Cairo-Week 5: Highlights

Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 1:03pm

I have been busy studying a lot lately. There is a lot of vocabulary to look-up and memorize. I also have verb conjugations and grammar that I am kind of not up to task with. So, I really need to be studying so here are the highlights.

1. Early in the week, I realized it was the 30th day that I have been here and my visa needed to be renewed. I immediately took a 45 minute cab ride to the Department of Foreign Affairs. It is a busy place with no real lines. When I walked up to the counter the ladies were just talking and talking. I realized that I have to just start speaking because no one is going to ask me "Do you need anything?" It took no time to fill out the paperwork and I thought I would have been good to go but no I had to return the next morning to get the visa. The next morning the lady took my paperwork and put it with my passport and told me to come back in two hours. Thankfully, I had a feeling it wouldn't take that long so I went to get something to eat and was back in like 50 minutes. I went to the window the lady wasn't there but my passport and application were on top of the pile. I along with some others had to wait for the lady to come back (I think she was on a tea break). There were tons of other people standing around but apparently they couldn't help us. All-in-all the process was painless!

2. I have a new roommate! She is from France and speaks Arabic and French but no English. She is very nice although for obvious reasons we don't speak much. Unfortunately she is only here for two weeks and she will be going to stay with her brother who is coming to Egypt also. So, the rent will not be going down in a permanent way :(.

3. I want to try to go make Umrah in Makkah, Saudi Arabia during my March break I just need to figure out how to call the Saudi Embassy. Dialing land lines from cell phones is very tricky. You have to dial extra numbers and basically I have been guessing at what the prefix might be.

4. I want a private tutor. I am looking into getting that. I want one-on-one attention. I don't think I am speaking enough in class. The pace of the course is fine and I think we will have an exam soon. I hope we just don't have a final exam and that's it. I would like to get a feel of how the test may go first. I feel like there are not enough hours in the day for studying.

5. I had my first visitors over. Two of my Egyptian "sisters" came over. I stayed with them when I first got here. I bought way too much food for them. So, I forced them to take food home and found someone else who accepted the food. They hit off great with my new roommate. We all went shopping after dinner. I believe we (me and my new roomie) have a date to hang out with them next week. I say I believe because they were speaking in Arabic and I think that is what we concluded.

6. Last but no least, I had my first "accident". The ceiling fans in the apartment hang pretty low. I raised my hands over my head without even thinking. All I felt was pain and I fell to the floor and then in a split second I realized that my hand was hit by the ceiling fan. Then I told myself, "Look at your hand to see if your fingers are still there." I seriously thought there was a possibility that my fingers were chopped off. So my middle, ring, and "brownie" finger were hit. One finger was cut and bleeding, the other had an abrasion, and all three fingers were bruised and swollen. My little brownie finger is bruised so badly it looks like I put black henna on that finger. Now, I am extremely cognizant of what I am doing while I am standing up.

That's all folks!