June 2012
1 post
Final Thoughts Part 1
So I realize I’ve been kinda MIA on my Egypt blog. One of the reasons for this is because the internet in my apartment is really unreliable and when I go to cafes or campus to use their internet, I usually have homework to do. Another reason has been once I got behind on my blog, I felt like I would have to catch-up writing on my winter travels before I could write about current stuff. The...
March 2012
4 posts
Norge thoughts: Luxor Day 2 →
ahhnorge:
Saturday morning we had arranged, through our hotel, to take a hot air balloon ride at sunrise. That meant waking up around 5:00 am. So doing that, getting dressed, eating something and finally getting downstairs, a person from the balloon company was there to tell us that the police had said…
Norge thoughts: Luxor Day 1 →
ahhnorge:
We finally arrived at the train station around 8 am, found our driver for the hotel and had a 20-minute drive to the West Bank of the Nile. Luxor is divided by the Nile (as with probably every city in Egypt located on the Nile.) There is the West Bank and the East Bank. The East bank is more…
Norge thoughts: Alexandria →
n-hamm:
More reblogging :)
ahhnorge:
At Nora’s school she gets Tuesdays off as well and so we planned to go to Alexandria, on the Mediterranean coast. We were going to take a train there and back, all on the same day. The train, depending on the “type” takes 2 to 6 hours.
While waiting at the train station, having just missed…
Norge thoughts: Pyramids and Typical Cairo Stuff →
Haven’t updated this in a while. I have no real excuses, I’m just lazy. So I’m reblogging my sister’s blog from when she visited me a few weeks ago.
ahhnorge:
Saturday morning, while waiting for Nora’s Egyptian friends to wake up and greet the day, Nora and I walked around Zamalek, which is the island she lives on in the middle of the Nile. = I saw Moses’s river!!! We...
January 2012
7 posts
so I just wrote a lovely post about my last few days in Istanbul but then the internet died and Tumblr didn’t save it so now I’m off to bed
Summer?
I applied for and received an internship teaching English in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon for the month of July. I kinda want to take it but it only a one month thing. If it was in the beginning of summer, I could go back to Berkeley and take summer school or do something else with the rest of my summer. But its not and now I don’t know what to do. Also, Lebanon is supposedly...
Anonymous asked: Was there anything which surprised you about what you saw or experienced in Scandinavia?
Norway-Oslo
After Christmas, we went to Oslo to stay with distant relatives (my grandmother’s second cousin) and to explore Norway’s capital. On the first day we went to Vigeland Park, a sculpture park designed with various statues to show different phases of the human life cycle.
Afterwards, we took the Trikk (Oslo trolley system) back to downtown where we explored an old and still...
Norway-Enebakk
My sister Anna and I arrived at the Oslo airport on Dec. 22 and were met by my mother’s roommate from when she studied abroad in Norway many years ago. It made me wonder who I will stay in contact with after my study abroad year is over. Anyways, it as very kind of her and her family to allow us to spend Christmas with her family in Enebakk (a small farming community outside of...
December 2011
4 posts
Stockholm
I left Cairo on Sunday morning at 4 AM. I had kinda finished finals the day before and spent Saturday sleeping, packing, and saying goodbyes. There isn’t much to report about me leaving Cairo or my flight to Stockholm. Because of a layover in Istanbul my flight was broken up into 2 and 2.5 hours segments which didn’t really give me anytime for quality sleep. I arrived in Stockholm...
The Political Notebook: Can we all stop acting... →
thepoliticalnotebook:
I mean, really? Talking about the possible dangers of the political rise of the Muslim Brotherhood or the Salafists or the Ennahda Party (particularly when it comes to social freedoms) don’t have to involve saying things like “Are the sceptics who said that Arabs could not handle democracy—and…
Anonymous asked: How often are you covering your head (a scarf...) as a show of respect?
Tahrir & Elections
School has been getting increasingly busy as we near the end of the semester. The major non-school development since I last wrote has been the developments in Tahrir Square (called the 2nd revolution by many Egyptians) and the first round of elections.
Election posters went up a few weeks ago but that seemed to be the only bit of campaigning there was. Elections are super complicated and are...
November 2011
7 posts
FYI
I haven’t updated my blog in a while because I’ve been busy with following the news/school/thanksgiving/helping out where I can, but I am safe.
Nov. 18- Tahrir Sqare
Today I went to Tahrir Square for the biggest protests in Egypt since July, with estimates ranging from 40,000 up to 100,000 in attendance. The protest was hosted by a coalition of Islamists (Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis) and a few secular groups to protest against the SCAF (Supreme Council of Armed Forces). They demanded the SCAF steps down by April 2012 and allow for free and fair...
Musings so far
Last Tuesday, I was “invited” (i.e coerced on my day off) along with some other American students to participate in an information session for AUC students who are going to study abroad in the spring, primarily to US universities. The questions the students asked about the U.S. and the responses some of my fellow Americans answered (which I totally disagreed with) forced me to think...
Dahab
I am half-way through my Eid vacation which is a 4-day celebration known as the Fest of Sacrifice. It just so happened that Eid fell on Sunday through Wednesday this year meaning the only day of classes we have this week is Thursday. Naturally, most teachers have cancelled class on Thursday giving us a nearly 10-long vacation.
For the first half of the vacation, a group of ten or so people...
Anonymous asked: Do you wish you lived in a dorm on campus instead of having to take the long bus ride everyday?
