i just found this piece of an old post i never got around to publishing. im too lazy to finish it but i figured id publish it anyway... yeah.
hello all - hope all of your thanksgivings were as splendiferous as mine was.
so i just finished writing a gender studies paper that is, miraculously, without thesis. and for a paper without a thesis, it took me waaaaay too long to write.
i was trying to come up with a metaphore for my thesis-less paper but the only one i could come up with was a headless baby and thats a bit morbid, yes? so i didnt include it. look at my restraint.
anyway so i spent thanksgiving weekend in roma with a bunch of my highschool friends who are studying in europa this semester. (the intelligent ones go home after a semester. and yet... i stay. what have i discovered about myself from this if-then statement.) we are so cosmopolitan. no really. but it was a lot of fun. evan told us stories about st. petersburg that made cairo seem tame. owen got mugged. the riedel's provided obscene amounts of alcohol. good times. rome, btw, is gorgeous. and clean. and orderly. i miss the first world. although owen pretty much calling italy a third world country/cess pitt from hell by the time we left. lots of pigeons. owen called them "flying rats". i think owen was bitter. (dont worry we understand).
anyway i flew in wednesday afternoon and, with the help of VERY exact directions from owen, managed to make my way from the airport to the train station. the old guy sitting across from me on the train kept making awkward eye-contact with me though. swear to god if i hadnt decided to take a "nap" he would have spent the entire train ride staring into the windows of my soul. and then asked me out to dinner. to his villa in florence. where he would show me his world class art collection and teach me italian. too bad he was so old.
anyway so i fled the italian santa clause, dodged this greasy italian guy (surprise!) who literally rushed me when i made a coo-ing noise at his cute dog (apparently italian guys use the dog trick too - first i learn not to make eye contact with strange men. then i learn not to make eye contact with strange dogs) and found myself outside of the train station. now, owen had very specific instructions here. there is a taxi stand directly in front of the train station. i am to go stand in line, and wait for a taxi. so, i go stand in line. this line was like 20 ppl long, and there was not a single taxi in sight. this confused me. actually, it confused everyone in line. we all stared awkwardly at each other for about 5 minutes, and then i decided to take matters into my own hands. the adventurous rachel strikes out into the city of rome. she doesnt speak the language. she doesnt know where she's going. but she's confident it will all work out for the best.
and it did! i eventually found a taxi. after berating myself soundly.
sensible rachel: what the hell are you doing. go back to the train station.
adventurous rachel: no! i dont want to wait in line for an hour when i can just go out and find a taxi on my own
sr: rachel. you dont speak the language. its 9pm. youre dragging a suitcase. where are you going?
ar: i think i see some lights down there... i bet thats a big street. come on. have a little faith
sr: how stupid will you feel when you get killed off on a dirty street in downtown rome bc you were too impatient to wait for a taxi. your tombstone will read: survived the middle east. couldnt survive her own stupidity
ar: be a little more optomistic dear. yours will read: death by boredom
swear to god those are my parents. ive been brainwashed. anyway it did work out - i found a taxi a few blocks down, and when i drove back past the train station on the way to my hotel, i waved at all the poor shmucks still waiting in the taxi line.
oh and the receptionist at my hotel was this big, bald, white guy who was absolutely adorable, didnt speak a word of english and was wearing this leather jacket that said "PHAT FARM" across the back. by far my favorite person in rome.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Excuse me please, one more drink.
