Pre-Party.
So just to explain some of the photos in the album, the first several are not of Cairo- sitting in a restaurant in Irbid and the blue Mosque is the King Hussein Mosque in Amman. We have to take a 1.5 hour bus to Amman to get to the airport so we usually leave early and go to some things in Amman before grabbing flights. The ones of my bloody foot, is well, my bloody foot. Two days before we left for Cairo I ran into some jagged metal in the middle of the street and took a chunk out of my foot- awesome! Good thing I had those tetanus shots...
Dark Sacred Night
Well we finally land in Cairo at about 9pm and my favorite news was hearing that the outside temperature was still 90 degrees. Feels soooo good... We jumped into a taxi- an Arabic word for "death trap" and managed to arrive in our area without either dying or vomiting all over the back-seat. Then came the interesting part, finding the hostel. You see, we are all Arabic students, in theory, but the local Egyptian dialect is so far off of the formal Arabic that we are learning it might as well be a different language. Whole summer of learning Arabic + Cairo Streets = Useless. After convincing some people the hostel existed, others that we didn't want to buy designer jeans or drink coffee, and others that we didn't want to stay in their hotel instead- we found the little door with the little sign in the back alley that took us to the best thing ever: air conditioning. Now, I'm not a prissy girl- I can take the heat in the kitchen, but when it is the middle of the day in a desert city filled with incubating smog- air conditioning will save your life. We had a nice room with 5 beds and a bathroom and the place had free breakfast for all of $10 US a night. Not bad for a good night's sleep.
Bright Blessed Day One
The first sday we were off the the Museum of Antiquities which basically holds all the cool stuff that has been taken out of pyramids and tombs. On the way we ran into a man who looked at Hanna and insisted she looked exactly like his daughter, who was getting married the next day. We all laughed because Hanna, being from Bangladesh, was a brown girl, an ya know, all brown people look the same... He was so excited about his daughters wedding that he invited us over to his perfume shop where he showed us pictures of Princess Diana buying perfume from him and served us tea. We told him about our language studies and explained to him again that Hanna wasn't Egyptian even though she is brown and knows some Arabic. We had a nice little chat and he taught us some phrases in Egyptian, and then when it was time to go his old uncle went with us to walk across the street to the museum. Remember, the streets are crazy and people just fly through them whether on foot, bike, bus, or car. This little man held up both his hands to stop traffic so the white kids could cross the street, oh buddy.
Big touristy spots, like in Beirut or in Petra, are the only places that we get to be around other groups of Westerners/Europeans and the groups we encountered in Cairo were the biggest yet. Just being around groups of Westerners we were all experiencing some reverse culture-shock even though we've only been away for about 8 weeks, but I guess Euro-trash will do that to anyone!
We made our way through the Museum of Antiquities, in which many exhibits were under construction so the collection was a bit cramped. An understatement considering it was a huge building stacked floor to ceiling with amazing treasures from statues to tiny beads, sarcophagi, conoptic jars, boat figures, tomb furniture, tablets of hieroglyphics and Ancient Greek, and everything in between. We got to see the contents of the boy-king Tut, and I always find it a crazy experience seeing something up close that you've read about in books your whole life. My other favorite room was filled with statues of the time period of Queen Nefertiti because the statues were the most stylistically different than any of the other faces in the museum. The Queen Nefertiti art looked like real faces of real women from Africa and the Middle East, even if they were a stylized form of beauty, they didn't look like all of the other cookie-cutter images of women. At any rate, the artifacts and the art was beautiful. I got to see some of the most beautiful turquoise and blue figures of scarabs and the Eye of Horus and Lotus.
After the museum, at around noon, we decided to head off to Giza in order to head off Team Crazy so I could go to Luxor with them. As we are riding around in the taxi, in between Johnathan's gasps and car horns we look off to the side and low and behold- Pyramids!! Rising right up out of the city! Looming tall and picturesque. You pay an entrance fee (thank goodness we have Arabic student ID cards!) to get into the "pyramid park" and walk around them in the desert. You can pay to ride camels or horses around be we all decided against it because the animals didn't seem to be that well taken care of and the pyramids were a huge tourist trap. We saw so many trashy tourists there too- waaaay to many ass-cheeks and uncovered parts! Bless her heart, she doesn't realize that scarf needs to cover her ass instead of her head! Other than that it was kind of magical to walk around the pyramids and get up and personal with such an iconic image. We also got to walk down to the Spinx and hang out with him for a bit.
Over heated and a bit worn out from walking around in the desert we went back to the hostel for a nap in the luscious cold. After that we went off on an adventure to find the Kan al-Kahlili souk, a large outdoor shopping center for touristy stuff. Well, we get over to the area whereabouts it should be, but instead of finding the touristy souk we found the native one. By native, I mean the place where crazy, over crowded Cairenes buy clothing. We ended up walking for what seemed like miles down a narrow path about two or so people wide with two stories of clothing hanging above us and piles of clothing on tables to the side of us. Of course, when a path is two-people wide you shove 4 people in it and huge carts full of goods and then you have other people stand on the sides yelling to try and get you to buy their stuff. In Cairo there are also a slew of non-word verbal communications, for instance if you want someone to move in front of you, you hiss at them and if you want to say no you make a clicking noise and if you want to hit on a girl you make a "bis"ing noise. So we were getting bumped, pushed, run over, hit, yelled at, clicked, hissed, and bissed. I felt like I had touched everyone in Cairo at the same time!
