Cairokee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8

This is Sout al Horeya by Cairokee and when I saw this on the tv and I heard the chorus it took me alittle bit to figure out where I had heard it before, because it was arabic...and then I remembered I heard it LIVE at the color festival!!! This was my favorite song from them, because I could pronounce the chorus and me, Lalli, Gabriel, and Adam were yelling it at the top of our lungs with a bunch of random egyptian strangers :) good times!  Dad, I know you'll love it!

Midan Tahrir

I'm safe, the protests haven't been affecting my life here much, besides traffic and avoiding down-town.  I'm going to do a more complete post on the political situation and Tahrir soon-ish, maybe around next week or so.  Still haven't seen the pyramids or the museum (the museum is right on tahrir :/ ) so it'd really suck to go home now, but my counselor and host dad are very optimistic that nothing will happen to send me home, inshallah!  Fun fact, my counselor's name is Sally and she reminds me of my Granny Dot in a really good way :)

Bus Ride!

My bus is the orange one...my school feels like the middle of no where, but it's not really O.o

At first the only thing I could think of about the huge fake palm trees was 'Big Brother' they're acctually attenas or something for some companies here I think

egyptian license plate

I live in Nasr City and my school is in New Cairo (misr el gadida)...I think...Im not really sure where it is...

Mosque and a Kiosk

Sherif Sharaf- he reminds me of Ben, Johnny, and Isaiah all in one ;)

normal apartment, kiosk, and microbus

Sheep and cows in town right before Eid

normal differences

Karim and Ahmed

These are the last pictures from school :)

Rainbow Color Festival!

Gabriel Me Lalli and Adam

Gabriel

I'd say it was skill, but I'd be lying ;) just a lucky shot

Lalli and Gabriel

Lalli and Adam

Cairokee

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neon nails is were its at! me with some really awesome egyptian girls :)

He killed a smurf and he liked it ;) O.o we took public transport back remember...

The day started off with an Arabic lesson and after Lalli, Adam, and I walked down the street to find a bus to take us to Maadi.  It was my first time taking the public transport since the metro a while ago (Adam and Lalli use it a lot) and it was good to not have to use a private driver or depend on my mom.  Like Lalli said, “If you never get the experience and learn from your mistakes by depending on yourself, when the other people aren’t there you won’t know what to do.” Too true, that’s why I hate having my mom drive me everywhere all of the time. Also, I don’t mind getting lost.  I like that about traveling J Anyway, after, we took a microbus to the club.  There we met Gabriel and his sister who were covered in colored powder.  Once our shirts were adequately no longer white, we ate and hung out and listened to DJ Sux (…why would you name yourself that???).  After a while a rock band called Cairokee took the stage and I wish I knew the lyrics, because everyone around us was singing at the top of their lungs J reminds me of the football dances back home!  I’m going to have to look them up on iTunes, cause their music was right up my alley.  Then they had a “Most Colorful Couple” competition that was decided, like everything else in Egypt, by cheering, yelling, screaming, or shouting the loudest.  Then they also had a count off and everyone threw colors into the air that I was lucky enough to get a good picture of, and fireworks (but I wasn't so lucky with the pictures this time...)  When the band finished we decided to split and we took a combo of (black!) taxi, metro, and microbus (no tuk-tuks tonight…) to get home.  The traffic was horrible, because of problems in Tahrir (we avoided it and our only problem was the traffic).  Then Adam, Lalli, and I walked to my house and they got to have some Abu Mazen (awesome shawerma place at the bottom of my building).  Now, sitting here with a blue stain on my neck listening to Viva La Vida, I can’t help but think this was one of my favorite days in Cairo.

Learn like an Egyptian...

AKA have tons of fun all of the time :D fakis madrasa (screw school!)

Menna, Salma, Noura, and Amr

We always have an assembly before school in the burning hot sun and the pledge of alligance is really intimidating...just ask my mom cause I imitated it for her over skype }:)

Karim

Dr. Walid (our pretty cool vice principal or somthing)

The B-Day Girl, Menna!

*Good, Litzy, Good!* My PE "teacher"

Chillin' in the shade, cause even in October it's incredibly sunny... :D

my favorite hall moniter (usually he has a megaphone)

class

all of the seniors :D

Sharaf, Huda, and some guy from C...i think his name is Ahmed...

Huda and Louise

some of the weirdos in my class! right to left: Mostafa, Kareem, someone, Nour, (Ahmed) Lotfy, Amr, and Omar maggot!

the playground

the egyptian version of Joel :D and people praying during break

a big project

simba's been in our class for a while, but i happened to bring my camera when someone made a big project...usually he just sits in the corner with the odd person ridding him :)

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My bus buddies! Kareem (frosh) and Menna (12A) and a little girl that I can't remember her name, from the french school :) and Al3 (ala'a i don't know how to write his name)