Mehfeesh mushkilla!

Translation: No problem! No worries, mate!

What a day! Sara and I have been super productive and now I finally get some downtime.

This morning we got up at 8:15 (Cairo time! I swear!) and rushed over to campus to get our registration figured out. By 9:15ish we were both registered for Arabic classes, hamdulillah!
All we had to do was tell the head of the Arabic department what chapter we'd gotten to in al-Kitab and five minutes later we were registered!

I'm enrolled in the second session of "accelerated" fusHa (modern standard Arabic), which means I will finish two semesters worth of material in one semester (inshallah), and I'm also signed up for beginning amiyya (colloquial Egyptian). My fusHa class is 4 days a week at 8am, which I think will be good for me. I say this now, but class starts next week so we'll see. A lot depends on where we end up living - the hostel is only 5 minutes away from classes, but we may end up being a 10 minute taxi or bus ride away. All together, I'll be taking 13 hours of Arabic a week - and I'm going to look into getting a tutor on top of that. Whew! Inshallah, this will make up for Brandeis' less than stellar Arabic language program - though I adore Lutf, we have been moving too slowly and missing lots of important grammar lessons.

The next part took a lot longer and was much more typical of AUC - chaotic, in other words. Even though web registration already happened, and worked to varying degrees for some people, official registration doesn't begin until tomorrow. Which is odd considering a lot of classes were already filling up! Anyway, when we went this morning they were totally overwhelmed, so we went out to breakfast across the street with some kids from the Zamalek dorms - lots of sweet, interesting people here, and from all different majors and backgrounds.

Once we went back there was a little more order, but the office was still packed, so they had us sit in a back office to wait. Sara and I didn't notice that there was a sign-up sheet for registration appointment times though, so after filling out our course request forms and waiting around for about 45 minutes we finally got added on to the end. Oh well!

There was a long line, so in the meantime we got our student IDs - now I feel like an official AUCian - and then met up with Kearney for coffee and shisha. It was so great to see her, and she's a total pro at navigating around downtown. She took us to one of her favorite spots for shisha and I finally had my first Arabic coffee in Egypt. We spent a nice lazy hour and a half talking about classes, Cairo, Egypt, her first semester, travel, politics, and bars. It was really interesting to talk with Kearney (who is Jewish but not religious and not a big fan of Israel), and Sara (who is also Jewish, more religious, and not particularly political but definitely Zionist) about perceptions of Arabs, Palestinians, the situation in Gaza, et al. I have a ton of respect for what Sara has decided to do by coming here - it seems like she has had a fairly standard American Jewish upbringing, but she chose Egypt to force herself to experience and understand the other side of the equation.
[Chelsey - I've been thinking of you a ton, habibti, and talking about you! "Oh, my wonderful friend who was here last year says this, so it must be true..." Also, there is a girl who is sending blankets and supplies to Gaza who was asking anyone who was interested to help out, so I'm going to get in touch and see what she needs.]

Anyway, after our lovely interlude the registrar's office was much quieter. Now, in addition to my Arabic classes, I'm signed up for "Caliphate and Sultans in the Age of the Crusades and Mongols" - sounds totally cool and will fulfill a Classical Islamic requirement for my major. Also, I could potentially take a graduate level class in International Human Rights Law called "Human Rights in the Middle East," but I have to go to the class on the first day and get professor permission in order to register. If the class expects a lot of background in law I'll be in trouble, but other than that I should be fine! That's only 4 classes, but my accelerated Arabic class counts for 6 credits, so I'll still have enough to get credit from Brandeis.

Also, we ran into 3 guys who have already gotten an apartment in Zamalek, and they gave us the name and number of their simsar (go-between, basically), who they said is a wonderful woman and really helpful. They are each paying $400 a month, which apparently is on the high end - we can expect to pay less because there are 4 of us. So once we are all here (Aliche, our 4th roommate, gets in tonight) we can give the simsar a call and get our apartment search going!

So - bismillah, after many hours we are finished and feel very proud of ourselves! Tomorrow orientation starts, and I am going to try to sneak into a Survival Arabic class, even though I didn't sign up ahead of time.

Sara is playing her guitar and we're singing "The Circle Game" and "Puff the Magic Dragon" - hahaha I love this girl, I love this city!

One thing that I've noticed (though I'm not surprised) is that we've interacted with men almost exclusively on the street and in stores - women are everywhere, as well, but they don't chat with us the way that men do, and there seem to be very few working in the service industry. Kearney said that after 6 months of living here, she has several close male Egyptian friends, but no Egyptian female friends. There are lots of women working in the AUC offices though, and they've all been very friendly and helpful.

So far, at school and in Egypt in general, nothing works quite right or exactly on time, but almost everything is good-natured and often hilarious - PERFECT for Meredith Ives. I am pretty obviously in the euphoric stage of adjustment, and I'm sure I'll eventually find things to grumble about, but for now every quirk and miscommunication is endearing!

Okay, this is a long and rambling entry - probably uninteresting to anyone but myself and Mom, but also: I love you all so much! You must must must come visit me! This is a crazy, incredible place.