The Start of a School Semester

A picture of AUC.
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Hello again!

The past week has flown right by.  At first time was moving slowly, but with classes starting things are picking up.  Classes at AUC officially started last Wednesday.  It was definitely different being on campus when it's filled with tons of people getting back into the swing of things.  AUC is really neat.  It's the equivalent of an Ivy League school in the States, which means that many of the Egyptians attending the school are rich, rich, rich.  A small, frame of reference fact-- the average middle income family in Egypt makes roughly 4000 pounds a month.  Tuition for a 4 month semester at AUC is 60,000 pounds. 

One of the Katie's and I at a party on a houseboat on the Nile.
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We had gone on our campus tour a couple of days before classes start.  One of our campus tour guides was talking about the "Gucci corner."  We all thought that she was joking.  Nope.  It really does exist.

Overall, the classes are interesting, but seem to be less intense than SFU.  I'll likely be shocked when I return back home for my last semester.  I was looking forward to meeting some of the Egyptian students at the school, but most of the people in my classes are other "westerners."  I guess studying Middle Eastern politics when you're from the Middle East is like studying Canadian politics when you're from Canada.  Nothing glamorous.

The tourist section of Khan al Khalili.
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I've done a couple more of the touristy things in the past couple of days.  We went to Khan al Khalili (a massive bazaar that sells every possible thing that you can think of).  We just wandered through the outskirts, but it's possible to wander down a ton of narrow passages and get hopelessly lost for a while.  Kudos to anyone that is able to find their way back to a previously visited shop...

Megan and I also took a visit on Friday afternoon to Coptic Cairo (the old Christian part of Cairo).  We got there about an hour before many of the churches started closing, so we quickly wandered through them and paid a visit to the Hanging Church, argued to be the oldest Christian church.  It's called the Hanging Church because it's built on 2 pillars and situated about 13 meters off of the ground.  They have a neat glass floor section where you can peer down at the ground.  It's really interesting to see the differences between the touristy things in Europe and those in Egypt.  In Europe there seems to be more respect and most things are located behind a rope.  In Egypt everyone is free to wander, to touch, to photograph.  While this allows you to "interact with history" a little more than in Europe, there's little respect for the significance of the object, item, etc.  A little side note-- one of the other Katie's actually saw a woman put her cigarette out on a pyramid.  I'm sorry, but you don't treat one of the remaining wonders of the Ancient World like that.  Okay, I'm done with my little spiel, moving on...

A little side passage dedicated to spices at Khan al Khalili.
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Back to school news.  I'm now a member of the AUC girls crew team.  Yup, I joined yesterday morning.  We have practice 4 mornings a week (at 6 am I might add).  It should be a lot of fun though.  Everyone on the team is a newbie and there are only 4 of us.  Hence, one of our team's first tasks is to step up the recruiting process.  All the practices might inhibit some of the external traveling, but the experience of rowing along the Nile will likely be worth it.

Anyways, that all for now.  I'm going to go and start on some readings for class.

The Hanging Church, one of the oldest Christian churches, located in Coptic Cairo.
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Katie