Alex Alex Alex (September 3, 2010)

Today we took it slow, as planned. After my bout of insomnia, I slept until noon we packed up the room and hung around the hotel (not much to do in a hot city when everything is closed and you only have an hour to kill) until it was time for the bus. Half an hour before the bus was going to come (it was coming right by our hotel) people started flowing into the lobby from our program! To name a few, Molly and Jessie from Smith spent the night before in Cairo and Allie who goes to Davidson had just come in from a summer in Syria. All in all, our group grew to about ten people and we ventured across the street to find the bus stop. Unfortunately there were about fifteen bus stops, and in the confusion we found about ten more people! We finally found the bus, and then went to pick up others from the airport.
The ride to Alexandria took us about three hours (apparently very good time), and when I got off the bus I was extremely overwhelmed. The bus pulled up to the girls’ dorm and we got off and had to find our luggage quickly so that it could move on to drop off the boys. Our roommates were waiting on the curb to greet us and Eman (my roommate) knew me instantly (we are facebook friends) and greeted me warmly. I am pretty sure I had a deer in the headlights look going on as she tried to make small talk with me (in English). After a little commotion she led me to our room, which was set up so adorably. She had “welcome” written in ribbon and pasted it onto the wall. I was still overwhelmed, and extremely quiet. All of the roommates were walking around introducing themselves, and it was exciting but daunting to meet them all.
Eman confessed to me that she was very excited for me to start the language pledge as she felt her English was not so great. I was surprised to hear this as she seemed to communicate perfectly, but I told her that I know MSA, I just don’t know any Egyptian. We quickly began talking, me in MSA and she teaching me how to say the same thing in Egyptian. By the time Liz (the coordinator) came in to give me my schedule I had mastered some of the basics. I was settling in, when a surprise was at the door. Laura had come to my dorm! Laura and I are friends from high school (she was my prefect at Choate my junior year). We also went to Morocco together in 2007, and have stayed in touch. Laura did this program last year, and enjoyed it so much she came back this summer to teach English and live in Alexandria. It was exciting and relieving to see her. It turns out that all of the Egyptian women in the dorm (including Eman) know her really well from all of the activities last year. She helped me unpack (she was EXTREMELY shocked with how little I brought), and we caught up.
I mentioned to her that I wasn’t tired and wanted to get a few things like towels and toothpaste (mine was confiscated as I accidentally put it in my carry on bag), and she quickly called Liz to ask for permission to take me out. Permission you ask? Yes, there is a curfew at the dorm. It is strongly enforced for the Egyptian girls, as the dorm matrons (more like guards in hijabs) report back to the parents of the students. They are a lot more lax with Americans, but I really didn’t know the rules. We asked my roommate Eman if she wanted to come, and she got permission. Another room came as well, Ariana, a girl from Maryland who goes to Tufts, and her roommate Heidi. We went City Center, a MASSIVE mall. It has all of the comforts of home including Zara and Starbucks. I immediately felt at ease. While I am not going to be frequenting City Center (Author's note post program: I LIVED at City Center), it is nice to know there is some place to get away from Egypt for a little while if I need it. We went into Carrefour (a Walmart like place) and I got everything I had needed including things I wouldn’t have thought of like toilet paper (its BYO in the dorm) and an extra pillow. I was so happy to see Laura and spend time with her, but it was also nice to have her there to explain some of the thing the Egyptian girls didn’t know how to say in English.
I returned to the dorm with my new stuff feeling at ease and got right on the Internet. It is SO nice to have Wifi after several days without it in the hotel. I even tried skypeing a little bit but it seems that the connection isn’t that strong. Tomorrow, our first full day in Alex, we have a campus tour and we are getting our Egyptian cell phones.