thoughts from me and my new mustache...

as a study abroader, i feel obligated to somehow wrap up this experience in some cliche, meaningful way that will tug at heart strings and give people a deep look into everything i have learned, experienced and seen, but instead i'll just write whatever comes out of this bearded head of mine, because that seems way more natural...

so its been almost exactly 4 months to the day that i arrived here in the megalopolis (excellent word) that is cairo...i still have a month left, so im truly not "wrapping things up" as some people say, but whatever, i will be traveling for the rest of my time, so deal with it...but like i was saying, boy how i have changed since i arrived here...i remember being scared out of my wits about being lost, stumbling with getting out numbers, surviving on laffy taffy and reese's that my mom gave me in my hotel because i was terrified to try and order food, and refusing to walk anything but straight lines because getting lost struck fear into the deepest part of my 160 pound frame...this was africa, this was better yet the 'middle east', that idea alone made most my family cringe and most of the people i told say "why the hell do you want to go there?"...

answer: i want to learn arabic. plus, i've done europe, i've done south america, and asia will soon be on my list...but the middle east (northern africa if you want to get technical) was far cooler than anything else i could dream up, and honestly i would change nothing about this experience...well except next time i will make sure i have a washer and dryer...more than anything, i am still young enough (and maybe naive enough) to have a sense of adventure that most of the people i know lack...how can you fully understand the world unless you see the world? i would argue that it's impossible...and i certainly don't claim to understand the world completely after this experience, but i am willing to bet my perspective is one step closer to completion (not that it could every possibly be complete)...

to continue on a different tangient, i began envisioning cairo during my first few weeks of arabic class at elon 2 years ago. my teacher had lived and married their, and she was awesome (not to mention from the same area in ohio) so i figured, "cairo, here i come", and a year and some change later, there i was, walking off a plane, hearing this crazy language that i wanted so badly to master, and i remember my first cab ride the best...i attempted to tell my driver that i thought cairo was beautiful (in retrospect, it is, but in its own special way)...but he couldn't understand me at all...its like 3 words, but i was rusty and i think i ended up saying "cairo city camel" (seriously, cuz beautiful and camel are almost identical words) which certainly made no sense...and that's when it set in, i was way in over my head, plus i had no place to live (i planned to find an apartment when i got here, which worked out amazingly because i found 2 excellent room mates and a sweet place, but it was by an act of buddah that i found them) but i used the 2 weeks leading up to class to adjust and get my bearings enough to feel comfortable running around...keep in mind i have spent all my life in either a small ohio town of a few thousand or suburban north carolina amongst my peers...cairo is one of the largest cities in the whole world, and the biggest in africa...safe to say i was daunted

i came thinking "after 6 months here, i should be pretty damn good at this language, and maybe in 2 years i'll be able to save the world"...haha, fat chance todd...but what did my 20 year-old mind know? well, here is where i stand...i am still pretty pitiful at the language, but i am leaps and bounds (cliche #?) ahead of where i was when i came...take my tests scores...entrance exam score: 17 (at best)...exit exam score: 54...vast improvement i'd say...although i have come to the frustrating/exciting realization that i will to study for AT LEAST 5 more years to get to the point where i can use this language effectively, but that means i have a great excuse to come back to this region after graduation (my parents will be thrilled!) and keep learning!

this just popped into my head, but my blog is aptly titled "nothing ventured, nothing gained", a huge cliche that is incredibly appropriate for this trip...i don't intend to toot my own proverbial horn, but i did come here without knowing anyone, barely knowing the language, without a place to live, a pocket full of ambition and crossed fingers...i'm saying that not because i want to point out how cool or risky i am (cuz i am neither) but rather because it seems like a pretty crazy proposition now...but i would certainly do it all again, and i hopefully will, just hopefully next time in a new country...

i suppose this post is aimless, pointless, unhumorus, and dodgy...but, as all these posts have, it serves more as a cool thing i can look back on and see what i was going through, and i am glad that any one you who read this are still reading this awful excuse for a post.

so about one month left until i taste the proverbial cake that is my home country...school ends tomorrow, and let's call this a wrap. the list as usual will follow, extra long this time...

