Having returned from Siwa I met up with the landlord of the flat that I had seen and decided upon. There was a problem, he said, as the owners were coming from Sudan for Eid. So, he was to put me into a temporary flat for a couple of weeks until they left after the celebration and some cleaning had been done. I was a bit annoyed about this until I saw the flat.
That's a picture of the reception/living room/ dining room.
A couple of days after that Emily left. We spent them wandering around the city and eating well in the evening. She caught the overnight train from Alexandria to Luxor and caught the flight in Luxor the next afternoon. She had time to see go out and see some things for a few hours but told me that she spent them in a McDonalds, the nearest air-conditioned building to the train station because Luxor, in her words, was "a tourist oven".
The time following this was really quite dull. For almost a week there was really nothing to do. As Ramadan drew near to the close people seemed reluctant to stick to the already vague and cut down schedules that were given. Shops were shut, streets deserted and cafes empty. Even after dark there were less people around than before. This all changed when Eid arrived.
Eid alFitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan (fitr means "breaking the fast") and traditionally people eat alot, go to the cinema, and take to the streets. Children spend the money that they have been given as gifts during the holiday on sweets, wear the new clothes they have been given for the holiday and everyone has a jolly time. This lasts for three days and for three days the city came alive. All along the promenade there were people walking, eating ice-creams, sitting in makeshift cafes on the beach or pavement and food vendors sprouted out of the ground which they would return to in a couple of days. Overall, it was really nice. There was no big fuss, no concert or single event, just everyone going out and enjoying themselves. My favourite part of the three days was seeing someone riding a horse with two large speakers strapped to it, blaring tinny arab music.
After the end of Eid Jake arrived. Jake studies Arabic and Persian but will be staying here for the whole year, not going to Iran for the second half (SOAS doesn't give that option). He spent a couple of days in Cairo, where he flew into, then headed up to Alexandria and joined me in the flat. We will be living together for the rest of my time here.
And since then everything has been rather busy. We both started taking some spoken Arabic classes, doing two hours a day for a the week or so before school started just to get a leg up. This was a great help because, although my Egyptian had been improving, the dialect here is very different to the standard version of Arabic I know. It was great to get feed back on what I was doing correctly and incorrectly, be given definite rules to follow on certain things as opposed to vague guidelines I had worked out for myself and have someone to pose the questions I had to which were numerous. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to ask people what things mean or what the word for something is. The reasons for this are still unclear to me.
The teacher also set us practical homeworks, aswell as written ones. He would ask what jobs we had to do that day, tell us the best place to go and then tell us the name of a good restaurant, juice bar, patisseris or all three in the same neighbourhood. He would ask us to go, have dinner, do our jobs, go to certain places and maybe bring something back. This was a great way to explore parts of the city which we otherwise would not have seen.
We looked around the university, met some of our teachers and found our way around. I made use of their facilities and spent a couple of days completing my application for the University in Jerusalem.
We also moved into the permanent flat, which is very nice and can be seen below.
Only one room is air-conditioned, the nicer bedroom. We flipped a coin. I won the nicer bedroom. The balcony that you can see through the living room door runs along, past my bedroom door, round the corner of my room (the corner of the building) and ends.
There were, however, quite alot of initial problems. First we had to get someone in to make the television, internet and sparker on the gas cooker work. There followed problems with both toilets, a leak in a pipe and a good clean, something the landlord said he had given it. The definition of clean is very different here. After visits from several plumbers, a gas-man, the internet-man, the satellite-man and a host of other people (all sorted and paid for by the landlord, and brought promptly) everything was in working order. We used excess furniture from the dining room to make the stylish balcony set up you can see above, moved bits around in the living room then cleaned again. After a few hot, sweaty and tiring afternoons (classes were in the mornings) Things had taken shape.
Around this time others were also arriving to the city and, before we both knew it, it was the 19th and we were in school at 9:30am. We were both in for the first two days before missing the next two. Apparently we both ate somthing strange and spent these days and nights either in bed or on the toilet.
And thus we arrive to now. This morning I sat a placement test to determine the class I will be put in. The flat is nice and comfortable, the city still exciting and, although not so much this week due to being kept indoors, I can feel my Arabic gradually improving. Although by no means perfect, I have gotten to grips with the alternative verbs, phrasing and expressions and am building my vocabulary. I won't go into too much detail about the language now, maybe another time.
I am sorry for not being entirely regular with my postings. Although the last couple of weeks have been very busy, I am sure the coming ones will be too, so I will make sure to get these out more regularly.
