be looking into that when I go into class on Sunday.
Orientation ended but the next bus wasn’t scheduled to leave for another 30 minutes. So we stayed to talk with a few of our classmates and exchange phone numbers. The bus finally arrived and we were on our way back downtown.
We arrived and walked back to the area of our hostel. We killed some time on the streets until it was time for fattar. We ate at the fool place but decided (at the waiters suggestion) to try something new. We got the fish dish which was being served that night. It was a deep fried white fish served with rice. Both were well seasoned and delicious. We still had another half hour to kill until we could move into our new place so we stopped to get juice and tea.
Eventually we made our way back to the hostel and picked up our bags. From there we took a taxi to our new apartment. We arrived and where helped in by the boab (door keeper who is hired by most apartment owners). Our boab is a 60 or 70 year old lady who insisted on taking some of our heaviest bags and carrying them on her head. I thought she was going to snap in half.
We made it to the apartment and went in. We signed the contracts after checking all the appliances. We then proceeded to unpack. It’s really weird to have all your belongings in two duffel bags and I’m glad to finally be unpacked.
We got a call from Evan’s friend from Natalie who told us that some students from the Zamalek dorms where going to a café on top of the Nile Hotel. We decided it would be fun and a great way to meet some new people. We took a cab over and got thoroughly lost. Apparently nobody actually knows where the Nile hotel is. After much looking we found it and went to the roof. We found Natalie with a few of her friends and started talking. We ordered some beers and enjoyed the awesome view of the city and the Nile from on top the hotel. Over the next few hours more and more students started to congregate and eventually there was a group of 20-30 of us talking and hanging out.
It was really fun and I got to meet allot of cool people. One of which was a guy named Max who stayed in Lebanon for the summer. He is from Colorado and had allot of useful insight about the area after being here for an extended time. He had also spent a few weeks living with some Bedouins which produced some great stories. We stayed until the café closed and headed down to go home. Before we could leave we were told that a few people were going back to their apartment to hang out and we decided to join.
Turns out the guys we were heading back with were from the Naval Academy and here studying Arabic on the Naval Academies dime. The Naval Academy also was paying at stipend for their living expenses. Because of that they had an awesome place. It was a humongous three bedroom apartment shared between two guys. There was a pretty sizable crowd at the apartment and we mingled for awhile. I actually met a guy who plays for Catholic Justice (The Georgetown ultimate Frisbee team). He has been playing with a group of guys that play ultimate around Cairo. I had heard of the group but had been unable to get in contact with them. I exchanged numbers with him (Nick) and am looking forward to playing some ultimate in Egypt.
After awhile Evan and I decided to head for home. We took a cab and arrived at around 4:30. I then called Sara and gave her the skype tour of the place. Went to bed at 6.
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