Rolled out of bed at 7:15 and went through the normal song and dance. Took the metro to the bus and the bus to school.
On Fridays the media class typically listens to radio broadcasts and answers questions about them. Usually three or four of them are done in class and are assigned two more for homework. It’s one thing to read articles but listening to the accents makes it hard and the speed at which reporters speaks makes it even harder… However, it is a useful skill to develop.
After media we went over the last part of chapter four in MSA. This is in preparation to work on chapter five next week. We are going pretty quick, but at least we are finally making some progress.
Had lunch with Max and Ben. Afterwards, Ben and I walked to colloquial. Had our typical discussions in colloquial. This past week we have been practicing the more formal way of address (hadritik/hadritak). Apparently Americans have a bad reputation for being disrespectful because they don’t use this with elders etc. It’s unfortunate that this isn’t taught earlier. Either way I plan on using it more in conversation.
After class I made my way over to the track and did my last air alert workout for the week. It’s amazing how tired jumping can make you.
Took the bus home and took a quick nap. Called around and apparently none of the Americans were going to ultimate tonight… the competition only seems to be good when the Americans show up. On top of this Nick still had my cleats, so I guess I’m not going.
Earlier Ben had invited me to a big party that he and some others were organizing on a 100 person falooka. It sounded like it was going to be pretty fun, but I decided that my time would be better spent practicing my Arabic downtown.
Evan and I decided to head downtown and see what we could find going on over there. We got dinner at a shwarma shop and hung out around Tahriir Square. Evan stopped into a local internet café to use skype and I went into a few stores looking to buy a new pair of jeans. I ended up finding a pretty trendy jean shop and bought a pair for just over thirty dollars… and they were tailored for an extra one dollar. The guys working in the shop were really nice too. I stayed and talked with them for almost half an hour.
Eventually Evan and I met up and headed towards our old hostel to look for familiar faces. We stopped off at the coffee shop where we met Saeed and chatted with the waiters we knew. One of the waiters wanted to introduce us to a friend… it turns out his friend is brigadier general of the Egyptian Army.
General Saeed was a communications engineer in the army and had traveled to nearly every country in the world. It was crazy talking to him about his travels. He was fluent in English and spoke bits and pieces of many other languages. It was probably some of the coolest conversations I have had in Arabic. It was really cool because I got to practice allot of the vocab I had learned in Media class (first time I got to use it practically).
Half way through the conversation Evan disappeared with the waiter… half an hour later I finished the conversation with Saeed and fifteen minutes later there was no sign of Evan… I decided to walk home. Got some Ice Cream at a sweet shop and casually walked through downtown, stopping to browse and chat. It was a real enjoyable evening.
Arrived just after midnight and watched part of Crimson Tide. Afterwards I called Sara and went to bed.
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