After getting out of the exhausting maze and finding a cafe to sit at and have some limone and mint (my new favorite drink! think lemonade with crushed mint!) we all managed to laugh at our little adventure and appreciate our experience. Well, we had found the souk we were looking for but we were too tired to shopping so we retreated back to the hostel to find out what happened to Team Crazy. We had lost communication with them about three in the afternoon and it was into the evening when we got back to the hostel to find Robin hanging out there and that the other two morons had left Cairo in a bit of frustration to go to Tel Aviv. Luckily we had an extra bed in our room so Robin moved in and we got ready for the next day of craziness.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Oh hey, look over there, Pyramids!
Cairo.
Might as well just call it the center of the world.
I mean, really, what other city has captured the world's imagination and sense of adventure for the past, oh say, THOUSANDS of years. I'm talking from the very oldest of the old- humanity has been in awe of Egypt and it's great cities, Memphis, Giza, Alexandria, Luxor, etc. Cairo is arguably the center of the modern Arab World in terms of stability, government, finances, and modernity. In class you learn that Arabic word for Egypt is Misr and the Arabic word for Cairo is al-Qahira, but in reality everyone in Egypt calls Cairo by Misr. Literally Cairo is Egypt. It's ancient history is what we all dream about when we thing of Egypt, pyramids, King Tut (always as Steve Martin), Cleopatra, hieroglyphics... It's modern history begins in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt and took control of Cairo. Since then the country has been through rounds of revolutions and reforms, British occupation and colonization, and a fight for national independence. A lot of the history has to do with control of the Suez Canal (I flew over the Suez!), re-iterating Egypt's roll as a passageway between worlds.
Team Cairo.
Well, our program gave us a four-day holiday right before the home stretch of exams. Naturally I decided to go someplace awesome. Although, I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do. I had two sets of friends going to Cairo and I wanted to visit Egypt with both of them! One group was going to spend the whole time in Cairo soaking up the Arab culture and the other was on an ambitious tour de Egypt consisting of running up to Alexandria, going down to Giza, then Luxor, and then back up the Nile (actually down) to Cairo. So the plan was to Barney Rubble it (be two places at once). I was going to spend the first day with Team Cairo and meet up with Team Crazy in Giza and then go down to Luxor with them and then meet back up with Team Cairo for the last days. Team Cairo was my roommate Hanna and our friends Johnathan and Curtis, a good team despite the fact that Curtis and Hanna go to UNC (don't hate them Dad!). Team Crazy included my travel buddies from Beirut: Meilakh, Austin, and Robin. Well, Team Crazy failed big time. Their connecting flight to Alexandria was delayed 3 hours and once they finally got there at 3 am they couldn't find their hotel, and then after coming back down to Cairo and huge communication blunder there were no train tickets to Luxor. So, Meilakh and Austin left Egypt the second day for Israel (morons...) and Robin wandered around the city until he found Team Cairo at our hostel (smart move). Needless to say, I didn't go to Luxor, oh and, best laid plans of mice and men... The superiority of Team Cairo now confirmed, our trip was a blast!!
A Glimpse.
The necessary things to know about Cairo is that it is monstrous. Huge. Giant. It is a city filled to the brim with people, and everything is all kind of stacked and stuffed. It's not like New York or Paris, it's really only just like Cairo. It is also a very hot place, getting up to 120 sometimes in the streets because of all the people and smog and cars. Speaking of cars, they drive crazy, as in really crazy, as in Johnathan was white-knuckling the chair in front of him every time he was in a taxi kind of crazy. Oh yeah, and crossing the street is exactly like Frogger- people just jump through high speed traffic like a Sunday afternoon stroll. Oh and the whole buses should stop to let people on them, that doesn't happen either- instead, people run off and on the buses as they slow down a bit at the street corners.
Cairo is a very Arab city filled with Arab cultural aspects that I've seen in places like Irbid and Amman, but it also has this hint of Egypt-ness that is really unique. Our hostel was on a little alleyway that will filled with cars during the day, but at night would explode with people from the cafes that lined the street. The tables were filled with men and women drinking tea and smoking shisha and playing Backgammon. The streets were lively well into the night with families out shopping in the cooler evening hours, people eating street food or getting sweets, bars and cafes, and a lot of socializing. Street food included foul (think re-fried beans), roasted corn, hummus, tabouleh, pita, and shawarma. Egypt is also a Muslim city, with large, gorgeous mosques dotting the city with the green lights of the minarets. You can measure the hours of the day by the call to prayer, and see the marks on foreheads of men from bowing on their prayer rugs. Women could be seen in average western looking clothing or in progressive stages of the hijab and the veil. In general, people are friendly- hospitality is a huge value in Arab culture and it is very insulting to either not offer or to not accept hospitality. We just had to be careful about hospitality being a front for a con, but we didn't run into any.
