Made in America

Before I get to all the events of this past week, I should get a fee house keeping items out of the way. First, let me apologize for not keeping you guys up to date; it's hard to find time to blog. I'll try to be more disciplined in the future, insha-allah. Secondly, several people have bitched about the color scheme of the blog. Despite the fact that a black background in the least harmful for one's eyes, I have conceded and changed the colors. Please bear (as my friend Ahmed spells it) with me while I tweak with the colors - my heightened sense of aesthetics won't allow me to have anything but the most fashionable blog.

Okay, now on to the events of the past week. There's so much to talk about, so I'll just hit up the cliff-notes. First, Adam and I met Luke's friend/flat-mate Ahmed, who's a really cool guy. They met last year by doing a language exchange. Ahmed introduced us to his younger brother, Hazim, and a co-worker, Muhammed (it's starting to get to get difficult keeping track of all the Ahmeds and Muhammeds - they're everywhere. Already in my phone I have 4 different Muhammeds and two Ahmeds) Anyway, we're meeting with them and do a language exchange every week night. Already Muhammed and I have met twice, two hours last night and two hours tonight. His English is very good, so we just work on things like the differences between they're, there, and their. My Arabic, on the other hand, is elementary. Tonight we worked on basic grocery store vocabulary. Hopefully soon we will go shopping and he and Hazim will cook for us. I'm looking forward to it.

On Friday, Adam and I were wandering around Mohandiseen looking for a school supply store, which we never found. In stead, we found a few guys playing dominoes. We decided to ask them what the word in Arabic is for dominoes (turns out it's dominoes). In typical Egyptian form, they quickly pulled up chairs, told us to sit, and handed us tea. Turns out they rent cars, so when ever they're not with a customer, they're outside playing dominoes. They found out we were American, so of course they had to comment about Bush. We laughed, and then I asked about Mubarak. Amir, the one with the best English (I think he owns the place), laughed and made the comment "Mubarak: made in America." I thought that was pretty accurate. Anyway, enough politics for now.
So we played a game of American dominoes, and then arranged to meet them the next day. The next day, we met and played Egyptian Dominoes, and got our butts kicked. So, we're gonna have to get a set and practice, cause we can't be losin at dominoes.

On Saturday night, we went with Adam's uncle's and their friends to the legendary Khan al-Khalili, the bazaar that has been serving Cairo for almost 700 years. After waiting for Adam's uncle Omar and friends to pray in al-Hussein mosque (pre-Ottoman, to give you an idea of it's age), we entered into a cafe. Or rather, what we thought was a cafe: it turned out to be the entrance into the to the Khan. Inside (which was really outside, except the alleys were so narrow and the building to tall to see the sky) we wandered around as we passed stores that soled everything. We even walked past a street the had vendors for miles. It was breath-taking. After we left the Khan, we went and visited al-Azhar mosque. It was really breath-taking. Almost no one was there, so wandering around the huge court yard and then inside was awesome. As Adam's uncle Omar said, you can taste the history.

Alright, more adventures to come. Adam and I thinking about going to the the Sewa Oasis in the Western desert this weekend, but we'll see.