June 12: David and Sid's Gold Apartment

Whew...long day.

I woke up this morning at around 7, and went to class.

In ECA we worked on verbs. If I thought the stuff before was bad, this is worse. Trying to understand Arabic verbs is really complicated.

In MSA we started learning how to tell time. What's that you say? I already learned how to tell time last week? Yes...I did...in ECA. It's COMPLETELY different in MSA. Yeah...my brain = fried. After class David and I went to eat at the Fol restaurant across from his apartment. Fol is sort of like this bean substance that they put in pitas. It tastes sort of like a burrito...except there are vegetables in it...and it tastes better. It also gets everywhere, always and adventure.

After that I got to see David and Sid's apartment. It made me laugh because all the furniture was painted gold, and it looked like a little old lady's tea parlor. But as far as apartments go, it's pretty big for two guys. I dumped off my stuff, and we took a taxi to Medan Tehrir (downtown) to the American University in Cairo. David and I went to a little stationary store to get note cards and pens and such. There isn't a big enough place in Mohandseen that we have found, so we had to traipse to a different burrow. After that we went to the AUC bookstore to get some English books. I bought another Dan Brown book, Deception Point, and a pocket almeya guide (Egyptian Colloquial Arabic). It's all transliteration, so it's not going to help as far as reading and writing Arabic, but it will help me explain stuff.

After that we went to a little coffee shop nearby and had pop and coffee(I also bought a slice of cheesecake to split, because we were both thought that was a BRILLIANT idea...and it was...omg cheesecake...) We talked about politics in the Middle East, and how there is probably some sort of huge communication gap in diplomacy, because of the difference between the educational systems in the West versus the East. I decided that David needed to write a book.

After pop and coffee we went back to Mohandseen and I picked up my books from his apartment, to head back to meet Nathan in Tasters. Nathan needed to upload his pictures to Facebook so that he could free up space on his camera. And since I'm one of the few people with a laptop and wireless... Nathan worked on the computer while I started making my flash cards for ECA. There are seriously going to be several hundred of these eventually...*sigh* I've already made ones for: numbers, currency, days of the week, floors in buildings, directions for taxi drivers, and now I'm working on place names. I might be a third of the way through what I've learned so far, and I think I've made about 500 cards. I'll be lucky if I remember how to speak English after all this...

Oh, and I haven't even started on the flash cards for MSA...the ones I have to write all in Arabic. I should take a picture of my handwriting in Arabic. It makes me happy. Ahmed doesn't correct my letters anymore because they look right:)

After Nathan left I had diner and now I think I'm going to talk online, and keep making flash cards. Maybe I'll get them all done tonight...maybe.