To the Euro-free land of Pyramids and Camels...

I never thought I'd make it to Cairo. It's always been a dream of mine to go to Egypt and although I don't have the time to do the long trips around Egypt, I'm so happy that I'm able to experience Cairo. It makes a huge difference of course that Zack has been studying here for 4 months. With his Arabic and knowledge of the city he makes for a pretty good tour guide/bodyguard, plus he's really good at stopping me before I get royally ripped off with just about every purchase.
After arriving in Cairo, Zack picked me up at the airport and we made our way over to the Marriott (thanks mom and dad). Following check in we headed out to my first Egyptian meal. I got some chicken thing (Zack told me it was Egyptian) and he got the rabbit version. Being a cheap student in Italy has really made me protein deprived so I was happy with the chicken (and of course the price). Accompanying our dishes we had lemon juice and peach sheesha...apparently all very Egyptian. I love my authenticity. After dinner Zack treated me to some delicious Egyptian desserts. They were amazing! All basically encased and drowned in honey. The whole night was definitely a nice change from Italian pasta, pizza and wine. We enjoyed the desserts over at Zack's Colgate roommate's apartment while I was introduced to all of Zack's friends. Then back to the hotel for an early turn-in.
Day 2:
As Zack got up at 6:15 for a long day of classes, I slept in until about 10. It was pretty joyous, but I did feel bad that Zack had to get up so early. After lounging around for awhile I decided to get up and go to the gym. It took m awhile to find the gym at the Marriott but I did get a chance to see how amazing the hotel really was. It's beautiful. Following my workout I went back to the hotel room took a long bath and ordered some soup for lunch. Just as I started eating the soup I heard a knock on the door and when I opened it I was thrilled to see Zack! He decided to come back early instead of wait and not get back until about 6:30. It was great. We ended up taking a long walk around Zamalek (the area in Cairo I'm staying in) and then we went to get food at Zack's favorite chicken place. For two 1/2 chickens along with salad, rice, bread and sauce we paid 40 Egyptian lbs, which is equivalent to a little less than 8 US dollars. In Italy I'd be lucky to get a side dish at a restaurant for that price. I love Egyptian lbs. After dinner we went to the apartment again to hang out with Zack's friends.
Day 3:
Today was my first full day in Egypt! Of course, being the lazy college students that we are, we didn't manage to make it out of the hotel until about 12. But nevertheless we had a pretty busy day. We jummped into a taxi and headed off to the 'Garbage City'. There's an Arabic name for the place which is much more appealing but it's also decieving. The place is really a city of garbage. Sound dirty? It was. Sound smelly? It was. Sound cool? Definitely was. Basically there is a community of people in Cairo that collect all the garbage and sort it out. The population is mostly Coptic Christian and they would feed the organic waste to all the pigs. Unfortunatently, as my tour guide Mr. Buzzell told me, the Egyptian government killed more than 300,000 pigs in fear that they would spread swine flu and now there are no more pigs to feed, so the garbage is really starting to collect. Anyways, it was a cool place to walk around and explore a bit. We saw a whole assortment of animals, dogs, goats, donkeys and even rats. We/Zack befriended an Egyptian guy who introduced him to all his friends who then proceeded to surround him. This eventually led to a photo shoot of Zack and his new found friends.
After spending some times with our/Zack's new friends we made our way out of the city and started walking towards the citadel. I don't know much about the citadel but it was beautiful and such a nice change from the churches of Italy. The mosques were gorgeous. I love Islamic architecture. Plus we got a nice panaromic view of the city with a glimpse of the pyramids rising int he background (see photos).
