six days, six airports

So, the week before last, I went to America and back, by way of an impromptu overnight stay in Europe. I've been asked a million times since by my friends here in Cairo what it was like to be back in the States, and I always answer (truthfully) that I almost wish I hadn't gone, because it makes it so hard to be back here. Don't get me wrong; I have loved my experience here and will be especially sad to say goodbye to all my friends at the end of this month. But being in America and seeing my family was amazing, and as I battled my way through four different airports on the way back to Cairo, all I wanted was to go home to Atlanta. This wasn't helped by the fact that I borrowed my Canadian friend's copy of Gone with the Wind to read on the plane. I get something new out of that book every time I read it (I've been rereading it pretty frequently since second grade), but this is the first time it's ever made me homesick. After the close quarters and desert landscape of Egypt, I can't think of anything more beautiful than the red hills and magnolias of Georgia.

I left Egypt early on a Wednesday morning and connected through JFK in New York on my way to Reagan in D.C. There really is no better feeling than stepping off the plane into your home country! The airport was pretty deserted, since it was about 7 am, and the customs guy was really sweet (although his Knight Rider jokes about my last name were a little dated). To breathe clean air, be surrounded by diversity, and see actual traffic lights outside the airport windows was better than I can describe. I actually made a list of the places I wanted to make sure to eat and things I wanted to make sure to buy, so that I could get the most out of my four days stateside. I had my first Diet Cokes on the Delta flight I took out of Cairo; I think the flight attendant was a little shocked at how much I could drink in one sitting. Clearly, he didn't understand what it's like for a Diet Coke addict to go four months without a taste. Starbucks in JFK was next (we have Starbucks in Cairo, but it's just not the same). I spent my first afternoon in D.C. studying in a Panera Bread, which I've missed so much. Panera has been a staple for me ever since it was my friends' main bus-stop hangout in seventh grade, and it's been really hard to go without it for so long. Of course, some of the places I miss the most are unique to Atlanta and South Carolina: Taco Mac, Fox Brothers, Figo, Los Loros, Willy's, Tsunami, and, of course, Groucho's! I'll have to wait until June to get my fix of those. (Something I also miss and which most of my friends in Egypt have never heard of: Publix. And I won't have it this summer in D.C. either :( )

When I arrived at my hotel, the Westin in Arlington, the power was out, so I wasn't able to check in for over an hour. After 16+ hours of flying and waiting around, I was pretty out of it; all I wanted to do was pass out. I proceeded to do that in the amazing bed in my room (Westin beds are probably the most comfortable), although anything probably would have felt amazing compared to the mattress pad and wooden slats I sleep on in Cairo. I woke up to find that my interview program had accidentally assigned me a male roommate. Awkward! He said that this happens to him a lot, since his Polish first name apparently sounds feminine to many people. They quickly fixed the mistake, but he was really cool and I'm glad I got to meet him anyway. My dad's family is Polish, but he was the first person I've ever met who was fluent in the language.

Just walking around the Ballston area made for a great deal of culture shock. Somehow, I wasn't prepared to see anyone wearing shorts or tank tops; on the other hand, it was really comforting to hear everyone around me speaking English, and to not be the only blonde person in the vicinity. I was also excited to get to familiarize myself with D.C. in preparation for this summer. I rode the Washington Metro at least four or five times while I was there. It might be ten times more expensive than the Cairo underground, but it's worth it for the air conditioning, plentiful seats, electronic notification of train arrival times, and lack of molestation. Once my parents made it to Arlington on Thursday morning, we started exploring the city. I've been to D.C. twice or three times before, but it's mostly been in the context of college visits, so there wasn't much opportunity for me to see the sights. I feel like I could fill up all of my free time this summer just visiting the museums!

With my mom at the Washington Monument!

After my interview on Friday (which, sadly, I'm not allowed to write about here), my parents and I went to dinner at an amazing tapas place called Jaleo in downtown D.C. I was really excited to get to see my uncle Carl, who is finishing up his residency in Baltimore and just got back from working in an eye clinic in India last month! Also joining us was my aunt Liza, whom I'll be staying with this summer in D.C.

