Every once in a while, you know you're in just the right place at the right time

"Outrageous" has been the word of the weekend... in a good way.

At 1 AM Thursday morning, seven of us caught a bus to Dahab, passing under the Suez, through Sharm al'Sheikh (a popular Red Sea resort town for tourists), and through the rocky desert that is the Sinai. Truly some the weirdest rock formations I've ever seen. We got to Dahab in the afternoon and, flustered and exhausted from lack of sleep, found a nice hotel sitting right on the rocky Red Sea coast. We could see Saudi Arabia from our rooms. Mmmm... not quite Lamu, but pretty damn nice. And good sea food! The view from the Jasmine Pension:

At midnight that night, we took a taxi up to St. Catherine's monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai. At 2 AM we set out on a very cold, fairly steep three-hour hike with our Bedouin guide. The first quarter of the climb felt a little like death. You could ride a camel to the peak for about $20, but it was oddly satisfying to climb. Once we'd gotten our second winds, we were able to marvel at the stars and enjoy the breathless quiet. Clear desert air and no cars, no city lights, no smog. More stars than I've seen in my life, including that night safari on Maasai Mara in Kenya. The last portion of the climb was 750 stairs up a near vertical rock face. Moses must have been in damn good shape for his age, let me tell you. The cold desert air and long climb hit my lungs like a ton of bricks... worst asthma I've had in my life.

We got to the peak of Mt. Sinai (highest point in Egypt at 2600 meters) around 5:30 AM, rented a couple of blankets and a mattress pad, and stationed ourselves pointing East. It was cold. And I mean COLD. None of us had brought coats to Cairo... for obvious reason. For about an hour, we huddled together and watched the sun's glow pour into the desert valleys and dissipate the mist. Other tourists from every place imaginable trickled in. At 6:30, the sun rose, and it was all worth it. No Mom, no talkative bushes. It was breathtaking to be on top of the world at that moment, though, in a place considered holy by billions of people. Even believing what I believe (or what I don't believe), it was moving to look out over that desert. It's obnoxiously cliche, I know, but I've never felt so alive.

As the shade was ridiculously cold, we napped in the desert sunshine for a couple of hours until St. Catherine's Monastery opened. The monastery was built in the 5th or 6th century once folks identified Mt. Sinai as... you know, THAT one. That is OLD. There are still twenty monks living at the monastery, so visiting hours are very limited. The chapel has some incredible old Coptic paintings, lamps, and wood carvings, but cameras were a no-no. I did snap some great shots within the compound... I wish I could post them all. The huge spidery bush in this picture is considered the descendant of the Burning Bush.



So back to Dahab. We weren't even tired at this point, so we went swimming/wading in the Red Sea for a while, visited with Momo, the awesome maitre'd at our hotel, and sat around watching the light fade. It was wonderful to be in the sun and salt again, although our salt water showers were a slightly unpleasant surprise.

We made friends with a couple of shopkeepers who shared shisha (light flavored tobacco smoked in a water pipe... everywhere, all the time, by everyone who can breathe) and tea with us. It was great to sit down for a few hours and talk about culture and politics and just laugh. Humor always translates surprisingly well. Steve met a long-lost friend from his childhood, apparently. ;)

So... after soaking up all the sunshine and beauty and fresh air, we hopped a bus back to Cairo this morning. I'm a little sore and am looking forward to catching up on some of my sleep before heading to AUC for my first class (Arabic!) tomorrow morning. What a great start to the semester. I'm not excited about hitting the books, but I'll be having sweet dreams for months. Sorry for making all of you jealous. My life gets a lot less fun now, but I feel like my heart will explode if I don't share this.

The jetlag clears, but the smog doesn't. Eww.

So Cairo. Twenty million people squished into the fertile land around the Nile, and an ungodly number of cars crowded onto the narrow streets of an unbelievably compact city. The population is 95% Muslim, and a mixture of Arab, Nubian, Bedouin, and (other) descent. Old Cairo is east of the Nile, but the city has blossomed around the river and become something truly incredible. Old news for those of you who have traveled/lived here before. I'd apologize, but you're probably going to have to get used to it anyway.

Cairo is dirty. Wow. The smog is really horrific, and everything is grimey and grayish brown. It smells like Nairobi but dustier and with more cigarette smoke, as people smoke everywhere all the time. Including in the hallway outside my dorm room as I write this. When I wash my hair, the shampoo washes out brownish from all the dirt. Gotta love that. And yes, the traffic is just as awful as everyone said. Crossing the street is like playing Frogger, we decided. This place isn't exactly my dream home.

