I'm not dead, I just have classes now

So, it has occurred to me that I haven't written anything here for two weeks. This is a problem. Unfortunately, my life here has gotten a lot busier since classes started two weeks ago. I'm taking four classes, three about Arabic, and one about religious life in Egypt, taught completely in Arabic. This is great, except for the fact that I have the vocabulary of a five year. A five year old who is very well informed about the United Nations.

Nearly three weeks into the Language Pledge, I can certainly say that it's difficult. The worst circumstances are those involving complex emotions or abstract concepts. It is very difficult to pantomime liberty or anxiety. For a while, everything was 'kwayis' or 'mish kwayis' (good, or not good), but things are definitely getting better. It's a small victory every day I go to class and understand something the professor says without translating it directly to English in my head. I'm also getting really good at charades.

It hasn't been all gloom, doom, frustration, and classes, though. I've managed to to some traveling. I can leave Egypt happy now, because I've seen the pyramids. I've stood on some of them, and climbed down into one of them. I may focus completely on Egyptian history after the arrival of Islam, but there's no denying how cool it is to see, let alone get up close and personal with something so ancient, and so enormous. To be honest, the size of the pyramids and the Sphinx really surprised me. I knew they were big, but it's hard to tell just how big they really are until you stand next to one. That said:

The picture really doesn't do it justice. One thing that really bothered me during my trip to Cairo was the fact that everything was so geared to tourists. I think I'm probably just carrying over a little bit of my Downeast sentiment about tourists, but I really generally dislike them. They're not so bad in Alexandria. Where I'm living and studying isn't really a touristy part of the city, which I am very much thankful for. In Cairo, they were everywhere. Near the hostel we were staying at, shop owners would call out to us in the streets, trying English first, and then French, or Spanish. The driver we all hired to take us to the pyramids also felt the need to take us to several 'mathafs' (mathaf in Arabic means museum) that were not in fact museums, but shops selling mostly really expensive goods marketed to tourists. It was frustrating, but a good insight into the Egyptian tourism industry, I suppose. 

The vacation had to end sometime, though. Classes started about two weeks ago now. I'm currently in the middle of my week. We have classes Saturday through Tuesday every week, with a three day weekend of Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. This is mostly due to scheduling and facilities availability issues, and isn't a common thing in Egypt. It's odd, but the three day weekend is a really nice bonus, so I'm not going to complain.

For now, that's the summary of the last two weeks. Lots of classes, lots of homework, lots of Arabic, lots of learning. Overall, it's been really good. Hopefully I'll have more to say about specific things in less than two weeks. Wish me luck with my mountain of homework...