Hey y'all!

I'm starting to feel like weekends don't count in countries other than America, or maybe it's just Global, because classes on this trip go right on through the weekends! Today we had our third class with Julie and an Arabic class, and tomorrow we will have three classes going from 9 to 3, with a few breaks in between. Phew! In our first class we discussed GDP and its limitations, as well as other alternative measurements (like the Human Development Index or the Happy Planet Index) that people are creating to measure a country's well-being. Quite an interesting discussion. During our break we got eggs and bagels. It's typical American food I know, but we've discovered that the island of Zamalek (which we haven't been allowed to leave on our own because of the protests) doesn't actually have Egyptian food, as far as we know. It has Indian, Chinese, European, American, everything BUT Egyptian! Seems like they think all of us international students don't want to try the local cuisine.

In Arabic today it was even MORE overwhelming than our first class--we think our teacher assumes that we already know some Arabic because she said she was going to faint if we didn't know the word for "university," which of course no one knew. She likes to call out people in class so at one point she looked at me and asked what my name was in Arabic and I answered "Ana Michelle," which is correct. However, apparently "Michelle" sounds a lot like "mish aarfa" which means "I don't know" in Arabic so she thought I said "My name is I don't know." Great. She laughed at me and I had no idea what had gone on until later!

After Arabic class we went to the grocery store and then back to just relax in the dorms for the afternoon. Tonight we went to a nice Chinese restaurant and I had a pina colada and seafood soup that had shrimp, calamari, and fish in it--SO GOOD! Then I was reluctantly dragged to a bar with some friends (I was very tired) where I got a crepe with chocolate sauce and ice cream. If the bar hadn't had that to offer the night wouldn't have been half as fun. But that was yummy and our table had a great time talking and laughing and being downright goofy. Now we're back and going to sleep early for a big day of classes tomorrow!

Oh for a quick update on yesterday (because I didn't blog). We had class most of the day and at night went to a restaurant called "Rooftop" that is on the top of a building and looks over the Nile. It was gorgeous at night and we could see the felucca boats with dazzling lights floating down the river. The only sketchy thing was that you had to go through a rundown hotel to get to this place and the elevator didn't have a door--you had to open a door in the wall on each floor to get in and then the elevator was open on one side as you went up. It was weird! But so worth it. We took some very goofy pictures that night.

The weird elevator

Goodnight!

Yummy pasta! And a dessert called cream caramel

Getting tired of the paparazzi flashes