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      Days followed days and before I knew it, my Arabic language program had come to a close. The program ended long before I was actually planning on returning to the United States. I had made sure to leave an additional three weeks in Egypt, to get in all the sight-seeing!
The day after the program ended, I had moved back in with my grandmother, unpacked, and then packed my bags once again because my Aunt’s family, my grandma, and I were leaving for the Red Sea beach.
      I spent the next three days swimming, literally, all day long. We woke up early and were the first to breakfast. Next thing I knew, we were on the sandy beach and didn’t leave it until dinner. After the three days were over, we rushed back to Cairo to pick up my family, arriving from the US. The first thing my mother says to me is, “Ismareeti!” meaning the three days at the beach showed on my skin.
      Just a few days later, my friend from Carnegie Mellon, came with his family to visit Egypt. We had spent the entire summer planning for their two week visit and I was ridiculously anxious, hoping that everything would go smoothly. Although, in Egypt, that it tremendously difficult…actually, it’s nearly impossible.
      My dad and I left the house an hour and a half before their flight was scheduled to arrive. We figured that we had left enough time for anything unexpected to crop up on the normally-30-minute-trip to the airport…We arrived 2 hours later. The police had just decided to close the main bridge to the airport that day. So, we had to follow a star-shaped path with packed traffic to get to the airport. When we finally arrived, Kyle and his family had gotten their bags, gone through customs and had been waiting for us at the exit to the airport for quite a while. My dad and I explained the situation assured them that the drive back should be fine since the police had only closed that one side of the bridge. Wrong, again. As soon as we left the airport, we filed in with all the other cars, just inching on the main road. The other side of the bridge had apparently just been closed.
     At least day 1 ended with an absolutely delicious, traditional Egyptian meal. Of course, by that time it was midnight, but everything was okay, because the restaurant was open until 2 am. That’s Egypt for you. Anything and everything takes forever, but everything is also open very late. And even if you think the streets are packed during the day, there’s nothing like Egypt at night, when everyone stays out late enjoying the cool night air.
     After that, the next couple weeks flew by surprisingly smoothly, with only occasional minor difficulties that seemed to appear almost as if they were meant just to remind us that we were in Egypt and not some dream state. Kyle and his family started their tour of Egypt down south in Aswan, visiting Abu Simbel, Philae Temple, the unfinished Obelisk, etc. I met up with them at their next stop, Luxor. We saw everything there is to see in Luxor, from the Valley of the Kings, to Karnak temple, to the museums. Our next stop was Cairo. We spent three days visiting many of the sites in Cairo, Islamic Cairo, the downtown, etc. As an intermission from Cairo, we travelled north to Alexandria for a day and saw the ancient Greco-Roman ruins, the new Library of Alexandria, and the Mediterranean (making sure to eat a wonderful seafood meal, of course). Finally, we finished off the tour of Egypt back in Cairo, visiting the Pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx and riding camels!
     What a summer!
     Going from being quarantined for swine flu to riding camels in Giza, this summer was more surprises and wonders than I would have expected. No wonder Egyptians call it the “Mother of the Universe!”

      Egypt has some of the best food in the world. Within Egypt, you can find the best food at my family’s house in the heart of Luxor. My taste buds smiled as I sat on the train moving closer and closer to that house. But soon, something else was on my mind…
     As soon as I got off the train I saw my aunts waiting for me at the station and we headed home. But where was it?
     Our home used to be right behind the train station, but everything in that area had been demolished. Families, including my own, were forced to move out and find new homes.
     The governor of Luxor, Samir Farag, began demolishing years ago (they nickname him "Samir Demolisher" in Egypt) in an effort to make luxor more tourist-friendly. He demolished rows of houses in the streets leading up to Luxor temple and widened the road so that tourists exiting the train station can see the temple immediately from where they stand. In place of my family’s house and those around it, he is building a tourist police station and a confined souq (a fresh goods bazaar, normally in the street) where he will collect all the vendors from all the souqs around Luxor. All this so that tourists don’t have to see the daily life of Egyptians as they walk through the streets of Luxor. So that tourists can pretty much avoid all but the absolutely necessary interactions with Egyptians.
     If that is the type of tourism Samir Farag is looking for, then I think he should reconsider. He should let people live their normal lives. He shouldn’t break down homes for the sake of tourism. Any form of tourism that would want that is not the type that should be encouraged to come to Egypt.