Could you make it strong cause I dont need to think...no no one broke my heart and as far as I know my grace is not gone but ive been listening to that song pretty much non-stop for 3 days now. who knew dave mathews band was any good?
ok i havent given up on my blog. its just i want to update it aaall the way, which is quite an intimidating task since now we're talking about a month of caironian excitement. but, i have decided ill do a more current blog entry and save the full update for later. just to get something down. feed the ravenous hounds.
so today is wednesday...always a good day, wednesday. im over the hump in the week and i only have one class left before the weekend. and my dad is flying in tomorrow! this is post visiting jordan and riyadh, and pre his visits to hong kong and japan. i honestly am of the opinion that he's either a CIA operative or some sort of international arms dealer. maybe i should keep his weekend jaunt in cairo this weekend on the DL. wouldnt want any of the massive amounts of enemies he's sure to have tracking him down to my humble abode. and trust me, it is HUMBLE. we've pretty much given up on the whole presentable-aspect of things. and one of the ceiling light fictures has decided to unscrew and is now dangling from the ceiling by some wires. is this unsafe?
but yeah. i have big plans but i wont share any of them with you in case they dont go through. wouldnt want to get your hopes up. ive been trying to decide just how honest a look at cairo-life i should give him. does he really need to know how many times a day i almost die? i now fully understand the "insha'alla" concept. when youre in a position where you miss being run over by inches on a fairly regular basis, it just takes too much energy do the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. you just have to shrug and say, you know what. if god wants me to die, ill die. and there's nothing i can do about it. or rather, if the great spagetti monster wants me to die. wouldnt want to be politically incorrect here. this chain of thought feels familiar. if ive already shared this epiphany with you, my apologies. obviously its on my mind a lot.
so life here is progressing normally. my friend has a new boytoy who has - god bless him - good looking friends. i really think thats the duty of the guys my friends date. i mean, theyre not doing anything for me, are they? but they need to somehow pay me back not only for their monopolization of my friend's time and the inordinant amount of gushing i have to listen to on my friend's part, but i also need some compensation for training my friends so well in the first place. none of them had any manners before i got to them. really.
so last night i was persuaded to go out with my friend and said boytoy and HIS friends. this was the second time id hung out with them - i mainly go as moral support for my friend although i dont think she really needs me anymore. sniff. my little girl, all grown up. at this point i think she and her boy are keeping themselves busy by trying to set me up with one of his friends. why do couples try to do this? such a strange form of entertainment... i guess theyre trying to spread the wealth. or fill awkward silences. i dont hold it against them. but what they dont seem to understand is that there is a scientifically proven limit on the number of happy couples there can be in the world at one time, and i think cairo just hit its quota. and, as predicted, i was unfortunately disapointed last night in the friends dept. her boy has one particularly noticable friend. tall. black. and gorgeous, of course. ok who am i kidding they all look like that. apparently he's stumbled into the sudanese community in cairo? but this one has an english accent which is just icing on the cake. and we were dancing together and whatnot and this boy, his dance style... well i wont go into it in too much detail. suffice to say i spent most of the time dodging thrusting hips. and i mean literally leading him around the dance floor as i backed away and he followed. some guys cannot take a hint. it was actually a rather amusing competition of sorts. anyway, he left me less than enthralled and vivedly reminded me of a certain - ahem - someone who was also ridiculously goodlooking and severely lacking in just about everything else. we shall see if im being too judgemental. me? judgemental? no.
this exciting evening kept me out until about 2:30am when i stumbled back to my apt only to discover that i didnt have a key. and i hadnt brought my cellphone with me in the first place. i really need a keeper. so i spent about 20 minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door and was seriously considering heading back to the club and imposing on one of the boytoy's friends for the night when one of my other roommates came home and let me in. i dont like this girl, but at that moment she ranked right up there with karl rove. then i checked email, listened to my older sister talk about how perfect her bf is for about ten minutes (not that he isnt. it just wasnt the best timing on her part), and then went to bed. and woke up at 7am for my 8am three-hr arabic class. yes i did not plan this very well. but it was an interesting evening so i forgive myself. oh AND i managed to give a successful presentation on the death penalty first thing in class. in arabic. what.
ok im off to a study partay with a few friends. and then maybe my first american movie since august? mumkin? how sweet would that be.
ok i havent given up on my blog. its just i want to update it aaall the way, which is quite an intimidating task since now we're talking about a month of caironian excitement. but, i have decided ill do a more current blog entry and save the full update for later. just to get something down. feed the ravenous hounds.
