This is going to be a long one...

So this week was interesting, and the last 24 hours have been packed with stuff. I'm going to keep the school stuff out, but it still leaves a lot. I'll try to keep it less detailed, but its going to be long no matter what.

The little things first. I did my first load of laundry this week, which was a blast (not). We have a washing machine in our bathroom that is pretty tiny, but it gets the job done if you have a few items. The problem is that i don't necessarily trust the water here...as you shouldn't...so I feel like washing my clothes in it is kind of backwards logic. The flip side of that coin is that once the clothes are clean, we have to hang them outside to dry. My roommate and I both have lines outside of our windows in order to hang our clothes, but our apartment is on the sixth floor so its a little nerve wracking. I'm pretty sure that at some point, I will drop clothes down there and never see them again. I didn't this time, thankfully, but the air is so full of dust, sand and whatever that it probably makes them just as dirty as when they were being washed in the first place. Its a problematic cycle. But then again, I never really feel too clean in general, dirt is everywhere. Its just a state I'll have to live with until I leave. The upside is that I think everyone feels the same way.

Thursday night (the weekend here is Friday and Saturday, I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before), I went to a bar downtown Cairo called Mojitos. Bars are not really prevalent in Egypt. Its against Islamic beliefs to drink alcohol, so most resturants don't sell it. I went to Chili's with Erin and they had 'margarita' on the menu, but they really just meant 'slushie'. Any way, I went to this bar for the first time, but its where most of the girls go on the weekend. Its at the top of the Hilton, and there is another bar at the bottom of the Hilton called Latex, which just is weird. I think they pick English words that they think sound cool, but don't really know what they mean. The signs outside of all of the bars say you have to be over 21 to get in, but they don't check IDs at all. We asked a guy there (who happened to be 18 and IN the bar), and he said that its really more about the IDEA of not letting people in, but they generally don't care. The bar seems to operate on the 'idea' of rules. It doesn't have a closing time, just whenever the manager feels like closing is the time they start kicking people out. But even then, people hang around. This is standard in Egypt. I'm pretty sure people just do what they want and ignore you if you say something different. Also at the bar, their alcohol choices are limited. I asked for a Jack Daniels and Coke and the waiter almost bit my head off. They didn't have Jack, they had Captain. The had limited liquors and like three beers, the only one recognizable being Heineken. I'm going to be drying out a bit here I suppose, but I guess the trade is worth it.

This morning, Erin, Anna (an American teacher at my school) and I went to church at Maadi Community Church, which is a non-denominational Christian worship space that caters to foreigners. Website is here: http://www.maadichurch.net/Home/tabid/77/Default.aspx if you want to check it out more. It was interesting, and obviously nothing like a Catholic Mass. But it was comforting, and felt more like a group bible study than anything else. It was all in English, and half of the worship were upbeat songs that we would or have sung at LifeTeen Mass at St. Elizabeth Seton at home. Everyone gets into it, people around us were raising their hands and doing motions along with people on the stage. It was like being at YLC (Youth leadership conference directed at teens for those of you that don't know). I think all of us had a good time. At the end, it was odd being able to understand all of the conversations going on around us. In the classroom, the kids speak in Arabic to each other so I'm use to tuning them out since there is no point to listening. But here, everyone spoke English. It was something that just seemed to remind me how adapted I've gotten to this environment. We met up with Anna's roommate Shana (another teacher from America) for lunch and got some breakfast type foods at a deli nearby.

More food that is impossible to find:
Pancakes (though Erin and I heard rumors of a place that has them. We're trying tomorrow)
French Toast
Bacon - I didn't know this, but Egyptians don't eat pigs. There are no pork products whatsoever. They do have beef bacon, but its just strange.

Later in the day, Erin, Shana, Debbie (another girl from the school, she's from Scotland) and I went to Giza to see the pyramids and ride camels. It was pretty amazing. Debbie has been there before, so she knew of a stable we could rent the camels from that wouldn't rip us off. We arrived there after about a half hour cab ride, and proceeded to wander a bit while Debbie tried to remember where the stables where. There are so many stables in the area, but most of them rip of tourists. I have been told before that you shouldn't go to the pyramids without an Egyptian man, because otherwise they'll charge you ridiculous prices. One girl went with a local guy she was dating and they charged them 40 pounds for the ride, but said if she came by herself, they would have charge up to 200 Euros. Its crazy. We knew Debbie's stable would charge us a good price...if only we could find it. Fortunately, we happened to run into her contact while we were wandering around and he took us to the barn. The pyramids themselves were closed by this time, but we rode up next to them in the desert and took picture in the vicinity of them. And we rode camels to do it. The scariest part of riding a camel is the fact it needs to be sitting in order for you to get on or off. When it stands or sits down, its terrifying. Well, to me at least, but I'm pretty sure I heard yelps from the other girls as well. We had two boys leading our camels, and two men from the stables rode up with us to explain things we saw and I'm assuming to keep us safe. They were pretty funny, and took some great picture for us. We also saw a lot of dead horse and camels on our travel, which we turned into a game. Ten points for camel or horse, five for a dog, three for a cat and none for a donkey because that is just sad (these are the rules that were explained to me, almost verbatim). The point totals ended up being like 30-40-30-53 or something like that. Mostly horses, which is sad at first but they aren't fresh. Its mostly skeletons or looks fake, so its not as sad. People were whizzing by us on four wheelers and dune buggies but most people were on horses, speeding up the sand. It was pretty cool to see. The ride itself was all about the scenery and photo ops, of which I took advantage of. It was the perfect day, not too hot and not too cold. The worst part was all the dust, everywhere. My hair felt so grimy afterwards.
On our way back to the stable, we went through the town and passed this small field and/or play area. There was a car parked with its doors wide opened, and about four guys on horses near it. The car was blasting music, and the horses were actually dancing. Seriously one of the oddest things I have ever seen, but also really fun. It was too dark to take a video or picture, but the horses looked like they were having a blast. We saw two more guys on the way back as well dancing on their horses, but the car with the music just added to the strangeness of that. Our guides said that it isn't that odd, sometimes they have parties where people bring their horses to dance. There are even horse dancing competitions, which they had pictures of in the stable. I took picture of those, but they don't even begin to illustrate the randomness that horse dancing looks like.
After we were done and paid (40 pounds each with ten pound tip for everyone, so really 50 pounds each. Awesome), we went to get food at KFC. Don't judge. The KFC was directly across the street from the entrance to the "Light and Sound Show" that plays at the pyramids in 5 different languages, but it is like eighty pounds to get in. We sat on the third floor of the restaurant (very small floors, so three is more like one normal sized KFC at home. And there was a Pizza Hut on the second floor. ) and while we were sitting there, the show started. We figured out how to get on the roof, and were able to kind of watch some of the show and hear most of it. It was neat to see the Sphinx lit up, since we couldn't see that on our ride. We watched for a while, but it was hazy so we left. It was a long day, but fun!

Pictures are up on Flickr from the ride. I uploaded them in the same folder as the previous pictures, just keep clicking till they're new.

Miss you all! Go Bucks!