This past week I started classes. I'm taking Ancient Egyptian Egypt and Colloquial Arabic. My classes seem interesting and the teachers seem really nice. I particularly like my Arabic class because I can already tell that I am learning much more than I did in my Arabic class at Muhlenberg. For two hours in the class each day, we basically just repeat after our teacher in a cadence. It sounds funny, but it actually enforces the words in my head. For my Ancient Egypt class, I'm looking forward to taking a field trip to the Egyptian Museum. Although I've already visited it, the museum is so big that it's worth a second trip.

The other night, being sick of campus food, we ordered delivery from Papa John's. Apparently Egypt has all fast food chains except for Chipotle, and almost all delievery is done on mo-peds. The night after we had Papa John's, we went to El Rihab again to walk around and eat Egyptian food. Afterwards, we went bought some groceries from vendors. I bought some freshly baked pita bread and some nutella to go with it. Yum!

Friday, the school organized a trip for study abroad students to go to the pyramids. They were amazing! I couldn't believe how big they were and what it must have taken to build them. I took a bunch of pictures, including really cheesy touristy ones, which I'll put up shortly. After the pyramids we saw the Sphinx. It was a bit smaller than I expected, but still impressive and well-kept. After seeing these historic sites, the school took us to a restaurant/cheap resort for lunch. It was really good, but very touristy. A tour group complete with matching safari vests were taking turns sitting on camel, all the while screaming and shrieking in a mixture of terror and delight.

Today we went to Old Cairo, which is where a bunch of churches are located. The architechture and inlaid wood was gorgeous. The history was also impressive. We saw one church where it is said that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph stayed before they moved to Nazareth. We also saw a synogogue located by the place that Moses is believed to have been found as a baby. We also got to go into one of the oldest mosques in Egypt and hear the "call to prayer" and observe people praying and attending service. The girls in my groups and I, as women, had to put on these green robes complete with hoods, before being allowed to enter the mosque. Overall, it was a very interesting experience, and I would like to go back to the area surrounding Old Cairo to some of the artisan shops.

That's it, more soon! I have class tomorrow (school week is Sunday-Thursday here)! :(