I'm living in the American University in Cairo (AUC) student hostel in Zamalek, a neighborhood on Al Gezira (hard “g” in Egyptian Arabic), a large island in the middle of the Nile. It's about five minutes to the river and about a half hour's walk through ridiculous traffic to reach downtown. Zamalek is a middle-upper class neighborhood full of foreigners and embassies, a lot like Westlands, my home in Nairobi. AUC has recently moved its campus from the downtown area near Tahrir Square to the middle of the desert to the east of the city. The shuttle ride averages about an hour, but that depends a great deal on the traffic. Quite a bit like the ride to USIU... haha. Here's the view from the road to AUC once we've exited the city.

The other day, we walked to Tahrir Square (the biggest square in Cairo) and visited the old AUC campus. Lovely. The new campus is VERY different. I assumed it wouldn't look like traditional campuses (since it's in the desert and all), but they've really done a gorgeous job with the place. It's all sandstone and mosaics and classic architecture, but still a very modern campus.

This week has been orientation, basically. Getting my AUC ID card, textbooks, shampoo, and new friends, plus exploring and trying new foods. Favorite thus far is definitely koushari, which is macaroni, rice, spaghetti, lentils, fava beans, caramelized onions, spicy tomato sauce, cilantro, with some lemony garlic and chili sauce poured on top. It's 3 LE (Egyptian pounds – 3 is about $.50) for a Cool Whip container full. I will not be coming back to the US any skinnier. My stomach is handling things pretty well. It's been a little rumbly since I introduced it to the fried and spicy street foods, but I think it knows it's going to have to man up and deal with it.

AUC has been offering us evening trips around the city to explore Egyptian culture. I decided to take advantage, since the prices are pretty good. Sunday night we went out toward Giza, ate some delicious Bedouin food, and went horseback riding in the dunes (well within sight of the pyramids and far enough from the city that we could see lots of stars). It was breathtaking and romantic until my horse, who apparently was in dire need of a bathroom stop, peed on my right foot (while I was in the saddle). I have to admit, I found it absolutely hilarious. This is one of my favorite pictures so far. Very cliche, but it came out well.

We also took a Nile cruise the other night. It was nice overall, but definitely pushed me past my beingtreatedlikeatourist limit. No more of that for me. It was dinner, Egytian music, and dancers who pull you onto the dance floor so an employee can take pictures to sell you. No me gusta, although the view was pretty.

Last night we spent a couple of hours at Khal al Khalili market. It brought back a lot of memories of Nairobi, but was again too touristy for our collective taste. We're going to explore some of the other markets and find one where Egyptians actually shop.

Here's my room. The bed is covered in crap because I'm packing for a little road trip a few of us are taking this weekend. We're leaving tonight around midnight so we can get back for class on Sunday. Weekends here are Friday and Saturday, fyi. Anyhoo, details of the trip next time! :)

The road goes on... after inauguration!

Well, I'm safely in Cairo and settled into my pleasantly homey, surprisingly large dorm room. The city is dusty, the weather is cool and comfortable, and I only forgot one thing: my Lonely Planet Guide to Egypt. Gah. Anyway, I'll give a real overview of this place in a couple of days once I've had some time to explore and get my bearings. In the meantime, I feel a really long discussion of inauguration would be appropriate. And pictures!

I'm so incredibly glad I decided to fly out of Washington, DC, before jetting off to Egypt. I had an incredible week and possibly the best birthday of my life. I took care of most of the shopping, medical requirements, and academic appointments before the weekend. Traffic picked up on Friday night and stayed pretty constant throughout the week. I crashed at Reid's for a few days, then headed to Amanda's for the inaugural stretch. This is the same Amanda from Kenya – we'll be moving in together when I get home from Egypt. Yay!

The concert on Sunday was the first major inaugural event. I met up with a few friends and headed downtown in the early afternoon (we didn't care about getting close to the stage). When we got to the Mall, they had already closed the security gates. We joined the throngs of people crowded around the Jumbotrons near the Washington Monument, about a mile from the stage at the Lincoln Memorial. It's amusing, in retrospect, that I thought the crowd of 200,000 was big... there were ten times that many people on the Mall for the inauguration itself. You can click the pictures to blow them up, I think.

