First Impressions

Hi everyone!

See, I made it safe and sound!

I arrived in Cairo on January 19th after flying via London from Vancouver.  Both flights were good.  Unfortunately my cold was still bad, so I was in agony during the landing.  I thought for sure that my ears were going to burst!!  In London I found about 20 other students who were on their way to AUC to begin study abroad semesters.  We hung out for a bit at our gate before boarding the plane for Cairo.  At the airport we were greeted by our driver who did his best to shoo us all through customs as quickly as possible.  Much appreciated!!  After about an hour of us waiting in lines and scrambling around to find our luggage (and our driver going nuts trying to keep track of 20 of us) we finally assembled outside the airport where we were led to the bus.  Unfortunately, all of our luggage wouldn't fit into the bus, so they brought along other buses for our luggage.  It was funny though because they wouldn't let us be there while our bags were being loaded into the buses.  Instead we were forced onto our own bus.  It was a pretty funny picture though-- all of us pressed up against the window trying to see if our bags were actually being loaded.

After that little adventure, we got our next adventure-- traffic in Cairo.  Now, keep in mind that this is at about 1 am and not rush hour or even the waking hour for most people.  About 1 minute into the ride we heard sirens behind us.  After about 15 minutes of sirens and lights trailing after us, we finally realized that we had a police escort.  See family-- massive security so you can relax now.

We finally got to the dorms and then it took about an hour to get us settled in with our room assignments.  The security guards had to check through our luggage (much more thoroughly than customs did-- perhaps something that the Egyptian government should be concern about???).  After getting our room assignments we got our luggage together and began the journey to our rooms.  I have a vague recollection of thinking how beautiful the dorms were, but it's hard to say.  It was all pretty fuzzy after a good 40+ hours with no sleep.  My opinions of the dorms changed instantly upon finding out that the elevators were being finicky, and we would therefore have to haul our stuff up to the 4th floor.  I finally arrived on the 4th floor ready to die and then preceeded to drag my stuff around trying to find my room number.  I walked down every hallway that I could find, but I couldn't find my room number anywhere.  I was just about to give up and curl into a ball in the corner of the hallway to sleep there when I finally gained the courage to go through the upmarked doors.  Some of you may be wondering why I did not do this sooner, but just a reminder that these dorms follow strict Muslim cultural rules, which involves a clear separation of the sexes.  Breaking these rules can result in expulsion from the school.  I figured that that would be a pretty horrible way to beginning my exchange...  Anyways, I was desperate enough so I went through the doors and lo and behold there was my room.  I got myself settled in and then preceeded to lie there for about 3 hours before finally dozing off.  And this concludes my initial encounter with Cairo.

I'll write more later!

Katie