I spent my last afternoon in America making sure I had gotten all of the necessaries I had promised to bring back for my friends in Cairo. People had requested everything from eye drops to organic hair gel, and I successfully filled all of their orders! I was lucky to be able to eat my last meal before heading to the airport at my cousins Katie and Jerry's house in Oakton, Virginia. It was also my great-aunt and -uncle Olga and Doug's 55th wedding anniversary! Sadly, everything went downhill from there: a new plume of ash from the volcano in Iceland delayed my flight to Paris, meaning that I missed my connection to Cairo the next day. I was first given a new connection to Cairo through Frankfurt, but when I tried to board that flight five hours later, Air France officials told me I couldn't because, since it had also been delayed, I might again miss my connection. So I ended up staying overnight in Paris, but had to be back at Charles de Gaulle early enough that I wasn't even able to sightsee. My new connection in Prague was successful, and I finally got to Cairo two and a half days after I left D.C.

Since returning, I've been busy with two unpleasant activities: finals and saying goodbye. There are a lot of study abroad students who have already flown back to the U.S., finishing their finals early, and many more will be leaving this coming weekend, after finals are finished. (My last one is on Thursday!) There are a brave few of us who scheduled our flights for May 29 and 30, a good nine days after the end of school. I had planned to travel during that time, but it looks like I'll be staying in Cairo instead. I still have to do most of my souvenir shopping, so if you have any special requests, let me know!

supplemental reading!

Also, if anyone is interested in learning more about sexual harassment in the Middle East (in Egypt in particular) and how it relates to veiling and the hijab tradition, this is an extremely interesting and (in my experience) accurate article. It's from August 2008, but in the last two years, the trend toward increasing conservativism in the Middle East has only accelerated, especially in Egypt. Naively, I thought I understood the gender dynamic in the Muslim world before visiting simply because I had studied it and had Muslim friends. But there's nothing like riding the gender-segregated subway deep into Cairo to make you reevaluate everything you thought you knew about the way that men and women interact here (and consequently, the way women interact with each other). The article is here: In Egypt, Some Women Say That Veils Increase Harassment (Washington Post).

Some of you might also be interested to know that Cairo is planning to introduce pink taxis driven by women, for women in the coming months. I was excited to hear about that at first; friends of mine have been harassed and even molested by cab drivers here, and the few times that I've had to ride in a taxi by myself, I've felt uncomfortable. But introducing women-only taxis to complement the women-only subway cars is just treating the symptoms of the wild inequalities and injustices in this society. I would much prefer to see the city's authorities working to make public transportation safe for all people, regardless of gender.

did you make it to the milky way to see the lights all faded?

I think I can safely say that all of the trials and tribulations I've experienced in Egypt are completely validated by the sheer beauty of the night sky in the desert. I know I already gushed about it after I camped in the Sahara, but climbing Mount Sinai this past weekend was both just as amazing and somehow better. We were not only stargazing, but climbing ever higher up an ancient mountain, into those stars. It was pitch-dark, but for a few bobbing flashlights from hikers outside our group; we felt our way along the path, concentrating on putting one foot in front of another, until we emerged out onto a ledge about two hours up the mountain. There it was: the Milky Way. The light pollution is so bad at home (and, of course, in Cairo) that I can't remember if I've ever even seen it naturally in the U.S. But it was unmistakable here, a smoky ribbon of nebula twisting across the sky. Everything on the mountain-- us, the camels, the myriad other hikers all vying to reach the summit before sunrise-- was dark and faceless in the light of the brilliant stars and the waxing moon. Sinai wasn't easy, but it was absolutely worth it.