October 2011
4 posts
Libyan Embassy
I haven’t updated my blog in a while because I have been busy with school. It’s midterm season and, combined with planning for the future, means the only free time I have is at odd hours for short amounts of time, so it’s hard to set away an afternoon for fun adventuring, especially since I need to work with other people’s schedules as well as my own. I have gone on a few...
Anonymous asked: Where are going for your next vacation?
Weekend trip to Bahariya Oasis & the Black and...
This past weekend (Oct. 6-8th) was a 3 day weekend, the equivalent Veteran’s day in memory of the Yom Kimpur/October War with Israel. I decided to get out of town since it is one of the only three day weekends we have this semester. Honestly, I really needed a break from the constant noise and stress of Cairo and school.
I decided to go on an all-inclusive trip to the Black and White...
Saqqara & Dashur
Last Tuesday, I went to Saqqara (the Step Pyramid) and Dashur (the Red and Bent Pyramids). Along with 3 other UC kids, I took the metro to the end of the line in Giza to save both time and money. From there, we negotiated a cab for the day to take us about a 45 minute drive to Saqqara, then another 20 minutes to Dashur, then back to Cairo.
This is Saqqara, also know as the Step Pyramid....
September 2011
13 posts
Reflections so far
I’ve been in Egypt over a month and tomorrow is the start of my 4th week at AUC. Because I am avoiding doing some reading for tomorrow, I thought I would be (semi) productive by writing a reflection on my experience thus far. One of the things that promoted me to think critically about the experience was an email from the study abroad counselor from Berkeley. A current Cal student who is...
Anonymous asked: Great photos. If this is your favorite class, do you have one you wish you weren't taking???
AUC strike: Students pull down American flag →
Commentary to come later
Also, for background: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/15/egyptian-student-protests-american-university-cairo
Revolution at AUC?
Above: AUC students protest tuition increases of 9% and poor working conditions.
On Sunday, the first day of the second week of school, AUC students joined with workers to protest the increase in tuition along with poor pay and working conditions for workers. The protest were tame but maybe I’m just used to Berkeley protests with riot police and helicopters being deployed. Students and...
Conference on Religion & Civil Society
On Saturday, I woke up bright and early to go to a conference on “The Role of Religion in Global Civil Society: Focus: Middle East and North Africa” hosted by some center at UCSB and held at the Old AUC campus at Tahrir square. Our study abroad professor had email us in July asking if we wanted to attend and I RSVP’d without really thinking about it until Friday night. I am so...
Friday's protest-sorry the post is so long
On Friday, September 9, there was a big protest in Cairo at Tahrir Square, which I attended and was peaceful as planned. However, most people probably read about the attacking of the Israeli embassy on the news in America instead.
Some background on the protest: most of the protests had been downscaled during Ramadan (the Holy month) and this one was supposed to be one of the bigger protests...
Anonymous asked: What do you do for meals. Do you eat at the university and at your place? Is the bus service crowded? boo
Egyptian Museum
After the Red Sea vacation, I really wanted to do something cultural in Cairo before classes started on Sunday. So on Friday, I went to the Egyptian Museum with some of the other UC kids. First, we conquered the metro. It was super easy to use, clean, and fast. There was a special compartment just for women that we used. Since it comes every two minutes, no one really gets stranded at a...
August 2011
9 posts
Ain Sukhna
On Monday, all the UC students boarded the bus to a vacation on the Red Sea. I had absolutely no expectations about the trip, since I didn’t even know it was partially included in the program fees until we got to Egypt. Bonus! I didn’t even know the exact location of the resort until we boarded this bus. We stayed at the Swiss Inn in Ain Sukhna, which is a resort town along the Red...
School hasn't started & I'm already behind on this...
The Pyramids come out of nowhere. All the UCs kids were in this big van driving through what looked like a slum and I suddenly see something outside the window. It’s the Great Pyramids. Crazy! I was so surprised how few tourists were there but according to some professor who blathered on at orientation, most tourism dollars in Egypt are not spent at the Pyramids/Cairo/the Nile but rather the...
Cairo during Ramadan
I arrived in Cairo during the middle of Ramadan, the holiest month for Muslims. It is linked to the lunar calendar so it starts 11 days earlier than the year before meaning it eventually occurs during every season. Muslims are supposed to fast (including no water) from sunrise to sunset, although truth be told most of them take it in better spirits than I could ever do and seem more upset about...
First Impressions
Although I have been in Cairo for a few days, I still feel like I have not really explored Cairo at all. Still no pyramids, still no bazarrs, still no Egyptian friends, still no food, only university related orientation stuff. I can’t even plan to do stuff because there is always some random orientation or planning outing I have to go to that they tell us about 2 hours before but then...
Jordan
On Tuesday morning, I left for Jordan for a few days before I start my year in Egypt. When checking into the airport at LAX, the American Airlines representative asked me for my worker’s permit or return ticket which I did not have. Then he stared at me and said he needed to look something up in the computer. I was so nervous something was wrong with my paperwork, even though...
The next year
In a few days, my plane will land in Cairo, Egypt. I don’t know how long I will be there or even all the classes I’m taking while there. The only thing I’m sure of is that I have to come back to finish up my 4th year at Cal so I’ll be back August 2012 at the latest. I really want to keep in contact with everyone back home (okay, not everyone…I’m using this as...