Might as well just call it the center of the world.
I mean, really, what other city has captured the world's imagination and sense of adventure for the past, oh say, THOUSANDS of years. I'm talking from the very oldest of the old- humanity has been in awe of Egypt and it's great cities, Memphis, Giza, Alexandria, Luxor, etc. Cairo is arguably the center of the modern Arab World in terms of stability, government, finances, and modernity. In class you learn that Arabic word for Egypt is Misr and the Arabic word for Cairo is al-Qahira, but in reality everyone in Egypt calls Cairo by Misr. Literally Cairo is Egypt. It's ancient history is what we all dream about when we thing of Egypt, pyramids, King Tut (always as Steve Martin), Cleopatra, hieroglyphics... It's modern history begins in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt and took control of Cairo. Since then the country has been through rounds of revolutions and reforms, British occupation and colonization, and a fight for national independence. A lot of the history has to do with control of the Suez Canal (I flew over the Suez!), re-iterating Egypt's roll as a passageway between worlds.
Team Cairo.
Well, our program gave us a four-day holiday right before the home stretch of exams. Naturally I decided to go someplace awesome. Although, I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do. I had two sets of friends going to Cairo and I wanted to visit Egypt with both of them! One group was going to spend the whole time in Cairo soaking up the Arab culture and the other was on an ambitious tour de Egypt consisting of running up to Alexandria, going down to Giza, then Luxor, and then back up the Nile (actually down) to Cairo. So the plan was to Barney Rubble it (be two places at once). I was going to spend the first day with Team Cairo and meet up with Team Crazy in Giza and then go down to Luxor with them and then meet back up with Team Cairo for the last days. Team Cairo was my roommate Hanna and our friends Johnathan and Curtis, a good team despite the fact that Curtis and Hanna go to UNC (don't hate them Dad!). Team Crazy included my travel buddies from Beirut: Meilakh, Austin, and Robin. Well, Team Crazy failed big time. Their connecting flight to Alexandria was delayed 3 hours and once they finally got there at 3 am they couldn't find their hotel, and then after coming back down to Cairo and huge communication blunder there were no train tickets to Luxor. So, Meilakh and Austin left Egypt the second day for Israel (morons...) and Robin wandered around the city until he found Team Cairo at our hostel (smart move). Needless to say, I didn't go to Luxor, oh and, best laid plans of mice and men... The superiority of Team Cairo now confirmed, our trip was a blast!!
A Glimpse.
The necessary things to know about Cairo is that it is monstrous. Huge. Giant. It is a city filled to the brim with people, and everything is all kind of stacked and stuffed. It's not like New York or Paris, it's really only just like Cairo. It is also a very hot place, getting up to 120 sometimes in the streets because of all the people and smog and cars. Speaking of cars, they drive crazy, as in really crazy, as in Johnathan was white-knuckling the chair in front of him every time he was in a taxi kind of crazy. Oh yeah, and crossing the street is exactly like Frogger- people just jump through high speed traffic like a Sunday afternoon stroll. Oh and the whole buses should stop to let people on them, that doesn't happen either- instead, people run off and on the buses as they slow down a bit at the street corners.
Cairo is a very Arab city filled with Arab cultural aspects that I've seen in places like Irbid and Amman, but it also has this hint of Egypt-ness that is really unique. Our hostel was on a little alleyway that will filled with cars during the day, but at night would explode with people from the cafes that lined the street. The tables were filled with men and women drinking tea and smoking shisha and playing Backgammon. The streets were lively well into the night with families out shopping in the cooler evening hours, people eating street food or getting sweets, bars and cafes, and a lot of socializing. Street food included foul (think re-fried beans), roasted corn, hummus, tabouleh, pita, and shawarma. Egypt is also a Muslim city, with large, gorgeous mosques dotting the city with the green lights of the minarets. You can measure the hours of the day by the call to prayer, and see the marks on foreheads of men from bowing on their prayer rugs. Women could be seen in average western looking clothing or in progressive stages of the hijab and the veil. In general, people are friendly- hospitality is a huge value in Arab culture and it is very insulting to either not offer or to not accept hospitality. We just had to be careful about hospitality being a front for a con, but we didn't run into any.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Update!
Just posted photos from my trip to Damascus in Syria last weekend! Also, just got back from my week off in CAIRO!! I was in AFRICA and I saw PYRAMIDS!!! Lots of story to follow! Alas, the homework begins again and it is amazing to think I only have about two more weeks here in the Middle East. I'm going to miss it!!!!!
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Petra and Aqaba
This is just a warning, you may danger yourself with the amount of jealousy that will ensue: I went to the place where Indiana Jones found the Holy Grail. Bam! Ok, are you still breathing? I think everything is going to be ok...