My traveling companions (three Matts, Zak, Laura, and Ryan) and I weren't in the best shape to be climbing a mountain that night. We had taken an overnight bus to Dahab, a little backpacker-friendly town on the Sinai peninsula in the Red Sea, on Thursday night (this was a quasi-five-day weekend because Sunday, April 25, was Sinai Liberation Day, the anniversary of Israel's return of the Sinai to Egypt in 1982), and had only gotten a few hours of napping in that day before striking out for the mountain. Dahab was too amazing for us to stay asleep all day. Let me say that if Sharm el-Sheikh was exactly what an Egyptian beach town shouldn't be, Dahab is everything it should. It's small enough that we constantly saw all of our other friends from AUC who were visiting, but big enough to have lots of options for dining and having fun. It's all situated directly on the water; you can see Saudi Arabia right across the Sea!

View from the Corniche in Dahab!

So, we spent the day hanging out in the sun and playing with the precious family of kittens who lived at one of our favorite restaurants there. We had fun, but didn't exactly rest or warm up for the three-hour climb to come later. Our convoy left our hotel (Seven Heaven hostel-- it was really nice, considering it was only $8 USD/night, if you're planning a trip to Dahab soon!) around 11 pm, and when we got to the base of Mount Sinai (where St. Catherine monastery is located) at 1 am, it was very, very cold. I was excited to be able to use my Marmot parka again (second time all trip, haha). But not 20 minutes after we started climbing, we all started to shed layers.

Kitten family :)

The first two-thirds of the Sinai climb are relatively easy; the incline is gentle, but problems arise if (like us) you forgo flashlights to try to get an authentic experience of climbing under moonlight. The paths are so loose and rocky that you are liable to fall or trip often if you can't see what you're doing. I advise you to bring a flashlight if you climb it, and a walking stick if you have any joint issues (even feet or ankles). Our guide wasn't too helpful; I hear that many other people's guides weren't either. However, he did alert us when we reached the most difficult part of the climb: you spend the last 30 minutes or so on a very rocky, very dangerous Lord of the Rings-style "stairway" (I use that term loosely, as it was more like a jagged, life-threatening pile of boulders). Thankfully, we couldn't see quite how vicious the "stairs" were, so we hoofed our way up and made it to the summit about 45 minutes before sunrise.

The stairs (from below in the morning, after our descent)

Laura and me at the summit at sunrise!

It was very nice, if a little surreal; the peak was packed, and many of the people were singing Romanian hymns as the sun rose. I felt a little sad because I was too cold and tired (going on 48 hours without legitimate sleep) to really enjoy the sunrise. We rented blankets and mattresses, which were worth the $6 USD or so we each spent, because it was once again freezing cold at the summit. We picked our way back down the stairs of doom in the sunlight, then skidded back down the main, gravelly trail. Within the next few hours, we were on our way back to Dahab to enjoy the rest of our Saturday!

Beautiful views of the surrounding mountains from the Elijah Plateau at the base of the stairs.

My climbing group went back to Cairo on Saturday night, but I decided to get a single at our hostel and stay another night so that I could spend some time with my other friends from AUC who were in Dahab for the weekend. I felt like so far, all I had done was be tired and hike; I expect a little more than that out of a vacation! (Matt from Baylor also said I was a high-maintenance traveler because I brought a neck pillow. No, that's called being pragmatic and ergonomic. And I was sleeping more comfortably on the nine-hour bus rides back and forth to Cairo. So there.) I had an amazing time eating out and just having fun with the other study abroad kids, and I continue to marvel at my ability to stay in hostels by myself and actually be independent. Since the Zamalek dorms are as strict and overprotective as my sorority house was at USC, I'm always surprised by the level of freedom I can have when I just step outside those walls.

I'm back at school for the next week, but I only have six short days until I leave for D.C.! Those will, of course, be filled with presentations (one today, one tomorrow), papers, and quizzes, but that's life at AUC. We joke that every single exam that's not actually a final is considered a midterm. There's also a very strange policy here: namely, if a professor misses class for personal reasons (i.e. sickness or family needs), the students are expected to make it up. One of my professors has been in Europe for the past three weeks, so I'm going to be spending a lot of extra time at school. It will definitely be nice to step out of my routine here for five days or so as I visit America next week!