June 3: Panicked Phone Call from Mom

Woke up at 10:30 because Meg, Anna, and I all had to go to the grocery store to get real food. The Metro Market is a half hour walk down Ahmed Orabi, and none of us wanted to walk that far when we can pay 3 pounds for a taxi there. I picked up a lot of food. Stuff for making my own meals, and of course, a little junk food for fun…they had Snickers bars for cheap...

After we got back from the supermarket, Anna and I took a taxi to el-Zamelek to Diwan, an English bookstore. I told the driver how to get from Mohandseen to el-Zamelek all by myself and all in Arabic. I was so happy about that. I actually have learned a lot in the first week that I have been here. I picked up The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (if you know me way too well…you’ll know why…), a map book of Cairo, and an elementary school book of words in Arabic, so I can work on my reading. Yeah…with French I knew a little more than kindergarteners, at least I could write already. Here…not so much. I’m starting from the beginning.

On the way back we stopped at a smaller market and picked up a few things for cheaper than the supermarket then walked to where we could buy bottled water for cheap. Anna and I got six 2 liter bottles for 10.5 pounds = $1.80. I keep converting things because I still can’t believe how cheap it is to live here.

We took an overpriced taxi the three blocks back to the house and unpacked everything. I need internet…badly…

Mom just called…apparently when I dropped off the face of the earth a few days ago…everyone thought so too. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get this fixed yet. I’m talking with the landlady today about getting internet/wireless/ANYTHING in the apartment or at least being able to connect to the wireless in the café downstairs. This is just not going to work.

I took a taxi to the hotel that I stayed at for a few days before I moved (the last place I had reliable internet) and got on the internet in the café. I’m uploading all this, but I don’t know when I’ll be able to update it, because it’s a 15 minute walk to the closest internet, if the café still isn’t working. I’ll keep out of trouble in the meantime, I promise. Hopefully this will get sorted soon. I just realized in the past few days how dependent I am on the internet, especially here…

I got back to the apartment, again only using Arabic. I’m getting a lot better at this, and it’s only been a week… The whole immersion thing really makes you learn faster.

The cable, which had been broken since we moved in, finally got fixed, so I got to watch the Daily Show, although it was from last week. I sorted out my Arabic notes, so that I could study a little bit, then worked on writing my name in Arabic. Tomorrow in ECA we are going to connect the letters so that we have the proper translation of our names, in case we need to sign them or something. I’m really bored, because there isn’t any internet, and I have nothing else to do. Tomorrow afternoon, Amelia and I are going to go to a palace and maybe a museum. Hopefully we’ll get the internet sorted out here soon…that way I’ll be able to talk to people again. I’m feeling really disconnected and lonely again. I’m sure it’s because I don’t have a way to see what’s happening with everyone else…or talk…or just know how things are going…I hate this.

Sid sent me a text at 10 pm and I went down to Tasters to have a pop with David and him. There is an older lady at ILI named Jill that talks incessantly…we say she doesn’t have an “off” button, and she found Sid and David before I got down there. We sat through our entire meal with her talking the whole time, when I just wanted to chat with Sid and David. That sucked.

Anyway, after Jill left, the guys came up to see the apartment. We had to sneak past the bewep (doorman) because Sid thought it would look bad if he saw me sneaking two men up to my room late at night. Our bewep is a very pious Muslim, so I can understand the concern, although the girls that lived in the apartment before us were party girls…so I must seem dead boring after all that.

Meg started talking to both of them once we got back to the apartment, so again…still didn’t get to say much to the guys, since the two older women at ILI have talked their ears off already. AGH. They left after a bit, and now I think I’m going to collapse in the bed, because I am le tired.