A couple of days after that Emily left. We spent them wandering around the city and eating well in the evening. She caught the overnight train from Alexandria to Luxor and caught the flight in Luxor the next afternoon. She had time to see go out and see some things for a few hours but told me that she spent them in a McDonalds, the nearest air-conditioned building to the train station because Luxor, in her words, was "a tourist oven".
The time following this was really quite dull. For almost a week there was really nothing to do. As Ramadan drew near to the close people seemed reluctant to stick to the already vague and cut down schedules that were given. Shops were shut, streets deserted and cafes empty. Even after dark there were less people around than before. This all changed when Eid arrived.
Eid alFitr marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan (fitr means "breaking the fast") and traditionally people eat alot, go to the cinema, and take to the streets. Children spend the money that they have been given as gifts during the holiday on sweets, wear the new clothes they have been given for the holiday and everyone has a jolly time. This lasts for three days and for three days the city came alive. All along the promenade there were people walking, eating ice-creams, sitting in makeshift cafes on the beach or pavement and food vendors sprouted out of the ground which they would return to in a couple of days. Overall, it was really nice. There was no big fuss, no concert or single event, just everyone going out and enjoying themselves. My favourite part of the three days was seeing someone riding a horse with two large speakers strapped to it, blaring tinny arab music.
After the end of Eid Jake arrived. Jake studies Arabic and Persian but will be staying here for the whole year, not going to Iran for the second half (SOAS doesn't give that option). He spent a couple of days in Cairo, where he flew into, then headed up to Alexandria and joined me in the flat. We will be living together for the rest of my time here.
And since then everything has been rather busy. We both started taking some spoken Arabic classes, doing two hours a day for a the week or so before school started just to get a leg up. This was a great help because, although my Egyptian had been improving, the dialect here is very different to the standard version of Arabic I know. It was great to get feed back on what I was doing correctly and incorrectly, be given definite rules to follow on certain things as opposed to vague guidelines I had worked out for myself and have someone to pose the questions I had to which were numerous. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to ask people what things mean or what the word for something is. The reasons for this are still unclear to me.
The teacher also set us practical homeworks, aswell as written ones. He would ask what jobs we had to do that day, tell us the best place to go and then tell us the name of a good restaurant, juice bar, patisseris or all three in the same neighbourhood. He would ask us to go, have dinner, do our jobs, go to certain places and maybe bring something back. This was a great way to explore parts of the city which we otherwise would not have seen.
We looked around the university, met some of our teachers and found our way around. I made use of their facilities and spent a couple of days completing my application for the University in Jerusalem.
We also moved into the permanent flat, which is very nice and can be seen below.
 | |||
| The Reception. First right dining room, second living room, | the hall to kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms. |
 |
| The dining room |
 |
| The living room |
 |
| My room |
 |
| The balcony. If the sun was up, you would be able to see the sea in the black space in the middle |
Only one room is air-conditioned, the nicer bedroom. We flipped a coin. I won the nicer bedroom. The balcony that you can see through the living room door runs along, past my bedroom door, round the corner of my room (the corner of the building) and ends.
There were, however, quite alot of initial problems. First we had to get someone in to make the television, internet and sparker on the gas cooker work. There followed problems with both toilets, a leak in a pipe and a good clean, something the landlord said he had given it. The definition of clean is very different here. After visits from several plumbers, a gas-man, the internet-man, the satellite-man and a host of other people (all sorted and paid for by the landlord, and brought promptly) everything was in working order. We used excess furniture from the dining room to make the stylish balcony set up you can see above, moved bits around in the living room then cleaned again. After a few hot, sweaty and tiring afternoons (classes were in the mornings) Things had taken shape.
Around this time others were also arriving to the city and, before we both knew it, it was the 19th and we were in school at 9:30am. We were both in for the first two days before missing the next two. Apparently we both ate somthing strange and spent these days and nights either in bed or on the toilet.
And thus we arrive to now. This morning I sat a placement test to determine the class I will be put in. The flat is nice and comfortable, the city still exciting and, although not so much this week due to being kept indoors, I can feel my Arabic gradually improving. Although by no means perfect, I have gotten to grips with the alternative verbs, phrasing and expressions and am building my vocabulary. I won't go into too much detail about the language now, maybe another time.
I am sorry for not being entirely regular with my postings. Although the last couple of weeks have been very busy, I am sure the coming ones will be too, so I will make sure to get these out more regularly.
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