i love globalization

This has been a very productive week (and weekend?) for me. In addition to many getting settled things (see below), I also went to a fun party on a yacht on the Nile Friday night. They had a dance floor on the upper deck, and there was a nice breeze, and overall it was just really nice.

On Friday during the day I went to an AIESEC event, which was basically a welcome day for all the new members. They held it at the Sakkara Palm Club, which had a lovely pool and horseback riding and things like that. We used a big conference/meeting room, and the day also included a nice lunch. It was nice for me to see the AIESECers I know and also meet some other interns. Apparently there are like six interns who all work at the same place, so we exchanged numbers and hopefully will hang out.

This day was also nice because I enjoyed some of the AIESEC 101, like when they explained all the acronyms to the new members. AIESEC loves acronyms.

Trivia time! Did you know:
1. The GN (growth network) I am in is called MENA (Middle East and North Africa)
2. My LC (local committee) is CU (Cairo University)
3. I am an EP (exchange participant), though I skipped several steps in the AIESEC process, like I2A (initiation to AIESEC), TR (taking responsibility) and having an LR (leadership role)
4. If I want to help plan a conference, I could be on the OC (organizing committee), where I would work with the X (exchange) function to plan events for the interns and other AIESECers

Plus, in addition to the acronym explanation section (which was totally necessary as you can see), they also taught several role calls (I think I might hold off on those for now...) and had awkward ice breakers. I love awkward ice breakers. I think that's one of the main reasons I became a peer advisor in college.

The apartment is finally starting to look awesome. We have hung up some posters and arranged our books in a cool bookshelf-y way, not to mention some furniture rearranging and whatnot. To pick up a lot of apartment-related things we needed, we went to Spinneys (no, there is no apostrophe, and yes, that kills me) at City Stars. Spinneys is sort of like a Wal-Mart or K-Mart, in that they have appliances and cheap clothing in the same place as a large supermarket, but they still don't have quite as much variety as you might hope for.

Still, A1 and I spent a great deal of time just wandering through the aisles with our cart and admiring all the shininess. Bath mats! Cotton balls! Croissants! We were just so happy to be in a familiar environment and surrounded by Western products that we were overall just basking in the glow of globalization. And then we bought some truly unfortunate potholders that have pictures of ice cream on them, and also a spatula, tupperware, and various other things. I will try to post some apartment photos later this week.

Also, I heard (actually, read on The Daily's site) that Northwestern won the Homecoming game this weekend, meaning our record is 6-1 and we are bowl-eligible. Of course this would all happen after I graduate, but still, even in Egypt I can't help but feel a little NU pride.