update

Flat hunting was quite stressful, and pulling it off on little sleep proved to be trying. We found a fantastic place right off the bat, and were thus disappointed with every place afterward that paled in comparison. Unfortunately, the flat we fell for was too much for our budget (still very little in comparison to Ann Arbor - har har!), and the landlord refused to negotiate. We were crestfallen all day, and over dinner our exhaustion and disappointment accumulated to silence, a first for us three conversationalists. 

However, lo-and-behold, shortly after acknowledging our poor morale, we got a phone call from the sheepish landlord of our dream flat, explaining this and that, but has "decided to lower [his] asking price." AL HAMDUH L'LAH! - We have a Nile view!

currently...

I'm eating breakfast on the veranda. 

Little kitties at my feet.

Breakfast of shai (tea) and two loaves of bread with fig jelly.

60 degrees.

Anyway, I've decided to stop uploading pictures to my blog and start using Flickr instead. There's a slideshow of my Egypt pictures on the left.

We're going apartment hunting in Garden City - it's as nice as it sounds.

breakfast

where I eat breakfast:

my view:

beginning in Egypt

What has struck me most about being abroad is the amount of people that, upon finding out I am American, exclaim their joy about President Obama. 

I spoke with a woman from Norway who went on and on about how handsome and eloquent he is, saying, "Oh, and when he smiles, he lights up the room!" 

I also had a long conversation with a Czech man, who wanted to be sure I didn't vote for McCain - haha.

Every foreigner I've encountered has been quite friendly; I've gotten some mixed feelings from Egyptians, because most of them think I'm Egyptian as well. An Islamic woman hit me as I walked by, I'm assuming because I was with an American-looking male (which is disproved of, if I were indeed Egyptian). We had a good (stifled) laugh over that. Everyone else has been quite friendly, and I'm enjoying Egypt immensely.

Egyptian quirks:

• Mannequins. So many mannequins. In my exhaustion, I thought a children's clothing store was a doll shop. We got to our hostel at 4am, and I kept thinking, "GOOD GOD, WHY ARE THERE SO MANY DOLLS?!"
• Everyone smokes. 
• It's green! The Nile provides certain areas with enough water to sustain beautiful plant-life.
• Street dividing lines are just for show. Our various taxi drivers preferr to use any method of getting ahead, nearly annihilating crowds of people at a time. It's actually quite fun...

Tomorrow I go to New Cairo. From there I'll get a bus tour and a horseback adventure; what a drag. Adieu!

vintage sails

g'bye!

mud kids

pitch fork '08

quiet

strong opinions

On apology:

     "In the present 'culture,' few care to distinguish - indeed, few are capable of distinguishing - between sincerity and the performance of sincerity, just as few distinguish between religious faith and religious observance. To the dubious question, Is this true faith? or, Is this true sincerity? one receives only a blank look. Truth? What is that? Sincerity? Of course I'm sincere - didn't I say so?"

On political life:

     "...But surely God did not make the market - God or the Spirit of History. And if we human beings made it, can we not unmake it and remake it in a kindlier form? Why does the world have to be a kill-or-be-killed gladiatorial amphitheatre rather than, say, a busily collaborative beehive or anthill?

     In favor of the arts it can at least be said that, while every artist strives for the best, attempts to cast the sphere of the arts as a competitive jungle have had little success...artists know that the competition is not the real thing, is only a publicity sideshow. The eyes of the artist are, finally, not on the competition but on the true, the good, and the beautiful."

On the body:

     "We speak of the dog with the sore foot or the bird with the broken wing. But the dog does not think of itself in those terms, or the bird. To the dog, when it tries to walk, there is simply I am in pain, to the bird, when it launches itself into flight, simply I cannot.

     With us it seems to be different. The fact that such common locutions as 'my leg,' 'my eye,' 'my brain,' and even, 'my body' exist suggests that we believe there is some non-material, perhaps fictive, entity that stands in the relation of possessor to possessed to the body's 'parts' and even to the whole body. Or else the existence of such locutions shows that language cannot get purchase, cannot get going, until it has split up the unity of experience."

[J.M.C.]