1. on a mildly serious note, i will miss the friends i have made here...truly some of the smartest, coolest, funniest, and overall stand-up people i have ever had the privelege to meet...i am looking forward to home, but dreading leaving here

2. it will take me a few days to get out of arabic mode, and i promise i will say "momkin" (maybe, possibly) and "shukran" (thank you) to many people within my first few days...that will be awkward

3. i have had the privelege of traveling to egypt, jordan, syria, kenya, and lebanon during this trip...add in argentina, the UK, france, italy, mexico and canada before that and i have visited 11 countries besides the US (i hung in the chile airport, but i won't count that)...11 countries down, 182 to go....

4. when i am fluent in arabic (4 to 5 years, in sha allah), i will come back here, find every person that ripped me off while i have been here (and there are many) and i will serve justice on their scheming ways...actually, i won't do anything remotely vengeful or violent, i will probably just pout and yell at them...but this time in arabic!

5. ipods are single-handedly the greatest inovations ever to grace this planet...i dare any of you to prove me wrong...modern medicine came in a distant second...

6. i will do everything in my power to bring some of the amazing egyptian fast-food restaurants to the states...i mean mcdonalds, kfc and their fellow american fast food cronies are here, clogging the arteries and notching extra holes in the belts of egyptians, so why shouldn't egypt return the favor?

7. it is my mission this summer to learn how to type relatively quickly in arabic...which may be a problem considering my typing in english is quick, but unorthodox and in no way correct...but i can handle it...

8. someday i will read these posts and recognize what an idiot i was, but until that day i will continue to write obnoxious and altogether pointless posts...my life as a blogger may not be over after this excursion ends...

9. egyptian colloquial arabic is vastly different from modern standard arabic, and developed to make the language easier for everyday people...but they failed, because both languages are still incredibly hard...or maybe i am just a wimp...maybe both?

10. i can't help but wonder what things will be like when i am intoxicated in the future (LEGALLY)...i'm not sure i will be winning any hearts or minds when i have a few drinks and begin busting out my broken arabic...but then again, it should be fun...

11. i traditionally edit these posts, but i think this time i will let any mistake i made slide...afterall i pledged at the beginning to write whatever came to my large, bearded head...promise kept

hopefully there be at least one more of these before i leave in june...home june 20th, see you all then, in sha allah

fii amanillah

todd

if only i had gills...

before i say or do anything, i must comment on something...here in the great nation-state that is egypt, there is a song sweeping the airwaves that i hear pretty much 14 times a day. i don't know the name exactly, or even who its by, however, i do know one thing...the words. how could i possibly memorize all the words you ask? well, because there are 2, count 'em, 2 words in the entire song...it goes like this...

"ahmar! (ahmar!) asfar! (asfar!!)...ahhhhhhhmmaaarrrr! assssssssfffaaaaarrr!"

what possibly could these crazy words mean? something political? social? words of the terrorists? how about colors...the song essentially is repeating the words "red, yellow" for 4 solid minutes in different tones and various screaming sounds. at first i thought "man, egyptian music is waaaaay dumber than american music." then i remebered such american radio hits as "save a horse, ride a cowboy" and "the barbie song" and i shut up...

but now for the serious stuff, the real reason i'm here...i think i was intended to be a fish or some sort of similar creature with gills (squid!? i'd be a hell of a squid), in fact im almost positive after yet another sea-faring adventure this weekend. we piled into our friend tom's SUV on thursday afternoon and tackled a 5 hour drive to a little slice of heaven called Dahab (arabic for gold). after a long and windy drive, we arrived to our hotel and began the activities...which actually just means we relaxed like professionals...dahab is perhaps the most relaxing place ever to exist, perhaps anywhere...the restaurants abandon tables and chairs for more comfortable pillows and body pillows, and perhaps coolest of all, there are stray animals everywhere...now, not like dirty stray New York City stray animals, but actually a clean and most excellent assortment of canine and feline friends to share your experience with...a great formula i'd say, and if you disagree, then you obviously hate cute animals...shame on you

anyway, so we began our first full day by snorkeling and soaking up rays (i naturally challenged the sun sans sunscreen cuz i enjoy a mild sunburn, but i quickly changed my tune the next day when my back resembled some sort of raw beef, lesson learned...until next time). the snorkeling was ridiculous, as we could walk straight into the water from our hotel and swim maybe 20 yards and meet a giant reef wall teeming with fish of all shapes and sizes. and i exaggerate not (odd english structure there) when i say there were perhaps 12,297 jellyfish clouding the water...a nightmare to many, an adventure to people who consider themselves, well, adventursome...i qualify as the person who voted for the nightmare, as i was constantly convinced jellyfish were eating me alive, though i never was stung...we abandoned the snorkeling gear for the SUV and headed to the surrounding mountains along with a few beers (nothing like beer in 98 begree weather...actually it wasn't a wise choice, but i'll never admit that publicly)...this is where the real adventure ensued...