The show was excellent. They had the most incredible lineup: Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Usher, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Pete Seegar, and Shakira, plus Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Jack Black, Queen Latifah, and any other celebrity who felt like showing up. Each artist only sang a song or two (and many did duets/trios), but it was a great time. Highlight would probably be Garth Brooks' rendition of “Shout.” Not because it's Garth Brooks, but because the sound delay caused a massive wave effect as everyone in the crowd threw their arms up. It was fantastic. I'm sure it's somewhere on Youtube – look it up! Anyway, we walked home after the concert, arriving about two hours later. All went smoothly.

Monday was a day to relax before the big show. Tuesday morning, Amanda and I woke up around 7:00, put on about six layers of clothes (not exaggerating), hopped on a bus, and walked in a river of people to the Mall.

By the time we arrived at 8:30, the area between the Capitol and Washington Monument was nearly full. We ended up about 2/3 of the way back to the Washington, so within sight of the Capitol but close to the American History Museum. This trashcan was just in front of Constitution Hall. Disgusting but truly amusing.

The show started a few hours later, by which point we were half asleep and extremely cold. It was incredible, as I'm sure you all saw on TV. Everyone was overjoyed to be there, despite the cold, and we all made wisecracks about Cheney's wheelchair. This is the view from the base of the Washington Monument (looking east).

I've never been in a crowd so big in my life. All I could see in any direction were people. I really liked hearing the audio echo back on the Jumbotrons behind the Washington Monument. Goosebumps. Amanda and I took a picture in the first two minutes of Obama's presidency. Happiness!

So then we attempted to escape from the Mall. It didn't go well. They had completely closed off the west and north boundaries of the Mall for the parade, which would start a couple of hours later. As we live northwest of the Mall, this caused a problem. We (and about half a million other people) wandered the perimeters of the Mall looking for an exit and eventually cut our way through some hedges to get out on the south side. We were then stuck in a totally immobile mass of people. Everyone was trying to move in different directions, but so many of those directions were blocked off, it was an absolute gridlock of people. We spent an hour standing in one place, surrounded by increasingly angry people who were much taller and stronger than us. It was honestly a little scary. About a dozen cops spent this hour sitting inside a tour bus in the middle of the crowd, until one of them FINALLY got in touch with the security folks and stuck his head out the roof of the bus to direct the crowd east.

So we trekked toward the Capitol. The lines down to the Metro were about a mile long, and we could hear screaming down in the tunnels, so we decided against using the subway. Buses weren't running from downtown, we discovered, so we kept walking... for another hour or two. We arrived at Amanda's around 4:00, got dressed up, and headed to our balls. This picture was an hour or two after the ceremony ended... people had taken to walking on I-395.

My friend Reid, who spent last semester working on Obama's advance team, had tickets to both the Neighborhood Ball (where Obama and Michelle danced their first dance, featuring most of the huge talent of Sunday's concert) and Youth Ball (18-35 crowd, including a lot of Reid's coworkers). Reid and I decided to head to the Washington Hilton for the Youth Ball with his brother Aaron, who had also been working on the campaign, and Amanda bought the tickets to the Neighborhood Ball. Both were absolutely incredible. Amanda talked to Shakira and I stood a few feet from Rosario Dawson. Pretty freaking sweet.

Unfortunately, Reid, Aaron and I got shut out of the main ballroom at the Youth Ball, so we didn't get to be in the room when Obama and Kanye West arrived. A very sad end to the day for Reid and Aaron, as they were two of the MANY Purple Ticket holders who were turned away from the gated section of the inauguration ceremony after waiting in line for six hours. A little disappointed, we headed home and toasted my 21st birthday at midnight.

The next day, I grabbed some lunch with Amanda and Reid, ordered my first drink (on the house! Woohoo!), and got ready for the Obama Staff Ball at the National Armory. Wow. The place was gorgeous, the food was wonderful, the bar was open, and the company was really grand. Instead of random people who had scored tickets, the Armory was packed with staffers who were ecstatic to be there and be done with the campaign.

It was a huge party. Arcade Fire (a band that Dunc and I are fond of) played a great set, then Joe and Barack swung by and gave a couple of truly heartwarming, truly unscripted, truly sweet speeches. It was one of the most amazing nights of my life.

Reid and I left the ball before Jay-Z showed up so we could meet a few other friends in Georgetown for birthday celebrations. We stayed a few hours at a delightful bar with a guest pianist. After a short nap, I got up to pack and run my last errands. The flight to London was uneventful. I met up with several friends (and about 30 other students headed to American University in Cairo) in Heathrow, and after a long layover, we proceeded to Cairo. More on that next time. ;)