That's right folks Petra, the site of the ancient Nebatean city carved right into the Jordanian mountains- complete with tombs, treasury, monastery, and of course camels (pronounced in Arabic something like "jamaal," or as we like to say "jamel"). Today it is one of Jordan's largest tourism pulls and a place for a lot of Bedouin business. We drove for hours through the desert after classes and ended up in the city of Wadi Mujib on Thursday night. We had dinner at lovely little place that served gamiya, which is a Bedouin stew type of stuff that was delicious! We also wend swimming in the hotel pool which felt like a bath tub, mmmm! We heard of this place close to our hotel that is supposed to be the oldest bar in the world- naturally we had to go! Cave Bar, was, as the name implies, a bar in a cave- which was really a carved out building, but cool none-the-less. I had Mt. Nebo wine, made from the famous site in Jordan.
The next morning we headed out to the ruins bright and early, a blessing in disguise as we were heading out by the time the sun was killer and the narrow way filled with tourists and donkeys. The way into the mountains is through a narrow pass that makes for a gorgeous hike! Once you get into the ruins site it is just filled with buildings and columns and dust and Bedouins selling goods. My group hiked up to the top- a crazy hike! We went up to the Monastery and also over to a look-out spot called "The End of the World" and we were so high it literally looked like the world just ended off in the distance. No wonder folks used to think the world was flat! I loved the morning hiking around and I got to see some amazing things. I also stopped off and bought some souvenirs from the Bedouins, some jewelry made through the Queen Noor foundation established to help increase revenue for the Bedouin women and also increase Jordanian crafts.
After Petra our group jumped back into the dusty hot tour bus and drove out to Aqaba- a resort town at the coast of the Red Sea. It was beautiful! We stayed at a 5-star hotel right on the beach and spent the whole afternoon going back and forth between the pools and the beach. It was wonderful! Some friends and I went out to have dinner and I ate fish from this fun little balcony filled with fountains. The next day we tried to go snorkeling- I've heard the Red Sea has some of the best, but the waves were too choppy so we went back to our beach. It was so nice! The water was clear and the water was a bit saltier than normal so it was easy to float around. I could definitely go back there! The weekend was the perfect mix of physical activity and adventure mixed with relaxing laziness!
That's right folks Petra, the site of the ancient Nebatean city carved right into the Jordanian mountains- complete with tombs, treasury, monastery, and of course camels (pronounced in Arabic something like "jamaal," or as we like to say "jamel"). Today it is one of Jordan's largest tourism pulls and a place for a lot of Bedouin business. We drove for hours through the desert after classes and ended up in the city of Wadi Mujib on Thursday night. We had dinner at lovely little place that served gamiya, which is a Bedouin stew type of stuff that was delicious! We also wend swimming in the hotel pool which felt like a bath tub, mmmm! We heard of this place close to our hotel that is supposed to be the oldest bar in the world- naturally we had to go! Cave Bar, was, as the name implies, a bar in a cave- which was really a carved out building, but cool none-the-less. I had Mt. Nebo wine, made from the famous site in Jordan.
The next morning we headed out to the ruins bright and early, a blessing in disguise as we were heading out by the time the sun was killer and the narrow way filled with tourists and donkeys. The way into the mountains is through a narrow pass that makes for a gorgeous hike! Once you get into the ruins site it is just filled with buildings and columns and dust and Bedouins selling goods. My group hiked up to the top- a crazy hike! We went up to the Monastery and also over to a look-out spot called "The End of the World" and we were so high it literally looked like the world just ended off in the distance. No wonder folks used to think the world was flat! I loved the morning hiking around and I got to see some amazing things. I also stopped off and bought some souvenirs from the Bedouins, some jewelry made through the Queen Noor foundation established to help increase revenue for the Bedouin women and also increase Jordanian crafts.
After Petra our group jumped back into the dusty hot tour bus and drove out to Aqaba- a resort town at the coast of the Red Sea. It was beautiful! We stayed at a 5-star hotel right on the beach and spent the whole afternoon going back and forth between the pools and the beach. It was wonderful! Some friends and I went out to have dinner and I ate fish from this fun little balcony filled with fountains. The next day we tried to go snorkeling- I've heard the Red Sea has some of the best, but the waves were too choppy so we went back to our beach. It was so nice! The water was clear and the water was a bit saltier than normal so it was easy to float around. I could definitely go back there! The weekend was the perfect mix of physical activity and adventure mixed with relaxing laziness!
It's been a long time coming...
Alas my trusty friends! IT has been far too long since the last post- my apologies. I really think it is that jet lag kicking around, or whatever the equivalent may be of homework: study lag? mumkin... It has been about two weeks so there is a lot of catching up to do, that being said let's start off with some wonderful Jordanian culture: 
Mansaf.
