The excitement has dwindled some. Well, dwindled is a strong word, I would more say it has become less of an ecstatic buzzing extreme and more of an explorative adventure type feeling...ummm...
These last few days have been spent at the university and filled with figuring out arabic levels, arabic tests, aamiyah classes (colloquial egpytian) and the like. Yesterday was my first day on campus. I can’t take any pictures within the walls for security reasons, so I’ll try to explain it…
The exterior area, the downtown, is a downtown. There are dingy shops with random machinery sitting of the floor next to nice european style cafes (with horrible food by the way. Egyptians CANNOT do paninis. They should stick to the fuul and falafel, and schwarma which they are amazing at). We were walking to lunch and had to step around a stream of a man’s pee as it rolled down the sidewalk behind him. A few steps away was a fully equiped radio shak with all the expensive electronic equipment you can imagine…The sidewalks are uneven, in areas so destroyed it is just chalky dirt. Trash is everywhere and the smell of exhaust mixing with trash and cigarette and hookah smoke is pretty overpowering. Once you step through the metal detectors at the AUC gates it is like a little country club. The campus is very small, close to the size of my high school, but cooler. Beautiful landscaping, like none I’ve seen anywhere else in Cairo. The buildings are typical school buildings with one, the palace, very beautiful and fully decked out in arab architecture. In the middle of one of the campuses (there are two just a block away from each other) are tennis courst bordered by wicker chairs where people sit and talk, study, smoke… I like the campus.
