May 30: Yay Cairo!

That's a change, isn't it?

I got up early this morning and walked to class by myself, because Amelia moved into her apartment already. I made it all the way there and only four guys heckled me. Apparently I'm not that pretty today...*sigh*.

Class went well. In ECA we learned the numbers to 100 and took a quiz on the numbers to 20 (with the Arabic numerals). I'm pretty sure I got them all right.

During the 30 minute break between my two classes, I booked myself on the excursion trip to Giza Saturday. It was 260 pounds, so around 50 bucks. It also includes a guide, bus, food, and the fact that I don't have to think about what to say in Arabic to not get lost. That also means...really cool pictures of the pyramids coming on Saturday night:)

In MSA we worked on combining letters and vowels into words. That took two and a half hours. My brain is hurting from MSA. Ahmed is really intense, and I'm starting to wonder if he speaks English at all. I've never heard him say anything other than "yes" or "no" in class. In any case, he's a great teacher.

After class I walked back to the hotel and passed out for a few hours. For some reason jet lag has been hitting me randomly. Around four I had to brave the taxis alone, because I had to go get my traveller's checks cashed (first month's rent is due tomorrow). On a side note, I thought that traveller's checks would be a good thing, as it turns out...not so much. They are a huge pain to deal with, because no one takes them. However, I do get a 5.6 exchange rate to Egyptian pounds. I had to explain to the driver that I needed to go to Zamalek (a different burrow of Cairo) and then tried to explain the street name, which sounded so much like "Al-Jazeera" that he thought I wanted to see the TV station. Apparently "Marriott" is all tourists tell the cab drivers most of the time, so I eventually reverted to that method. We got there, even in the middle of afternoon traffic. Yeah, If you think getting through a big city is bad, try it when the only traffic regulations are these randomly placed cops that divert traffic when they feel like it needs to be. It's like some sort of psychotic car herd.

I changed my checks over and found a taxi to take me back to Mohandseen. I made it back to the hotel, and now I'm kickin' back with my cheap roomservice food and drinking 7up (because Pepsi has a distribution center here). I took a picture of the Marriott, and I'm going to add them to the journal entry when Sid, Phillip, Amelia, and I first went to the Marriott on Saturday.

I'm moving out of my hotel room tomorrow morning really early, so I'm going to put up a couple pictures of my room here, since I've spent almost five days in the same room.

I finished packing up all my things, and now all I have to do is check-out tomorrow morning, and explain to the taxi driver that I need to be taken only a few blocks down the street. This ought to be fun...