Woke up today at 7:15. Was running late getting ready so took a taxi to the bus. Slept on the bus.
Today is the long day, we have all our Formal Arabic Classes followed by colloquial. Pretty much runs back to back from 9am till 2pm. Had all the formal classes then our short 20 minute break. Walked with Max and Collin to grab a drink. Ran into one of Max’s roommates who informed us that classes were canceled starting tomorrow. We were all shocked and quickly went back to find out if the news was true.
Apparently the rumors were true. Due to the swine flu scare all schools in the Cairo area are being closed until October 4th. This, they hope, will allow them to quarantine all sick kids so that it won’t be introduced into the busy university campuses. It seems kinda stupid to us… but whatever. Most of the people I have talked to have mixed feelings. We are spending allot of money to come here and learn the language, and now we are missing two weeks of instruction. However, it does offer some time to travel… Anyways finished class and headed to the bus to plan my newly acquired break.
Got home and did some reading. Evan and I had been talking about buying guitars here in Cairo so once he got home we left to find a guitar shop. We had heard there was a street where there are many music shops so we got on the metro and headed towards that part of town. After some searching we found the street and found 20 music shops all lined up. Cairo seems to be like that with many of the same business types being in the same area. Anyways we went in and out testing the quality and checking the price. It seemed that a decent guitar goes for 400-600 LE. Neither of us had that much cash on us so we decided to put it off for a few days.
We were near the downtown and decided to walk to our old hostel and get food around there. We went to the foul shop and ate there. It was as delicious as I remembered. Afterwards we walked to Tahriir Square and caught the metro home. I got home and watched some TV then studied.
Our friend, Ellen, turned 21 today so we went to go celebrate with her. A group of our friends rented a falooka and brought some beer on board to celebrate her 21st properly. It was a fun two hour falooka ride. There were about 30 of us just dancing and hanging out on the Nile.
After the falooka ride we went to Metro Towers, an apartment complex in Zamalek. Max was having some people over and we went up to hang out. It was a decently sized apartment party and we stayed for an hour. It’s really interesting being on Zamalek with other Americans. It has a very different feel than downtown or Garden City. The entire area surrounding the dorms is much more westernized and touristy. Nice to visit, but I’m glad I don’t live there.
Anyways we caught a taxi back. Called my family and talked for an hour. By this time it was getting to be afternoon in the states. That means that my parents and family were home. It was nice to talk to them and hearing about things at home. After talking with my family I called Sara and talked with her for awhile.
It was getting late so I called it a night and went to bed.
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