Well now that you mention it an Egyptian husband does sound rather appealing...

Hello again! wow 2 blogs in 2 days. rachel must be bored, you think. but i say ha! rachel is in cairo! and boredom in cairo is about as likely as peace in the middle east.
...too much too soon? ill try to contain myself.

soo my first full day in cairo. rachel strides fearlessly out into the city. well, sort of. i had company - two girls next door were also taking the placement test and were planning to get coffee beforehand, so i of course invited half the hallway and a whole group of us took off towards the university this morning. safety in large numbers. yes.

ive been trying to pinpoint the exact differences between cities in the states and cities in the middle east. on first glance, the exotic-? (exoticness? exoticity? right) the exotic feel of the city is kind of overwhelming. but one specific difference i noticed today was the number of people, specifically men, in the streets of the city. and, i mean, you'll get people in the streets of cities in the US, but most of them are GOING places. places to be people to meet and whatnot. the majority of the people here, however, really dont seem to be doing anything. theyre just, you know, hangin out. men will literally just have pulled a plastic chair up next to the road and just be sitting there. its like people watching is a national past time. and while normally i wouldnt have a problem with this, here the people theyre watching is ME. and they dont just watch. oh no. they comment. the whistle. they hiss. they propose marriage. and its all fun and games until someone gets hit by a car bc they were too busy staring at my scandalously bare arms to pay attention. not that thats happened. but im just saying

anyway so we went for coffee and by the time we finished our 10 min walk to the university i had just about passed out from heat exhaustion and couldnt manage anything more than a bottle of water. oh, and the man in the cafe and i have a less than successful conversation.

man: (in reeeeally accented english) for here or to go?
me: pardon? (in my very proper little accent that always seems to pop up when i have no idea whats going on)
man: for here or to go?!
me: im sorry i dont speak arabic
man: (getting frustrated) la la la for here or to go???
me: im SORRY you dont have to get mad at me but i DONT SPEAK.....

at this point what he had said had finally worked its way through my thick skull and i announce "we're staying!". of course the man has given up on me at this point, and i say it uselessly to his back and then wander off to find a table. for someone who's spent SO MUCH TIME in other countries surrounded by people with accents as thick as the cloud of dust that hovers over cairo, devouring our happiness, and men's manners, you'd think my comprehension skills would be at a slightly higher level.

did you notice that metaphore? yeah. i thought you did.

ps its not really devouring my happiness. it just makes everything a little hazy. and it isnt very friendly to my clothes. but its ok, theyre used to it because of my ACTIVE LIFESTYLE. what.

anyway so i took my arabic placement test and they put me in arabic 211 which is awesome...except the class starts 5 chapters ahead of where i left off. and at 60 vocab words per chapter plus grammer... pain. but its either that or 201 which only meets 5 hrs a week instead of 10 and only covers like 8 chapters in the entire semester. decisions decisions. just how willing am i to torture myself? ha. stupid question.

so i was the first person to leave the placement test. nothing new there. i got bored of trying to understand passages that were, well, incomprehensible. and post placement test i was a goodgirl and did all my paperwork etc. ps i totally didnt need any of the receipts and whatnot that they had told us we NEEDED to bring on. pain. of. death. typical. oh, and i cant register for classes until sept. 4 which means i probably am going to end up taking like econ or something equally ridiculous. (lol sry cat) i wonder if i could switch to all arabic if i dont get into the classes i want? oh the possibilities. but the classes offered are sooooooooooooooooo cool im ridiculously excited and why doesnt stanford offer anything even half as cool? for a college rated 2nd in the world by newsweek, i must say i am disapointed.

so after paperwork and whatnot one of my many roommates and i went with some girls i picked up (yes i pulled the "hey pretty lady want to go for a ride" line) to a really truly authentic egyptian bazaar! oh the excitement. so this pretty much sums up my experience:

desperate shop man: (heavy accent, but understandable) hello! ahlan! please come into my shop! special price just for you!
rachel: no thank you (i am very polite at all times)
d.s.m.: do you want discount?
rachel: no thank you
d.s.m.: do you want half off? everything half off just for you
rachel: no thank you (at this point i was walking away bc there is only so long you can actually listen to these ppl. in fact i had really given him a lot more time than he deserved - most of the time you just have to ignore them or they will grab you by the hair and drag you into their shop and force-feed you discounts)
d.s.m.: DO YOU WANT EGYPTIAN HUSBAND??

now you'd think that there would be an awkward silence after this in the bazaar, but no. this is normal.

oh and i was supposed to have dinner with a friend tonight but she DITCHED me so im having dinner with my roommates but in my quest to have dinner with my plan A i experienced my first solo-walk through downtown cairo. lets just put it this way, i was even honked at by the guy driving the pizza hut moped. i mean honestly, how low have you sunk when even the pizza hut guy thinks he has the right to honk at you? or is that an elitest attitude. well i also got asked "kem touride?" by a pre-pubescent egyptian boy which translates to "how much do you want?" no, despite my incredible beauty and obvious class, i am not a prostitute.

and on that note.