A couple of Mondays ago, right after getting back from Beirut our program hosted a Mansaf feast. Mansaf is the traditional meal of Jordan and it comes from the Bedouins. Mansaf is a big community style meal that some Jordanians eat every week, think of it as Grandma's Sunday Lunch. It is a big pile of rice with lamb on top that they cover in a sauce made of yogurt. Everyone stands around and you eat it with your hands, which basically consists of crafting little rice balls and then popping them into your mouth. Needless to say the less graceful of us ended up with rice everywhere and a huge mess. Being a whole 5 foot nothing my other problem was standing next to my tall friend Patrick who was really good at elbowing me in the face as he tried to manage the rice eating. The food was really tasty but what made the event was definitely the food handling.
Jump ahead a to the next Sunday and we come to the epicness that was, was, and will be, the WORLD CUP FINAL!! whoop! This was an epic battle of brawn, brain, hot guys in futbol uniforms, and grown men who cry. I of course, the soccer expert, was going for the Netherlands team, because really, why Spain? So what if a magical octopus said they were going to win? Oh wait, they did win, annnnd I was bested by an octopus... Whatever, soccer genius he may be, but Paul didn't get to watch the game in a lovely little Arab cafe with his friends smoking shisha. We went clad as fan warriors with funny glasses and vevuzelas in hand. Now, there may be a fatwa against vevuzelas, but I know something fun to do with them: blowing shisha smoke through them! It was hilarious and photo is definitely forthcoming. I'm not sure what was more fun- me yelling in Arabic at the match, my Puerto Rican friend getting so excited he could only speak in Spanish, or the sports announcer repeating "World Cup" about a million times in one second. Oh language, how it beats us all... Alas Spain did win, but I'm not bitter... No, what was worse was the vevuzela, car horn, and yelling party that moved through the streets of Irbid, complete with fireworks, for the next several hours. America: you really need to step up your celebration frenzy! Jordanians have this down!
More to come on Aqaba and Petra!
Mansaf.A couple of Mondays ago, right after getting back from Beirut our program hosted a Mansaf feast. Mansaf is the traditional meal of Jordan and it comes from the Bedouins. Mansaf is a big community style meal that some Jordanians eat every week, think of it as Grandma's Sunday Lunch. It is a big pile of rice with lamb on top that they cover in a sauce made of yogurt. Everyone stands around and you eat it with your hands, which basically consists of crafting little rice balls and then popping them into your mouth. Needless to say the less graceful of us ended up with rice everywhere and a huge mess. Being a whole 5 foot nothing my other problem was standing next to my tall friend Patrick who was really good at elbowing me in the face as he tried to manage the rice eating. The food was really tasty but what made the event was definitely the food handling.
Jump ahead a to the next Sunday and we come to the epicness that was, was, and will be, the WORLD CUP FINAL!! whoop! This was an epic battle of brawn, brain, hot guys in futbol uniforms, and grown men who cry. I of course, the soccer expert, was going for the Netherlands team, because really, why Spain? So what if a magical octopus said they were going to win? Oh wait, they did win, annnnd I was bested by an octopus... Whatever, soccer genius he may be, but Paul didn't get to watch the game in a lovely little Arab cafe with his friends smoking shisha. We went clad as fan warriors with funny glasses and vevuzelas in hand. Now, there may be a fatwa against vevuzelas, but I know something fun to do with them: blowing shisha smoke through them! It was hilarious and photo is definitely forthcoming. I'm not sure what was more fun- me yelling in Arabic at the match, my Puerto Rican friend getting so excited he could only speak in Spanish, or the sports announcer repeating "World Cup" about a million times in one second. Oh language, how it beats us all... Alas Spain did win, but I'm not bitter... No, what was worse was the vevuzela, car horn, and yelling party that moved through the streets of Irbid, complete with fireworks, for the next several hours. America: you really need to step up your celebration frenzy! Jordanians have this down!
More to come on Aqaba and Petra!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Interesting lil'video
Here is an interesting little video from al-Jazeera about a street artist in Paris who paints Hijab's onto subway advertisements. She says some interesting things about culture and Hijab.
Monday, July 5, 2010
What happens in Beirut stays in Beirut: Day Two
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Waking up in a room is such a nice feeling, especially when you can take a shower and eat a little French-ish breakfast on a beautiful morning out on a patio looking out to the Mediterranean. Its the little things in life that make it so sweet, like the green shutters on the building next door, or the taste of orange juice when you wake up thirsty, or the smile on a friend's face when you just made him laugh.
****
Walking around the city it was like walking through different worlds, on this block I swear I was in France again and on the next I thought I was in Amman, and then the next you thing you know I would be in "Old San Juan." Roaming around we would stop and have a conversation that would pass through English, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Shawarma and French pastries with gellato and McDonalds. Worlds colliding. In academia we call it the "clash of civilizations," but in Beirut it is called life. Pick through any history of the country and civil war and strife are almost synonymous, and even my parents only envision violence. But where there are people with difference, those differences will lash out at one another until equilibrium is found again. I was lucky enough to be in this great city in a time of equilibrium (more or less), and I am still in awe of all that mess of difference jiving together on a daily basis.