so today is wednesday...always a good day, wednesday. im over the hump in the week and i only have one class left before the weekend. and my dad is flying in tomorrow! this is post visiting jordan and riyadh, and pre his visits to hong kong and japan. i honestly am of the opinion that he's either a CIA operative or some sort of international arms dealer. maybe i should keep his weekend jaunt in cairo this weekend on the DL. wouldnt want any of the massive amounts of enemies he's sure to have tracking him down to my humble abode. and trust me, it is HUMBLE. we've pretty much given up on the whole presentable-aspect of things. and one of the ceiling light fictures has decided to unscrew and is now dangling from the ceiling by some wires. is this unsafe?
but yeah. i have big plans but i wont share any of them with you in case they dont go through. wouldnt want to get your hopes up. ive been trying to decide just how honest a look at cairo-life i should give him. does he really need to know how many times a day i almost die? i now fully understand the "insha'alla" concept. when youre in a position where you miss being run over by inches on a fairly regular basis, it just takes too much energy do the life-flashing-before-your-eyes thing. you just have to shrug and say, you know what. if god wants me to die, ill die. and there's nothing i can do about it. or rather, if the great spagetti monster wants me to die. wouldnt want to be politically incorrect here. this chain of thought feels familiar. if ive already shared this epiphany with you, my apologies. obviously its on my mind a lot.
so life here is progressing normally. my friend has a new boytoy who has - god bless him - good looking friends. i really think thats the duty of the guys my friends date. i mean, theyre not doing anything for me, are they? but they need to somehow pay me back not only for their monopolization of my friend's time and the inordinant amount of gushing i have to listen to on my friend's part, but i also need some compensation for training my friends so well in the first place. none of them had any manners before i got to them. really.
so last night i was persuaded to go out with my friend and said boytoy and HIS friends. this was the second time id hung out with them - i mainly go as moral support for my friend although i dont think she really needs me anymore. sniff. my little girl, all grown up. at this point i think she and her boy are keeping themselves busy by trying to set me up with one of his friends. why do couples try to do this? such a strange form of entertainment... i guess theyre trying to spread the wealth. or fill awkward silences. i dont hold it against them. but what they dont seem to understand is that there is a scientifically proven limit on the number of happy couples there can be in the world at one time, and i think cairo just hit its quota. and, as predicted, i was unfortunately disapointed last night in the friends dept. her boy has one particularly noticable friend. tall. black. and gorgeous, of course. ok who am i kidding they all look like that. apparently he's stumbled into the sudanese community in cairo? but this one has an english accent which is just icing on the cake. and we were dancing together and whatnot and this boy, his dance style... well i wont go into it in too much detail. suffice to say i spent most of the time dodging thrusting hips. and i mean literally leading him around the dance floor as i backed away and he followed. some guys cannot take a hint. it was actually a rather amusing competition of sorts. anyway, he left me less than enthralled and vivedly reminded me of a certain - ahem - someone who was also ridiculously goodlooking and severely lacking in just about everything else. we shall see if im being too judgemental. me? judgemental? no.
this exciting evening kept me out until about 2:30am when i stumbled back to my apt only to discover that i didnt have a key. and i hadnt brought my cellphone with me in the first place. i really need a keeper. so i spent about 20 minutes ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door and was seriously considering heading back to the club and imposing on one of the boytoy's friends for the night when one of my other roommates came home and let me in. i dont like this girl, but at that moment she ranked right up there with karl rove. then i checked email, listened to my older sister talk about how perfect her bf is for about ten minutes (not that he isnt. it just wasnt the best timing on her part), and then went to bed. and woke up at 7am for my 8am three-hr arabic class. yes i did not plan this very well. but it was an interesting evening so i forgive myself. oh AND i managed to give a successful presentation on the death penalty first thing in class. in arabic. what.
ok im off to a study partay with a few friends. and then maybe my first american movie since august? mumkin? how sweet would that be.
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