On future plans defined and undefined

Though I have over a month left till I start school again, today is my last "boring" day of break. I'm picking up Dylan and Eleanor from the Airport (who conveniently land only 20 minutes apart from each other) beginning what surely will be a rollercoaster ride of adventures. It starts with a whirlwind tour of Egypt with the both of them that should go something like this:

T-4
Night: get back to apartment around 10-ish and then maybe go smoke some sheesha and drink some tea like real Egyptians do all the time (if you guys are feeling up for it after your travels)

W-5
Morning: Giza Pyramids/Sphinx
Afternoon: Get lunch Downtown and then wander (take the metro back to Zamalek for the experience)
Dinner:Slow Kofta
Night: Check out Khan el-Khalily at night before chilling at Fishawi's, the oldest and probably most famous cafe in Cairo

R-6
Morning-Afternoon: Start out with the Citadel and/or the Garbage City then make the journey by foot through the backstreets of Islamic Cairo up through the back entrance of Khan in time to catch the afternoon prayer at Al-Azhar Mosque or the Mosque of al-Hakim
Dinner: Fiteer downtown
Night: hang out at Hurreya Bar or Odeon Palace and then get some street snacks on the Nile before heading back to Zamalek to get a little sleep

F-7
Morning: leave Cairo at a brutal 5:30am to get into Luxor at 6:30 by plane
Rest of the day: Marathon tour of ruin-y things

S-8
More Ruin-y things
Leave to go back for Cairo that night at 11:35 pm to get in to Cai-town an hour later

Sn-9
Morning: Probably sleep in
Afternoon: get some supplies and then go to al-Azhar Park for a picnic of Alex Top koshary
Dinner: maybe go out to dinner with my friends and one of their families to an awesome Lebanese restaurant
Night: dinner will probably go late, but if not too late then maybe take a short Felucca ride on the Nile and then go back and get ready for White Desert

M-10
Leave Early to go to the White Desert with Hemeida
Do Desert-y things

T-11
Morning: More desert-y things
Evening: head back to Cairo

W-12
Leave Cairo, Eleanor going back to the States, and Dylan and I to Dubai

If you can't tell, I'm pretty thrilled to be getting to show off some of my Egypt know-how. After Cairo, Dylan and I have less concrete plans, though we know we'll be in Dubai for two days then Abu Dhabi for two days before we fly to Damascus to explore Syria for three and a half days until we find a private cab to take us to Beirut for another two and half days in Lebanon. We haven't figured out all our accommodations yet, though we have two (or three?) nights in Beirut booked at what is supposed to be a really cool cross between a Bed & Breakfast and a home-stay, plus we have all our flights.

Luckily for my teeming throngs of loyal blog-followers (hi mom!), I've stocked up some posts in my free time over the past couple of days that are ready and waiting to be posted, so I won't be totally AWOL. It's been nice having the past week or so to myself to just be free to be totally lazy sometimes while also getting to take my time exploring the parts of Cairo I felt like I'd missed. Nonetheless, as ridiculously, overpoweringly excited as I am to start in on my adventures, a part of me does wish I had another week like this last one. I realized this is officially my first time with my "own" apartment, so I felt like I wasted a little too much time just revelling in that fact instead of figuring out some better plans for my life. This feeling probably stems from my 4am decision last night to apply to a Grad School Arabic program--though I'd all but vowed never to do any such thing. The deadline is also in just a few weeks, so it means I'm going to have to sneak in time on most of my application stuff in between showing my friends around Egypt. This is, of course, no one's fault but my own, but it's still stressing. I've also started looking at Foreign Service Exam test booklets for the State Dept. (which actually looks like it will be kind of fun to study for) and into other Arabic-specializing programs around the Middle East. So I have some plans, or at least some ideas for plans, but they're all sort of vague and open-ended. I just know, I really don't want to have had this amazing experience with my Arabic only to go back to the States and never be able to use it again.

Anyway, here's a nice picture of the sun setting from my apartment taken a few days ago:


And here's satan-cat, my only housemate for the past week, looking deceptively cute right before doing what she does best: attacking my feet.