Thursday, September 4, 2008

cairo day 2

Emerged from my bed about 11h after going to sleep at 4h30.
Finally tore myself away from facebook pictures and emails and whatnot by 13h.
Walked down towards the Nile, got lost in Zamalek and ended up close to where I started after walking in a big circle around the lower half of the Nile. This was in a way a big waste of time and I would have been better paying $2 for a taxi but I also got a feel for that part of the city and am probably more familiar with it.

I randomly found this radioshack that sold me a sim card for my nokia. It was only $4 dollars. I put $2 dollars of credit which should be good for at least 22 minutes of calling to local cell phones or 20 local text messages. I'm pretty happy with this.

Then I took a taxi to Midan Sphinx square. This was still rather far from my school as I would soon discover from the blisters on my feet...

My school. ILI. Pretty cool. Kind of small. but so were the classrooms. This could very well be a good thing. So far I have only good things to say about it; it's ten minutes (by taxi) from my potential apartment in Zamalek ($240 per month internet not included) and they sent a good driver to pick me up at the airport/the pick up worked (i've realized now that tipping the driver 3 euros probably was enough to pay for half the ride but whatever, I know better now).

Then I taxied into zamalek and got lost more. This girl from Latvia who studies in London who is doing an internship at the Egyptian Museum here asked me how to get to the 24th of July road which I knew so we walked to it together and then went to a supermarket. There I randomly ran into some dudes I met yesterday of which a very nice Egyptian student at AUC.

Then I walked back to my hostel. On the way I got some food from a street place/restaurant. $2 for the meal. Good deal. Very filling.
Stopped by the Ramsese Hilton to look into prices for hotel rooms with views on the Nile...
Came back to my room. totally pooped. Will start studying some arabic/egyptian.



Maggie King is acting like a little child because she needed my advice on whether or not it was ok if she texted "hey" to a boy she has a crush on.

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