Orientationalism (if you get that joke, you're a nerd, and I like you)

Marhaban everyone, sorry I’ve been gone so long. Between the internet outage, which is getting better and almost back to normal and the unfortunate fact that I came here to, you know, learn things, I’ve been busy with orientation sessions, then classes and homework.


A couple notes about cool parts of orientation. 1) we had this party in a palace from Muhammad Ali which was an awesome building. GORGEOUS. An interesting guy I intend to read more about, for more information check the following. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Ali_of_Egypt
I went on a big mass trip to Old Cairo, which was a mistake b/c tours in big groups are rarely fun. But this time we did get to go to a mosque that’s on the site of the oldest Mosque in Cairo, except it’s been destroyed by an earthquake a couple times. It was serene, and very interesting. I luckily had a scarf on, but some of the girls had to put on these big green things reminiscent of one of Mrs. Grupe’s stories. Also, our tour guide explained Islam in a nutshell, but said mistakenly that the Shi’ites worship Ali as a prophet, and girls tried to argue with him, but how do you go about telling someone about his own religion he thinks he knows more than a bunch of white girls. Yes, we’ve started calling ourselves “white people” in self-effacing way. Face it, we just kind of stick out. This is Sunni country.
Also, I blew out my hairdryer when, frustrated with the Internet, I absentmindedly stuck it directly into my power adaptor instead of my converter. Teresa and I went hunting for one, and we found an 85 pound model that served our needs. Trust me, when you pay 17 bucks for a made-in-China hair dryer, you get what you pay for. Also, I successfully bargained them down to 160 total for the two of us. In Cairo, almost anything is negotiable.
Alright, more soon.



Hair dryer adventures!