Getting into the Swing of Things? (September 6, 2010)

Today was the first day that wasn’t totally new and exciting, which is good in its own right because it means I am starting to get used to my life here. We had a little more ECA instruction in the morning, but I am not finding it very helpful. I would prefer to do role-plays, while we are just learning the differences between an assortment of MSA and ECA verbs. Then we went to the Alexandria National Museum. It was a very long walk to the museum at noon (read:scorching) and we saw everyone praying in the streets, which is so incredible and a constant reminder that I am not at home.
The museum was great! It was extremely well organized and air conditioned (more than I can say about the Egyptian Museum), and had a lot of things from the Islamic period, as well as Grecco-Roman artifacts. The best part about the museum was the actual building itself. It used to be the home of a very wealthy man who sold it to the American embassy for LE200, who then sold it to the city of Alexandria for $2 million! Cameras are prohibited inside the gated area and a garden blocks the outside view so I couldn’t get a picture.
It was 90 degrees today, which under normal circumstances is more than bearable, but with the dress code restrictions was very hot. Everyone was visibly sweating and clearly uncomfortable. I will be happy when the weather gets cooler.
We had a talk after lunch with a graduate student who is doing research on study abroad for her thesis. I decided to participate in her experiment. It entails a few short interviews and several meetings throughout the semester charting our progress. After that we had another Q & A session with Sharroq, Lizz and Nehad.
After dinner, Lizz took us to the train station as we were trying to buy tickets to go to Luxor for the weekend. We were totally bummed to find out that there were no tickets left (AN post program: which we later learned was not true, but an attempt to keep foreigners off the train), as the weekend is really busy because of Eid (the end of Ramadan). The station was extremely stuffy, and the man at the window kept saying, “No English here”, despite the fact that we were all speaking Arabic including Lizz who speaks better ECA than most Egyptians.
Disappointed, disgruntled and sweaty, Andi (who goes to Duke and is in the Navy) and I decided to latch on to another trip going to Rosetta. Rosetta is two hours away, and is a beautiful, quaint city where the Rosetta Stone (the key to deciphering hieroglyphs) was found. We will go there for one night with a group and then come back the next day. We will have one day of down time in Alex, and on the last day we are going to a nearby town to an Egyptian student’s family. I am still disappointed that we won’t be making it to Luxor, as this is our only four-day weekend of the year, but it will probably be nice to rest.
Tomorrow I have my MSA placement exam, and in the evening we are going to an open air dinner by the beach. It should be fun!
Fun Ramadan Facts of the Day: Women are allowed to eat during Ramadan while they are menstruating. They can eat in front of the males in their immediate family, but otherwise must hide it from men. Also, right now, the time is six hours ahead of EST. After Ramadan it will be seven hours ahead. They move the time back one hour so that Iftaar is earlier (they eat from sundown to sunrise).