View From My Window

My room has two balconies but I hadn't gone onto either of them until yesterday when I finally pushed through my fear of no being able to reclose the window/doors. Then I stepped onto the front window and widened the shutters so that I can see things by actual, natural light during the daytime. Very exciting.

And I can also see things on the street! Like the church nearby (yes, church, not mosque), and the various industrial-style apartment buildings that make up the block. I still can't take a picture of the building itself, but this is equally good.

I finished the last of my academic errands yesterday, although I'm sure more will crop up. After I got the results of my Arabic placement exam, the gentleman in charge of such things told me I couldn't register for class until Sunday and advised that I come in early that day. But I then heard that the same man registered Roommate # 1 and Little R on the spot (in case you haven't noticed, I have decided to use code names for people because I find the whole endeavor extremely entertaining). So I went in yesterday, as you probably gathered from the direction of my narration, and registered then. I even had to get a little New York on this other American who was going to stroll straight into the registration lady's office despite the fact that five of us were waiting on the couch. The stranger thing than her confusion, which was perfectly understandable (although did she think we were sitting outside the office for our health?), was that none of the other folks lifted a muscle to stop her cutting the line.

The registration lady asked me if I am German. (Should I have said "were German"? The subjunctive is so difficult in English.) I don't know whether this was because of my name or my appearance since she had just been introduced to both, but I like it whenever anyone thinks I'm something I'm not, even when they think I have a different name, like the teacher who thought I was named Rose for nearly the entire length of class. It's fun to consider: I could be German. Why not? Then I could go home to visit on a three and a half hour flight! And there's nothing wrong with that.

I then walked around a downtown shopping district with roommates Three and Four. The combination of Three and I walking together attracted a lot of unwelcome attention since I am a giant and she is blonde, but she has a hilarious propensity for pretending she doesn't speak English, even when she has just been speaking it with me.

Here is a square near where we got lost and a few blocks from where we found ourselves again. I like the lonely palm tree in the middle of the street. And notice the dude running amidst the cars? I'm trying to get a picture of the fearless folks crossing the crazy traffic, but I've yet to succeed in that mission. This is close, though. Why is he in the street? I was on the sidewalk. It's not as if he didn't have the option.



The evening was long, but not with partying. I did not go to the club Latex, or Gropies Cafe. I went to dinner with Roommate # 1, Little R and S-Dog. First we tried LeAuberge, advertised as the only vegetarian restaurant in Cairo. But all the menu items bar one had chicken, beef, shrimp, veal even!

I guess this means that there are no vegetarian restaurants in Cairo. More kushury for me.

As a result, we ate at that brilliant cultural institution, T.G.I. Friday's. Here we are, except Roommate # 1, who, of course, was behind the camera.

We went to Friday's because of its proximity to the Nile bowling alley (yes, bowling with Nile views), but when we were finally done with dinner at 11 and strolled over to the alley, we found it packed and a wait for one of the. . . what on earth are bowling things called? Rows? Oh, wait, thery're lanes, aren't they? There was a wait for lanes. And there was more than a little smoking, so we went to my New Favorite Store, Alpha Market, instead. School supplies! Exciting notebooks, and even a whole punch!

So I've yet to go "out" out, but I can't party all night like these Cairennes. I can't start my night at midnight and roll home after breakfast. I like to do this crazy sleeping thing, and to actually be awake and refreshed in the morning hours. And come the semester, I'll have 8 a.m. classes every durn weekday (7.30 in Ramadan!).

I have never had a class that early, or else I have repressed the memory (a tiny voice tells me "Algebra was that early" even as I write this sentence. "That doesn't count" I tell the voice. "There's no way I remember Algebra.").