Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Last day in Egypt. Finally got hit by a car

Before everyone freaks out and starts calling hospitals, I'm fine. Long term damage: maybe a teensy bruise on the first knuckle of my left pinkie finger.

Still, it's one of those weird things. By now, I should know that cars behave differently here. They don't really stop for pedestrians. My best excuse is I'm a bit distracted. See, it's my last day in Egypt and I'm freaking out because of how little I'm freaking out.

After a year here in Egypt I thought I would be having a more emotional response to leaving the country. But I suppose I should be used to this by now -- I kind of close up a little during these transition points.

Of course there's nothing like a nice cold to make you want to go back home, and as you know I've been sick for a week now. What? You don't know? When did I last update my blog.

Woah. A month ago?!?

So, um. Yeah. A thousand pardons to my beloved aunt, who told me she checked my blog every day to see what was new in my life. I promise, things really did happen to me and I will have loads of stories to tell you once we talk in person.

What happened in January? Well, very little to be honest. Egypt gets autumnally cold in mid-December and winterly frigid in January. I've been holed up in my apartment for a good part of the month, exiting only to go to school or visit my friend Samir down in Helwan (who will be missed greatly, along with all of my friends).

New Years came and went and it was great, because what I did was pretty new and pretty awesome, which was I invited this guy Will I know over to drink. It was our tiny mini protest to the whole partying hegemony. I introduced him to my good friend Jim Beam (good friend, who am I kidding. More like passing acquaintance, like the guy you met that one time and then say hi to twice a month). Will hates Scotch but liked the bourbon enough to swipe it from me before I left.

January 7th was the Coptic Christmas, which I decided not to haul out to Helwan for. Coptic ceremonies are great; the music is jumping, and this is the problem. You are not allowed to dance in a Coptic church, although the music is dancerific. So I try to stay away from Coptic churches during particularly festive occasions.

Since then it has mostly just been classes. I didn't make it out to any sights my last month. I did manage to grab a few nice things to bring home to the States, and managed to sample some more new foods. For example, in Egypt they have tuna, but the fish are small, around the size of a medium trout. I had two grilled for me (at the staggering price of 6LE, or just over a dollar) and actually they tasted closest in flavor to canned mackerel honestly.

Not much to say for January, honestly. I am trying to remember if anything happened, but I think nothing did. Most of it was just sort of freaking out over leaving, which might just be why I'm a bit blase about it now.

Well, have to run. I have to wake up in 5 hours to get ready for my delightful 7am taxi to the airport.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow! your story is funny and intriguing. Wish you all the best