We were all sleepy so we wanted quick and easy food - queue our first trip to Falfela, the Egyptian fast food restaurant! DELISH. You order at the front - shawarma, falafel, fuul (fava bean stew), french fries, fried eggplant...such a selection! And then you pick up your food from the various cooks, and along the walls they have bar tops where people stand to eat their food. Makes a lot of sense, and the food was really good.
There was an adorable boy working behind the counter at the fry station, and he was the first person to ask us about Bush since we got here. Sara and I both made faces and he said "yes! Bush is bad, very very very bad!" Sara asked why, and he didn't really have the English to explain, but when she asked again he mimed shooting - yes, we agree, very very bad.
It's funny, because in the midst of primary season at home I almost forgot that we still have an idiot president to be held accountable for abroad - but so far I have encountered zero anti-American sentiment.
We wandered around "shopping" after dinner, and all of a sudden in one of the shops Sara made friends with this gorgeous Egyptian girl, Hana! She's about our age, and goes to al-Azhar University
She asked about getting a work visa in the U.S., and whether it is difficult and expensive. None of us knew, really, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it would be very difficult to get a work visa from Egypt to the U.S. Sara was great, really quick with her vocab, and I was able to pick up on and translate most of what Hana was saying. After a lot of confusions and back and forth translation, she and Sara exchanged number and we made plans. We're going to meet up with her again on Thursday, and then on Friday we'll go to her house for dinner and then she'll take us out dancing with her friends!
SO FUN! I feel like I'm already building a base vocabulary of amiyyah words, and once I start actual classes in colloquial I feel like it will come quickly. It really is much easier than fusHa - a lot of the pronunciation is simplified so almost all of the hardest sounds are taken out, among other things. Also, the grammar seems to be a lot simpler.
Woohoo! Okay, up too late, time for bed. Tomorrow there is some sort of orientation starting.
Xs and Os to my loved ones!
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