I have now been in Cairo for a few days and am adjusted. Yesterday, we had orientation for the Arabic program at AUC. I’m familiar with where everything is on campus, and what to expect with the program. I will be placed at the intermediate level for Fusha (MSA), which is what I hoped for. I will also have a course on colloquial Egyptian Arabic, and other courses/activities.

Today is Jumah (Friday), which is the weekend here. During the afternoon, I went for a walk around Zamalek, found a local grocery store, and figured out where other things are. It’s not so easy to find one’s way here, since the streets follow no logical pattern. We got mixed up coming back and used some Arabic to get directions, including فين (feyn) - where, يمين (yamin) - right; شمال (shamal) - left; طول (tool) - straight or على طول (alaa tool) - straight ahead.

In the evening, I got experience with taking cab rides and dealing with paying the fares. I went with a group to downtown, to take a ride on a felucca - this is the arabic word for a small, wooden sail boat. The word for a regular boat is مركب (markib). Anyway, we know how much the cab fare is for going that distance, and gave the cab driver that amount. When we got out, he argued with us, wanting 2-3 times the normal price. The thing to do is just walk away. That’s how it works here.

After the felucca ride, we went to an Egyptian restaurant (مطعم - mata’m) where I had a vegetable (خضار - khudar) dish with rice (أرز - aruz). I’m used to saying “shukran” - شكرا (thank you) very often. The food was good (كويس - kwayis) and delicious (لذيذ - laziz). Then we asked for the bill. (ممطن الفابورة, لو سمحت - momkin el-fatoora, low samaht) We walked around the Tahrir Square area, looking at the shops. Though the area was very crowded, so we went back.

I have been extremely busy during the past few weeks, with moving out of my place in the U.S. and preparing for the summer program at the American University in Cairo.

I left “yesterday” - June 2 in the late afternoon/early evening from Washington, D.C. Then, I arrived in London at 11 a.m. (local time) on June 3, where I had a layover of a few hours. Then boarded an EgyptAir flight around 4:00 pm, which was a tad late departing. We arrived here by 10 pm, but there is a 2 hour time difference from London, so that flight was really only 4 hours long.

My flight from London was on a huge jumbo jet — a Boeing 777-200. As always, I expected we would end up deboarding through a jetway and into the airport. That’s not how they deboard here. Even with huge jumbo jets, we got to walk down stairs, onto the tarmac, and onto a shuttle bus that took us to the terminal. It appears they do things this way for nearly all flights, at least from what I could tell from all the planes (of various sizes) on the tarmac. I have done this in the U.S. with tiny commuter flights/aircraft, but this was different. But, once into the terminal, things were very easy and I did not need to walk far.

Coming through immigration and customs was extremely easy, as I already obtained my visa ahead of time. The officials briefly looked my passport and let me go, and I didn’t have to stop at customs. I thought they might want all my computer equipment items documented, to have a list to check against when I leave. Taxes on electronics in Egypt are very high, and they don’t want people sneaking stuff in and selling it here. But, in my situation, they didn’t care and I made it through immigration and customs very quickly.

I had a ride from the airport to where I am staying in Cairo, though it was a long ride. In Egypt and much of the Middle East, the way people drive is MUCH different, with disregard for any traffic laws and safety. People zip in and out, cut each other off, don’t stay within the lane markings, they go fast, and using headlights is optional at night. So, it’s not a huge surprise that there was a traffic accident on the highway, into the city from the airport. There was a very long backup on the highway, but I finally got to my place in Cairo after midnight (June 4).