****
We walked around town and along the beach front. We passed through American University and Martyr's Square. Giant mosques and Orthodox churches dotted the streets together, such beautiful sacred places. There were Roman baths and ruins, with large gardens and modern business areas. Tourist districts with towering hotels and palm trees and night clubs blaring music and flashing lights. The World Cup filled every bar and restaurant and the streets were covered with flags from every country. Signs came in English, French, and Arabic, but the taxis only came in crazy. Every 10 minutes some ridiculous sports car would be spotted from Audi's to BMW's to Porches and one beautiful yellow Lamborghini. We went to the beach front and climbed over the rocks and swam in the Mediterranean and met a very nice Arab guy who told us a lot about Lebanon and the Middle East. We also went to the National Museum of Beirut that houses ancient artifacts from the area that cover everything from Coptic, to Latin, to Greek, to ancient Arabic. They also had remnants of their collection that had been destroyed and fused together during a bombing in the Lebanese Civil War, creating a whole new artifact of their history. We ate dinner at a traditional Lebanese restaurant which was sooo delicious! One of my favorite things was getting to sit at a cafe overlooking the sea and the large rock formations at sunset while we had coffee and shiisha. It was gorgeous and simple and such a wonderful time to learn more about my friends and engage in my favorite Middle Eastern hobby: laughing. We topped the night off by drinking in some bars and taking in some more World Cup. We met people from all over the world and became instant friends over yelling at sports and dancing to music. I got some free Arabic lessons and a huge dose of culture.
I loved my time in Lebanon, and I cannot wait until I go back!!
Waking up in a room is such a nice feeling, especially when you can take a shower and eat a little French-ish breakfast on a beautiful morning out on a patio looking out to the Mediterranean. Its the little things in life that make it so sweet, like the green shutters on the building next door, or the taste of orange juice when you wake up thirsty, or the smile on a friend's face when you just made him laugh.
****
Walking around the city it was like walking through different worlds, on this block I swear I was in France again and on the next I thought I was in Amman, and then the next you thing you know I would be in "Old San Juan." Roaming around we would stop and have a conversation that would pass through English, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Shawarma and French pastries with gellato and McDonalds. Worlds colliding. In academia we call it the "clash of civilizations," but in Beirut it is called life. Pick through any history of the country and civil war and strife are almost synonymous, and even my parents only envision violence. But where there are people with difference, those differences will lash out at one another until equilibrium is found again. I was lucky enough to be in this great city in a time of equilibrium (more or less), and I am still in awe of all that mess of difference jiving together on a daily basis.
****
We walked around town and along the beach front. We passed through American University and Martyr's Square. Giant mosques and Orthodox churches dotted the streets together, such beautiful sacred places. There were Roman baths and ruins, with large gardens and modern business areas. Tourist districts with towering hotels and palm trees and night clubs blaring music and flashing lights. The World Cup filled every bar and restaurant and the streets were covered with flags from every country. Signs came in English, French, and Arabic, but the taxis only came in crazy. Every 10 minutes some ridiculous sports car would be spotted from Audi's to BMW's to Porches and one beautiful yellow Lamborghini. We went to the beach front and climbed over the rocks and swam in the Mediterranean and met a very nice Arab guy who told us a lot about Lebanon and the Middle East. We also went to the National Museum of Beirut that houses ancient artifacts from the area that cover everything from Coptic, to Latin, to Greek, to ancient Arabic. They also had remnants of their collection that had been destroyed and fused together during a bombing in the Lebanese Civil War, creating a whole new artifact of their history. We ate dinner at a traditional Lebanese restaurant which was sooo delicious! One of my favorite things was getting to sit at a cafe overlooking the sea and the large rock formations at sunset while we had coffee and shiisha. It was gorgeous and simple and such a wonderful time to learn more about my friends and engage in my favorite Middle Eastern hobby: laughing. We topped the night off by drinking in some bars and taking in some more World Cup. We met people from all over the world and became instant friends over yelling at sports and dancing to music. I got some free Arabic lessons and a huge dose of culture.
I loved my time in Lebanon, and I cannot wait until I go back!!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
What happens in Beirut, stays in Beirut: Day One
****
The taxi merges into traffic on a busy, dusty street in Amman. People are moving about everywhere, shopkeepers displaying their goods, and children running around. The air is hot and busy and moves through the open windows swirling my hair around my face. Just having taken a bus to Amman after class my friend Robin and I grabbed some dinner in the center of town. We spent the whole time laughing and talking and as the taxi drove off to the airport, and as I was surrounded by this city a feeling washed over me that I was truly at the center of the world. I felt as if I was at the true center of humanity, and that I was connected to everyone and everything, that there was something remarkably common in the world and I had found it. I smiled as the wind whipped my hair and the sun made everything too hot to stand.
