Order vs. Disorder: Sure, the things in this list could be linked by that theme...maybe.

1. Squeaks- For some reason, the materials Egyptians have paved many of their walkways with make my tennis shoes squeak a lot. It happens to my friend Daniel too, so I've deduced rather unscientifically that it has something to do with men's shoes. This phenomenon seems more prevalent the nicer the walking surface, so it happens especially often on the AUC campus. I suppose I never found it abnormal to have shoes squeaking walking on marble floors like the ones in nice U.S. office buildings, but it seems to happen on surfaces that I wouldn't expect to squeak. I'm talking like cobblestone paths and apparently rough and unpolished walkways. It doesn't really matter, sound has just always irked me. Whatever.

2. Hunger- When I first got to Egypt, my appetite took a big dive--which was convenient, because I had no idea ever where to find food, especially since it was Ramadan. This happened to a lot of the foreign students when they came here, and it was generally ascribed to the heat. It's starting to get ever so slightly cooler here though (like now we're usually just in the low 90's, and it's really quite pleasant in the mornings), and I think I forced myself to adapt to the heat by walking around and sweating profusely for hours and hours almost everyday of the first week. For those reasons (maybe), my appetite has come back with a vengeance. Now, I am alwayshungry. I have to bring snacks with me to school everyday and then pace my eating out until I get to whatever break I may have that day. This observation brings me to my next unclassified thought:

3. Peanut Butter- Is my comfort food, I've realized. It is the only thing for which I don't even feel bothered by having to spend above-American prices, because I feel the need to have it so strongly. I've been buying a regular sized jar of Supercrunch Jiffy peanut butter for about $5 and a loaf of sliced-bread (which Egyptians rather humorously call "Toast") to make pb sandwiches to sate my resurgent hunger.

4. Flies-The little bastards (in arabic, "flies" is "Zubab") here are not only unfairly fast, but also super aggressive. Given that it is never cold enough here to make them sluggish and that they have a more or less constant supply of food in the piles of trash that litter every single street in Cairo, the flies reign free throughout most parts of Cairo, the super-clean AUC campus excepted. It is one of my goals to kill at least ONE fly before winter sets in. They are really that fast here.

5. Squeaks, reexamined- Seriously?! My shoes squeaked on the concrete sidewalk? I really don't understand what they paved this stuff with...

6. Cleanliness/Cities- I am by no means a clean freak as most of you probably know. I generally prefer having a moderate amount of clutter in my life most of the time, and harbor a not-so-well-hidden belief that excessive use of things like antibiotics is worse rather than better for me. That being said, there are many parts of Egypt which I find deplorably disgusting. As I mentioned, there are literally piles of trash everywhere in downtown Cairo, and even at the big time tourist destinations like the Pyramids and in smaller towns like Siwa and the suburbs of Cairo I saw on the way to the southern Pyramids are choked by trash and garbage in the streets. It shocks me most of all in Cairo, though. So many times I find myself thinking "Really? This is your capital, guys?" But everyone just throws their trash wherever they feel like it, and, to make things worse, the city doesn't seem to feel it necessary to provide a whole lot of trash cans. Recycling, of course, is nonexistent.

Here's a picture of a nice big pile of trash in the tombs right by the famous Step Pyramid at Saqqara, an important destination for tourists and a milestone in Egyptian history for Egyptians to look back on with pride, which no Egyptians feel it necessary to prevent from being covered in trash.

It may be unfair, but I can't help but wonder how this reflects Egyptians' feelings about their country. Egyptians are incredibly proud of being Egyptians above maybe all else, and yet they don't seem too inclined to take care of their country. Perhaps it is unfair to make comparisons based on standards which are by definition set by my own experiences, but garbage is garbage, and while Washington D.C. is certainly dirty in a lot of places, no one would ever describe our nation's capitol as "dusty and decrepit" in the Lonely Planet travel guide for that city.

The whole thing just makes me appreciate how good the American metropolises (Denver, DC, Miami, NYC are the ones I've had the most experience in) are at their city maintenance. You would never see the number of cracked (or in places, it looks more like exploded) sidewalks, potholes, crumbling buildings, or defective man-hole covers (one of which my leg fell through when it flipped beneath my step). Occasionally it makes me a little mad to see such disregard, sometimes it makes me sad for the city and the people who probably just feel it's too widespread an issue to ever address, but usually I just don't even notice it.

7. Cats- Besides the ever-present flies, the abundant trash around the city does have one nice trade-off in my opinion: It supports the abundant population of friendly stray cats. When researching for my thesis, I read about the innumerable Persian cats that roam everywhere in Tehran. Supposedly, no one owns cats as pets per se there in Iran, the cats sort of temporarily move into and out of Iranian houses whenever they feel so inclined, and the Iranians will feed them while they're there. It's not too different here. Everywhere you go in Egypt (or everywhere I've gone at least) you will find cats sometimes hovering just out of reach of the humans around them, sometimes perched just a foot away staring intently at you as you eat, and sometimes ignoring you completely as they prance around/lick themselves/root through trash for food/generally do cat-like things. Some people don't like them, but the way that cats just go about their business in their own self-contained way without obtruding on mine provides a nice contrast to the in-your-face you-have-no-personal-bubble-or-space attitude of many Cairenes. I think I also like cats because a friend of mine's infectious adoration for cats has forever colored my opinion of them. Either way I like seeing them out and about.

8. Beautiful Egyptians- I somehow was actually totally unaware of this before coming here, but Egyptians, if you also didn't know, are ridiculously beautiful people. I don't have any pictures of the especially beautiful Egyptians at AUC, who are pretty much all--male or female--stunningly beautiful, but here's a picture of Amr Diab, pretty much the most famous singer in the Arab world, who also happens to be an Egyptian.

Furthermore, like Amr Diab, the Egyptians at my school are all incredibly cool. This makes them largely uninterested in things American for the sake of those things being American since they make no such distinction. They like the things they like because they are just what's cool in Egypt, not because they also happen to be cool in America. If I ever talk to any of the pretty Egyptians, I'll tell you how their personalities hold up. I have some thoughts I've come upon thinking about them from the perspective of a minority student about these young, rich Egyptians at my school, but I'll save that for its own post perhaps. I bought a soccer ball a few days ago to set in motion my master plan of making Egyptian friends via pick-up soccer games. I'll let you know how that goes.

I'll post about Siwa this weekend and then I'll finally write something down about the pyramids too. I know I say something to this effect every post, but I'm sorry for being such an inconsistent blogger. Contrary to some of your opinions, I am not getting burned out, I just have homework now...And I swear I'm working on making posts shorter.