After the Citadel, it was about 4 and we walked to the Al-Azhar park (about 20 min away) to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous. Right as the sun set all the minarets around the city blasted the call to prayer, each one trying to out-do the other. Once there was nothing left to see of the sunset we walked to Khan el-Khalili, the giant Cairo bazaar. Since we literally hadn't eaten all day we decided to grab a quick 'snack' at a food stall near the market. I got to try my first falafel (tammeh) in Egypt! I had plenty when I went to Israel but I was excited to try it in Egypt. The man who worked there was adorable. He though we was a genius photographer (he was pretty good) and insisted on taking photos of us. After refueling we ventured into the market. It was incredible! I didn't buy a single thing because I was way too overwhelmed with everything. I did have a minor obsession with finding some cheap gold which I quickly found out is non existant in Cairo. So we wandered and while we walked away empty handed we have every intention of going back.
Following our day of adventures we went back to the hotel to chill for awhile and when we started to get hungry again for dinner we wandered to the streets in search for koshery, the quintessential Egyptian street food. SO good. Scott kept on insisting that I try it and I finally did. I don't even think I could tell you what was in it. Some sort of combo of stuff. But it was good. Another chill night at the apartment until bed time...
Day 4:
Tuesday was another pretty late start for us. We originally planned on going to the Egyptian Museum and then the pyramids but when we realized that it was about 1 by the time we made it out of the hotel, we decided to hold off on the museum. As we were walking out of the hotel we met a driver/tour guide/egyptian cassanova (he apparently had 17 wives)who told us about his very cheap offer to take us to the pyramids and give us a tour. It seemed like a pretty good deal but we wanted to discuss it over lunch. We went to a pizza joint called Mason Thomas (I know, why get pizza in Cairo? But it's one of Zack's favorite and I was curious about Egyptian pizza). While eating our pizza we discussed the offer and decided that we didn't want to be dragged down by a tour guide, instead we hoped into a taxi towards the pyramids! While in the cab, the driver handed Zack his phone so he could talk to the 'manager' of camel/carriage/horse rides in Geiza. Zack politely said that we want to walk around the pyramids and we don't want a camel ride. Unfortunately, upon arrival in Geiza, the cab driver stopped the car and the guy from the phone jumped in the cab and they took us to the 'headquarters' for all the tours. After awkwardly sitting while this man tried to sell us his tour we kindly told him that we were poor students who simply want to walk around the pyramids. It was really really difficult to finally get away from him. By the time we did it was already 3:15! We had the cab driver drive us to entrance and after so altercation with the ticket guy (we bought 2 student tickets even though I left my student card at the hotel so the guy wouldn't let me in even though the ticket had been bought). Zack had to give the guy some bakshish to calm him down.
Finally we made it to the pyramids! They were INCREDIBLE. It's no wonder they're considered a wonder of the world. I really couldn't believe that I was standing there next to them. While we were walking around I foolishly took photos of the men on camels and got ushered into having Zack and I ride one. We both rode around for like two minutes, took some pictures and then poor Zack had to fight with the man because he was trying to rip us off. We walked away paying the guy 20 Egyptian lbs (about 4 US dollars) and I learned my lesson to not be lurred in the scams. At 4 o'clock the Tourism Police kick everyone out of the 'park' but since we had just gotten in there we decided that we would do our best to avoid getting kicked out and hopefully be able to see the sunset. We were extremely successful. We hid underneath a cliff by one of the pyrmaids as the sun was beginning to set. There was literally not a single other tourist out there. Everyone was gone. It was just me, Zack, some randoms on camels and horses and the tourist police...oh and of course the three great pyramids. Definitely one of the coolest experiences of my life. Eventually we decided it was time to head out of the park so we wandered back through the desert, shoes filled with sand. After the amazing Pyramids we went back to the hotel for downtime. Walking through the desert is tiring! For dinner we got Tammeh again and it was an early night for us because Zack had to be at school all day for exams. Alarm is set for 6am!