****
Thousands of miles in the air, we flew through the night sky across the Middle East. I saw Amman and Damascus spread out in intricate designs of streets and circles. The glittering pop of fireworks covered the ground as wedding celebrations took place. Even the areas between the cities, which normally look like empty desert, were dotted with lights and the evidence of people. The land was anything but empty. As we came upon Beirut the plane moves out across the Mediterranean and flies in low along the city. Skyscrapers and high-rise hotels cover the coast line as the city races into the mountains going up, up up. Again, fireworks everywhere and more signs of celebration. Colored lights everywhere. Even in the darkness of night I could tell this was a vibrant city, and one that I was already falling in love with.
****
The first night was a borderline tourist nightmare, which means it turned out fabulous and very memorable. As Robin and I flew into the city our companions Austin and Meilakh were driving in from Syria and we were to meet them at our hotel that we had reserved. As soon as Robin and I land we went to go grab some Lebanese pounds or livers and go to the hotel. Problem one: we have no idea what the exchange rate is, so when I popped my card into the ATM my options were given to me in the the thousands, and let me tell you- nothing is more nerve racking then taking 300,000 out of an ATM!! Quote of the night, "I don't know what the hell a livers is but I have hundreds of thousands of them now!!" Problem 2: Besides the crazy taxi driver that I thought would kill us on the way to the hotel, the hotel didn't have any rooms for us. It turns out our friend had forgotten to confirm the reservation. Problem 3: Austin and Meilakh were still driving and had not met us yet, and there was no way of telling when they would get in because of the land borders, so we tried calling them up. Our phones didn't work in Lebanon. So, off the Plan B: another hotel we looked up called the Mayflower. Problem 4: Plan B doesn't work. The Mayflower doesn't have any rooms available, and the very nice concierge guy called all of the ones in the area and everything was booked. He could get us a room for the next night starting early in the morning so he let us lock our things up there and told us to "go out and celebrate" and come back in the morning. By this point Robin and I figured we were never going to find Meilakh and Austin and that we were on our own, and that once they arrived in town would come to the same conclusion as well. So what do you do in a situation like this? Go to a bar and drink whiskey.
Luckily after the whiskey I decided to check my phone (see the whiskey helped!!) and alas text messages work even when calls fail (anyone care to explain?). Now, just in case you ever have to coordinate a cross-town hotel-meet-up in a foreign place when you have no idea what you are doing, do what we did and laugh a lot and in sha allah everything will work out. Alas we rested up the night in Port View hotel and I only woke up once wondering where the hell I was and who are these people I'm surrounded by? And falling back asleep I couldn't be happier to be in such a wonderful place with some amazing new friends.
*In the photo: Me, Austin, Meilakh, and Robin
The taxi merges into traffic on a busy, dusty street in Amman. People are moving about everywhere, shopkeepers displaying their goods, and children running around. The air is hot and busy and moves through the open windows swirling my hair around my face. Just having taken a bus to Amman after class my friend Robin and I grabbed some dinner in the center of town. We spent the whole time laughing and talking and as the taxi drove off to the airport, and as I was surrounded by this city a feeling washed over me that I was truly at the center of the world. I felt as if I was at the true center of humanity, and that I was connected to everyone and everything, that there was something remarkably common in the world and I had found it. I smiled as the wind whipped my hair and the sun made everything too hot to stand.
****
Thousands of miles in the air, we flew through the night sky across the Middle East. I saw Amman and Damascus spread out in intricate designs of streets and circles. The glittering pop of fireworks covered the ground as wedding celebrations took place. Even the areas between the cities, which normally look like empty desert, were dotted with lights and the evidence of people. The land was anything but empty. As we came upon Beirut the plane moves out across the Mediterranean and flies in low along the city. Skyscrapers and high-rise hotels cover the coast line as the city races into the mountains going up, up up. Again, fireworks everywhere and more signs of celebration. Colored lights everywhere. Even in the darkness of night I could tell this was a vibrant city, and one that I was already falling in love with.
****
The first night was a borderline tourist nightmare, which means it turned out fabulous and very memorable. As Robin and I flew into the city our companions Austin and Meilakh were driving in from Syria and we were to meet them at our hotel that we had reserved. As soon as Robin and I land we went to go grab some Lebanese pounds or livers and go to the hotel. Problem one: we have no idea what the exchange rate is, so when I popped my card into the ATM my options were given to me in the the thousands, and let me tell you- nothing is more nerve racking then taking 300,000 out of an ATM!! Quote of the night, "I don't know what the hell a livers is but I have hundreds of thousands of them now!!" Problem 2: Besides the crazy taxi driver that I thought would kill us on the way to the hotel, the hotel didn't have any rooms for us. It turns out our friend had forgotten to confirm the reservation. Problem 3: Austin and Meilakh were still driving and had not met us yet, and there was no way of telling when they would get in because of the land borders, so we tried calling them up. Our phones didn't work in Lebanon. So, off the Plan B: another hotel we looked up called the Mayflower. Problem 4: Plan B doesn't work. The Mayflower doesn't have any rooms available, and the very nice concierge guy called all of the ones in the area and everything was booked. He could get us a room for the next night starting early in the morning so he let us lock our things up there and told us to "go out and celebrate" and come back in the morning. By this point Robin and I figured we were never going to find Meilakh and Austin and that we were on our own, and that once they arrived in town would come to the same conclusion as well. So what do you do in a situation like this? Go to a bar and drink whiskey.