we drove around and off-roaded for a while, seeing little that struck our fancy...until suddenly we stumbled upon a makeshift cave/den thing tucked away in the mountains...we obviously had to explore, so we ditched the vehicle and checked it out...everything seemed fairly routine, you know just a little cave where someone was obviously living...then tyler saw a syringe..."strange" i thought, until i realized i was standing in an ocean of sorts, only instead of water, it contained used syringes...i know what you're all thinking "todd, that's gross and dangerous and i hope you didn't touch any of them"...well, please give me some credit, i'm not dumb enough to trip and fall and stab myself, but i am dumb enough to pick a few up (AWAY from the needle, i bet my mom is gunna punch me for doing this) so we could take weird pictures...overall, i was very careful, so no worries, but we asked some people in town what the deal was and they told us that Bedouins go up to those mountains to shoot up heroin...ummm, neat i guess...it was actually pretty cool and surreal, and straight out of "The Hills Have Eyes" because i was certain that i was going to be attacked by a heroin junkie at any moment...

the night came and went with much beer and good food being consumed, and we dove head first into the next day...we snorkeled yet again at the world famous Blue Hole (literally world famous, some of the best snorkeling anywhere in the world, no joke) which was incredible, except again i was bombarded by jellyfish who were clearly jealous of my tan and the fact that i have bones and they don't (keep dreaming jellyfish)...after cooling down (it was almost 100 degrees for goodness sake, but i was reveling in it) we headed back to the mountains to revisit the heroin camp and scale a mini-mountain, which we did and got some incredible pictures of the red sea...oh yea, did i mention you can see Saudi Arabia from Dahab? yea, no big deal...we had illusions of grandeur where we would rent a paddle boat, buy lots of beer and paddle to Saudi, but apparently someone tried that, was cut off by the Saudi coast guard and woke up back in the home country...so i guess it wouldn't have been worth it...or would it?

so that was pretty much it...not too electrifyingly exciting (that may have been the first time i've ever said "electrifyingly", but it won't be the last, you better believe it) but i got the tan i was hoping for and we had all sorts of laughs and good times...not the least was the Czech girl we spied on the beach who was literally (yes, i am completely serious) the most beautiful girl i have ever laid eyes on in person...stan, being the bold man he is, went and spoke to her (god knows i would never do that) and found out her name was Lana...good god she was really something...he also spoke to another beauitful woman, but didn't get too far because she couldn't understand his bastardized texas-ancented english, but neither can i sometimes...

anyway, that is the short and sweet account of our Dahab adventure, truly one of the better weekends i have had here...until next time, i leave you with the list you all know and love...

1. i saw a man pushing a push lawn mower over a bridge today at 7:30 am...no real point to this story, except that there is hardly any grass in the entire city, plus it was a nice lawn mower...odd

2. i saw a man obviously peeing in public today, though the bottom half of his body was obscured by a short wall...just absurd, what has the world come to...

3. i have made and eaten mashed potatoes 13 out of the last 14 days...safe to say i am obsessed...

4. egypt is really hot...i mean really freaking hot...and i think heat makes me crave mcdonalds/pizza hut...does that make me a bad person?

5. i took my exit exam this morning where i say i completed about 70 of the 120 questions, one of 4 reading comprehensions and a 2 paragraph essay (all in arabic mind you)...sounds bad i know, until i share the fact that last time i took this test (as the entrance and placement exam) i answered 17 questions, zero reading comprehensions, and wrote a one sentence "essay"...slight improvement i must say...

6. 7 days of class left...then my sister comes with her room mate for an insane 2 weeks adventure...excellent

ma'a salama asdiquaai!