      Egyptians are rather interesting people and metro rides are very telling. I find that simply observing casually for the maybe 20 minutes at a time that I ride the metro is very revealing of Egyptian society today. Here are some observations that I have taken note of during some of my metro rides.
     The range of personal space among members of opposite sexes is, of course, somewhat rigid and is almost always abided by. However, personal space among members of the same gender is practically nonexistent. For instance, most women prefer to ride on the women-only cars of the metro so that if an when the metro gets crowded they are packed in close to other women, not men. There are, of course, a finite number of seats on the metro, but Egyptian women (since they are with women only) seem to think that this is not the case. Several times now, I find a seat empty when I get on the metro, and relieved, I sit down. But I’m not relieved for long. Unfortunately, I left maybe 3 or 4 inches of space between me and the woman next to me. Apparently those few inches signal to the other women that there is enough room for one more person to sit on the bench. So, no matter how much room the women actually need (and Egyptian women tend to be not lacking in nourishment), they still squeeze themselves into those few inches. But somehow, they actually end up partially sitting on us. Who would have thought? Needless to say, I prefer to stand in the metro now.
     Cell phone technology is probably the only technology that Egyptians follow closely and get the latest versions of as soon as they come out. A few years ago, I saw a blackberry with an Egyptian friend before I even knew what it was in the US. Even the man selling foul (fava beans, pronounced “fool”) off a cart in the street has a cell phone, and probably a nice one at that. The latest Egyptian cell phone embraces the music technology era with music and video playing technology but no headphone jack. This way, everyone around can enjoy the music too. Or not. I fist discovered this phone on the metro, when a girl was playing music for her friends. I thought nothing of it at the time until I rode the overnight train to visit my family in Luxor. Expecting to get to sleep on the train, I was disappointed when I realized that the reality of the matter was otherwise. There wasn’t just one of these phones, but 3, all playing different music, all loudly, and all at the same time! How was anyone to sleep?!

      I admit, being stuck in the dorms for 8 days was a nuisance, but no doubt, that must have been the best and most comfortable quarantine in all of history. Other than the fact that we were not allowed to leave the dorms, this quarantine was not to the slightest degree like a real quarantine. And apparently even the Minister of Health in Egypt seemed to agree because he casually came in the morning and left in the evening every day.
     Although everyone left in the dorms had originally tested negative for swine flu, we all had to take Tamiflu pills for 10 consecutive days as a precaution. Otherwise, our quarantine consisted of being fed catered meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, free use of the gym/weight room/basketball court/table tennis room, free-time to study, read or play games, etc. On top of all this, we were allowed to freely socialize in the common area on the main floor of the dorm. Some people took advantage of the open courtyard in the center to sunbathe during the day. 2 out of the 8 nights, dinner was served on the terrace on the 7th floor, where music was played so that everyone could dance and enjoy themselves.
     Time passed and before we knew it, it was the last morning of the quarantine and reporters had filled the hall. Specially made t-shirts that said, “I survived the Great Quarantine,” were passed out to us as we exited the dorm for the first time in 8 days. Then, that was it. Back to daily classes and the rush of Cairo life.

      Normally, when the phrase “first day of class” is used, it means that more days of class are expected to follow, usually immediately after. Well, right now, we can only hope that this will be the case for ALI as well. You see…
     Sunday morning, all the summer students arrived bright and early for their first day of classes. For those of us in the Arabic Language Institute, we had orientation in the morning leading up to two hours of class in the afternoon.
     My first class was a media class in which we discussed, in Arabic, current events. My next class was an elective in which I chose to study printed media. Fortunately for me, no one else had signed up for the same elective, so I got a private lesson. Since I am one of two native Arabic speakers in the program, ALI can’t entirely customize a curriculum for my needs. So, having a private printed media class meant that I could move at my own pace and the instructor did not need to go back and forth between Arabic and English, translating every other word. Instead, he could simply explain any words I didn’t know in the more formal version of Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic, to the Egyptian Colloquial form of Arabic. But, it’s all Arabic.
     With classes done for the day, we all got on the bus and headed back to Cairo. Most of the other students went back to the dorms before going out again to find a place to eat. I went to my uncle’s apartment to have lunch (the main meal of the day here in Egypt, often served around 4 pm) and to tutor my cousins in English. My aunt also promised to tutor me in Arabic.      It was 1:30 am, just about two hours after I got back to the dorms, when one of the RAs in the building and the Health Clinic doctor came around to tell everyone that they had to go to the second floor lounge for Swine Flu testing.
     Two at a time, we all went in, had our temperature taken and our throat swabbed to collect a sample. We went back to bed thinking that this must have just been a precautionary procedure.
The next morning, my roommate and I wake up, get ready to go to campus, and are about to leave, but the door is locked. The desk attendant at the door tells us that we are on lockdown and no one is allowed out.
     Turns out two students were taken away to the hospital for Swine Flu, and we all had to stay quarantined in the Zamalek dorms until the results of our test came in.
     Finally, the second morning after the testing was done, we received the results. They told us that 5 people had come out positive for Swine Flu but the rest of us had been negative. The five were immediately taken to the hospital. However, since the five that had tested positive had been allowed to mingle freely among us, any of us could have gotten infected during the time we were waiting for the test results to come in. Therefore, we all had to stay quarantined another 6 days to make sure that anyone who may be still in their incubation period did not infect the Egyptian people in Cairo.