Buy Buy Buy

Yesterday was a big buying day.

I went to the mall, of all places. Roommate1 had already been there once this week but came again for kicks. It was far far away from downtown in Heliopolis, so the trip there was a fun adventure in erratic driving, especially through the longest tunnel in which I've ever been. The tunnel was designed to hold two lanes of traffic, but there were seldom fewer than three lines of cars.

You can imagine.

In keeping with the superlative tunnel, City Stars was the largest mall I've ever experienced. There are two gigantic buildings (they call them Phase 1 and 2 - yes, all in English) with about 6 huge stories each. Inner courtyards with fountains, tons of restaurants, and Starbucks. Inside many of the standard stores, United Colors of Benetton (theoretically, we couldn't find that one), Esprit, Puma, and a Virgin Megastore.

In the basement is a store called Spinneys which is basically Walmart East. I bought everything on my list in that one location, including reduced sugar soy milk, so this was very exciting. And we dined at Cantina Something-or-Other, a Mexican restaurant whose gigantic advertising asked "Have you ever had real Mexican food?"

Immediately upon getting home, Roommate 2 and I rushed off to be on time for the boat ride. And we were on time, but the students hosts were not there to appreciate our punctuality. In fact, the student hosts didn't show up until almost a full hour after our scheduled meeting time, at which point we were lead like sheep over to the Nile and piled onto two boats.

The trip was okay, but the stereo music was a smidgen too loud, although I much appreciated it when they played Daddy Yankee.

We grad students huddled in a corner of maturity on the boat for we were, once again, surrounded by study abroads.












Here are some boat-handlers swimming in the Nile, of all things. I hope they don't contract vile and pernicious diseases from the water; I haven't heard the best about the cleanliness of the river. The guys were showing off, doing impressive (and some not so impressive) dives from the tops of their boats, but I failed to get a photo fast enough.


Today has been my first day of classes - I'm now officially a student and can no longer pretend to be merely a tourist, though I've yet to have any homework. My buddy S is in every single class with me and Little R is in Arabic with us as well. The teacher speaks in Arabic almost exclusively in class, but I understood most of what she said and felt quite the smarty-pants.

I can immerse myself in Arabic completely in the mornings, perhaps, thanks to my new clock radio purchased at Radio Shack. Check out my lovely picture in said store at the right.

Cowabunga.

That will be my last purchase for a while, I hope. Money doesn't grow on trees, as everyone knows; it is mined by elves deep underground, and then only when they have a break from unearthing Keebler cookies.

Or is it Rice Crispies for which the elves mine? I am mixing up my pop culture references, having already gone in to TV withdrawal.