è tutto finito

I'm currently writing from my hotel room in Cairo. The semester has finished, I've left Florence and have begun my Christmas break in Cairo/Singapore. I can't believe it's all over. The semester ended really quickly. Finals went well but it was definitely hard to focus. I was ready to leave by the last week and all I wanted was for finals to be over so I could enjoy the last week with my friends. That was a little hard to do, but I did my best. Saturday I spent running errands around Florence, going to the market to buy presents etc. We went to the Christmas market in Santa Croce and wandered around there. It was adorable! Had all the Christmas decorations every celebrating family could dream of. Of course there wasn't a single hannukah decoration but when is there ever? I think the market was suppose to be a copy of the famous German and Viennese Christmas market because there were a ton of food stalls with German/Viennese food...struedal, sausages, giant pretzels etc. There was also a delicious vino caldo stand which served small cups of hot spiced wine. So good! Throughout the last week I would wander over to the market for a breath of fresh air, it was SO cute.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday was spent almost solely on studying with a little packing and a lot of movie watching thrown in there. I managed to sufficiently procrastinate by watching Gone with the Wind (a 4 hour movie)and an entire season of a TV show my friend told me about called Modern Family. Don't worry parents and grandparents, I studied and got done what I needed to. Tuesday night I went to my first Italian apertivo! It's a genuis Italian inventio where you go to a bar, order a drink and get food along with the drink, all for 8 euros. If you find a good enough place you can basically make the apertivo your dinner, which is what my friends and I did.
Wednesday was my "hard" day. I woke up pretty early and went on a run (which ended up being my last run in Florence :( ), then studied a bit and went up to school for my Art History final. After the final I worked on my self portrait painting for my class, took my italian oral and then had my art critique. It all went pretty well! Wednesday night my friends and I went to La Giostra for our 2nd to last meal in Italy. As usual, it was AMAZING. Tons of proseco, wine, limoncello, pasta and appetizers. Delicious.
Thursday was the last day in Florence and we all had our Italian written exam to take. It was basically impossible to study for that test. I, and I'm pretty sure everyone else, was SO distracted with the idea that the semester was almost done. But finally we were all done! Of course we had an unbelievable amount to get done before everyone left the next day. Our aparments had to be cleaned and I had to finish packing! It was an extremely hectic last day. We had a lot of plans for what we wanted to do for the end but unfortunately we had to cut a bunch out because of time. Thursday night Shelly, Jenny and I ate our last meal in Florence at Aqua al Due, where I got the pasta taster with small plates of 5 types of pasta. I figured it'd be a perfect end to Italian food. The night was a late one as we tried to 'live it up' for the last night. I think I went to sleep at about 5am, only to get up briefly at 6 to say by to Jenny and then my alarm went off at 9 30. It was BRUTAL.
Friday morning was HECTIC. Last minute packing, cleaning and goodbyes. SO sad. Jenny left first, then Shelly, me, and last to leave was Nami. I was meeting Joci at the train station at about 11 15. When I finally got into the taxi I started to get really sad and I'd be lying if I said I didn't start to cry a tad. Leaving really is bittersweet. There's no other way to describe it. I was obviously SO excited to go to Cairo and see Zack and then to be in Singapore with him and my family, but I knew that I was going to miss Florence and, more importantly my friends. Every time I saw the Duomo through the buildings as I drove to the train station I started to cry a bit harder. That city is gorgeous. I can't imagine living in a more beautiful city. It's filled to the brim with history and art, which for someone like me, is heaven. I need to go back there when I'm older.
Joci and I, along with my 3 massive bags and my backpack got on the train to Rome where we stayed for the night. By the time we got to the hotel at the airport it was about 2 30. We wanted to go into the city but we either would've had to wait for the free shuttle leaving at 4 or figure out how to take the train from the airport. We choose the later and it was quite the experience. We got on the train that said: Roma Metroplitana (which we assumed meant the center of the city) but we had no clue where exactly we needed to get off. Eventually we noticed that the train was not getting any closer to the center of Rome, but instead was getting further and further away. Joci finally asked someone which direction we were heading in and it turned out that we were in fact going in the opposite direction we needed to go in. We got off at the next stop and figured out how to buy a ticket back to Rome, as well as made the effort to ask, in Italian, how we get to Rome. We made it to Rome at tjust about the same time the bus would've gotten us there. After about 1.5 hours of wandering around and window shopping we started making our way to the bus stop for the shuttle. We were both pretty hungry and wanted to buy some food to bring back to the hotel but we decided that it would be better to find out were the shuttle was going to pick us up and then find food nearby. That would have been a grand idea if only there had been any sort of food store within a 10 block radius of the bust stop. I'm pretty sure Joci and I managed to find THE only area in Italy without food. Score. So we just hopped on the bus and ended up getting the cheapest items on the room service menu at the hotel.
We got up pretty early to get to the airport. Joci had a 10 am flight and my flight wasn't until 1:30, but because my ubelievable amount of luggage, I went to the airport with Joci so she could help me. She was a lifesaver. After saying bye to Joci I hung around for about 2 hours until I was finally able to check into my flight. Lovely Italian style, I got to wait in a line for 45 min, check in and then wait in another line for 20 min before recieving my boarding pass (thanks to baggage fees). Waiting for my flight I embraced the last hour or so I had in Italy and then happily got on the plane on my way to Cairo...

A Beautiful Run

This will be short but I have to document it. I went for a run this morning along the Arno. It rained all day yesterday and so this morning was really cold. The weather in Italy is completely random. One second it's raining and the next it's sunny (reminds me a bit of home). So when I started my run around 8:30 it was cloudy but looked as though it would clear away. About 15-20 min in it started to rain. I ran across one of the bridges on the edge of the city center and started making my way back in, towards the Ponte Vecchio. About 5 min later I began to notice a rainbow forming directly in front of me. Slowly the rainbow became brighter and more colorful, and eventually I noticed that another one was forming directly above it. As I kept running, the cold rain falling in my face, both rainbows got bolder until I realized that they arched all the way across the river and seemed to be forming a bubble around the city of Florence. It was incredible. One of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. The colors of the rainbow contrastly greatly with the dark grey clouds behind them. One end was on one side of the river while the other ended between the Duomo and Santa Croce. INCREDIBLE. Part of me wanted to stop and stare for as long as it lasted, but most of me wanted to just keep running. As stupid as it sounds, I thought I could get to the end and be standing in one of the rainbows. But we all know that's impossible. Duh. So as I kept running the rainbows got more and more beautiful and then in an instant, they disappeared. Just like that. I was pretty bummed that I didn't have a rainbow to keep me company for the rest of my run, but it was truely amazing as it lasted. I only kick myself because I don't go running with a camera...