Gin, Dahab, Class

First, a disclaimer. I am tipsy, and thus at the highest plateau of wordsmithery. I shall not, nor shall I ever reach a zenith- or a pinnacle for that matter- for that would upset the whole balance of things and destroy the concept of “average.” An even keel- important in temperament, and even more important in sailing.

That being said, my 22 years allows me, in the States and elsewhere in El Mundo (Spanish for “The Mundo”), to indulge in the most wondrous of substances; Gin. To be specific, Gin acquired from duty free by my friend Valentina’s roommate. This means it was not alcohol labeled as Gin that was produced in Egypt and could potentially make you go blind, but Gordon’s London Dry. And, while there was a lack of tonic, there was an assortment of juices that did more than suffice. Regardless, I met TONS of new people tonight, and am becoming much better friends with Valentina. She’s the one from Croatia. I’m probably going to be hanging out with her/them again on Thursday for a “Ramadan’s Over” party. I met an Australian, Katherine, who’s working for a city-planning firm. I met a Finn named Heidi, a guy from Lake Forest, a guy from Dallas, as well as this guy Tamer (Egyptian via Minneapolis), who lived in Ma’adi and gave me a ride home.

I still don’t quite know where I live- which is why it was nice that I got a ride home. You see- cab drivers do NOT know Ma’adi, and I don’t speak enough Arabic to help them get there. The other day I got dropped off at the Japanese Embassy. The cab driver looked at me, shrugged, and tried to ask me how to get where I was going. I didn’t even know the Japanese embassy WAS in Ma’adi, and I certainly didn’t know where it was IN the neighborhood. So, I called Hisham and had him tell the driver where he was going. Annoying, but it got me home.

Anyway, this past weekend I went to Dahab for Eid, the end of Ramadan. I went with my roomie/friend Jenny, her boyfriend Hisham, and their friend Emily, and we met up with their friends Dax and Khousa. Dahab is a beach town on the Sinai Peninsula, about halfway up the coast on the Gulf of Aqaba (the right side of the peninsula if you’re looking at a map). It was a GREAT trip. I left immediately after class on Wednesday, so I took a cab from AUC to the Turgoman bus station, which is really a mall built on top of a bus station. From there, we took a bus to Sharm-El-Sheikh, a famous resort town on the bottom tip of the peninsula, and then took another bus to Dahab. Our hotel- Sheikh Salem, was literally at the END of the strip. Like, the pavement stopped at our hotel. It was right on the beach (everything is there), and the beach was a reef. So, every morning I sat at the beach, read my book and went snorkeling. In the afternoons, we parked ourselves at a café- Budda Bar- and Hisham knew the owner so we got the hookup. Things were really cheap, so I’d order breakfast, then a few snacks, of course with a cup of coffee, a beer here and there, and clearly some shisha, and the most I ever paid for an afternoon at the café was 50le, or about $10. Not. Too. Shabby. For dinner we went to various seafood restaurants that were cheap and delicious. BEST shrimp and grilled calamari that I’ve ever had.

Also, classes have really- REALLY begun. In earnest. Like I have homework. And you know, on the syllabus its like 30 pages a class. But really, it’s a lot. Its not just 30 pages of talking heads, its 30 pages of dense material that takes HOURS to get through. Grad school is NOT undergrad, and I’m already behind. I can no longer pull the “I know the professor, I can get away with not doing the work,” and feel extremely lucky that I was able to do so in the first place. However, the things I am learning already are complicated, compelling, and VERY interesting. Anxious as I am to ACTUALLY have to do work again, and to be called on in one of my classes, I really am very excited and looking forward to that actual doing of work.