Luckily after the whiskey I decided to check my phone (see the whiskey helped!!) and alas text messages work even when calls fail (anyone care to explain?). Now, just in case you ever have to coordinate a cross-town hotel-meet-up in a foreign place when you have no idea what you are doing, do what we did and laugh a lot and in sha allah everything will work out. Alas we rested up the night in Port View hotel and I only woke up once wondering where the hell I was and who are these people I'm surrounded by? And falling back asleep I couldn't be happier to be in such a wonderful place with some amazing new friends.
*In the photo: Me, Austin, Meilakh, and Robin
Independence Day
In Jordan it is still America's Independence Day for another hour, and thusly will conclude my first Fourth of July outside of America- and let me tell you, it was good! Of course it is the morning of (and I hope you all remember that in Jordan, Sunday is the new Monday- so we were in class) and nothing had been planned for our group in terms of party-like-it's-1999. So, of course, I decided to put myself in charge and plan a party! Who would of thought I would plan an event? Really? Me? and "organizer"? Pshaw... (I'm not sure how much sarcasm this blog can take....) So I threw together some pot-luck and grilling (thanks to some wonderful gentleman who tended the fire not unlike cave men, but I love them!). We had all kinds of Middle Eastern salads and hummos and pita and Kunafa, oh and hamburgers and hot dogs. We played music and watched the sunset on a patio in front of our classroom building. Ahh, sweet sweet American party! This was my first 4th without fireworks and booze, well fireworks for the 4th. You see, Jordanians know how to celebrate! Every night the streets are alive with honking horns covered in flowers that celebrate weddings followed by fireworks all over the place. There are always people yelling and gathered in groups for weddings or graduations. EVERY. NIGHT. We smoke shiisha in a cafe on the 6th floor of a building that looks out over the whole city and I love going up there and see the fireworks across town, and even flying over the Middle East en rout to Beirut you could see the pops of bright colors all over the place. Jordanians know how to celebrate, and we had to show them that Americans can too!
Happy Independence Day everyone!
Just remember that American wasn't always America, that we had to grow into a country, into an economy, and into a society, so that you can remember what it means to be a developing country.
Remember the great things that we have done as a people, like taking in immigrants and refugees, but don't hide the awful things that we have done, like creating immigrants and refugees.
A nation is more than borders, and independence is more than a piece of paper, but that borders and papers can kill a person's nationality and freedom.
Everyday I am learning to love the American flag more and more, because I understand more and more what part of my identity is "American" and how I'm connected to the rest of the world because of and in spite of it.
So, God Bless America (and everyone else!!)!
Happy Independence Day everyone!
Just remember that American wasn't always America, that we had to grow into a country, into an economy, and into a society, so that you can remember what it means to be a developing country.
Remember the great things that we have done as a people, like taking in immigrants and refugees, but don't hide the awful things that we have done, like creating immigrants and refugees.
A nation is more than borders, and independence is more than a piece of paper, but that borders and papers can kill a person's nationality and freedom.
Everyday I am learning to love the American flag more and more, because I understand more and more what part of my identity is "American" and how I'm connected to the rest of the world because of and in spite of it.
So, God Bless America (and everyone else!!)!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Standing in an Ancient Temple
Oh if walls could talk...
If the stones would tremble
break free of their silence
to tell me their secrets
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient ears.
Was this where they poured the oil
for Zeus, the king of the Gods?
Is this the step they used
to kneel and pray?
Was this spot where you could see
the tents of the Hebrews?
Did they worry when new Gods appeared
to bring a new truth?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient eyes.
Is this where they brought the Christians
to question and condemn?
Is this where the Hebrews cried
when they remembered their slavery?
Is this the way that the Muslims came
from lands far away?
How did their faces look when they
saw such a pagan place?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient mouths.
What were the songs of the children
singing to their Gods?
What were the ancient sounds of the Hebrew people
now lost in history?
Did the Christians pray the same prayers
we offer today?
How many times have your heard the beauty
of the Holy Quran?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
If the stones would tremble
break free of their silence
to tell me their secrets
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient ears.
Was this where they poured the oil
for Zeus, the king of the Gods?
Is this the step they used
to kneel and pray?
Was this spot where you could see
the tents of the Hebrews?
Did they worry when new Gods appeared
to bring a new truth?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient eyes.
Is this where they brought the Christians
to question and condemn?
Is this where the Hebrews cried
when they remembered their slavery?
Is this the way that the Muslims came
from lands far away?
How did their faces look when they
saw such a pagan place?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
To have ancient mouths.
What were the songs of the children
singing to their Gods?
What were the ancient sounds of the Hebrew people
now lost in history?
Did the Christians pray the same prayers
we offer today?
How many times have your heard the beauty
of the Holy Quran?
Oh to be a stone in the wall.
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