- I feel foolish for laughing at the posh AUC students who wore peacoats and boots last week, as I am currently feening for my winter clothes packed tightly in boxes an ocean away. Forget the misconcept of a "chilly" season, it's flat out crisp by MidAtlantic standards and COLD from my southernCalifornian mentality.
- FusHa is not only relatively useless, but theoretically impossible. In class yesterday Dr.Tonsi says, "you know when I read in Arabic there are dozens of words I don't know...this is why we have to memorize the reticles, so we can guess." Remind me again, why I should have any hope of learning Arabic when a native speaker and language teacher can't even be sure of the meanings? Bizopt! It's hopeless.
On a more uplifting note: Minor faux-pas and inevitable quirks aside, our new apartment is exactly what I had hoped for and imagined when I thought about myself living in Cairo. It is just very... right.This weekend will be filled with homework and studying and research papers and a valliant attempt to decipher Arabic reticles and verb forms because the following adventures decorate the not-so-distant horizon:
The ancient Roman ruins at Petra. Located convinently in the Middle of Nowhere in Southern Jordan, we're plotting a visit via Nuweiba during Thansgiving break. We'll take the ferry from Nuweiba and manage dirty-backpack style to a hostel near Petra and then thank God for the cooler weather as we make a 3-mile hike into the gorgeous canyon the ruins are situated in.A quick visit to Israel&Palestine to meet up with some AU folk and permanently taint my US passport with an Israeli stamp...Looks like Lebanon and Saudi won't be on my travel itinerary anytime soon, but the Dome of the Rock and Jerusalem will be.
The actual logistics of getting to and from these places is still a bit hazy and will undoubtedly provide hidden underestimated visa fees and very long, uncomfortable bus rides. prende la vie comme il vient... and pack lightly, i suppose.
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