the chicken and the mushroom

I think we all know that I am not really the outdoorsy type, years spent at Eisner notwithstanding, but I did, in fact, willingly go camping this weekend. And it was fun! This weekend is potentially a long weekend: Monday is Mohammad's birthday and an official day off, so many people also took off Sunday and made it a four-day weekend. Since I just took off to go to Amsterdam with Michelle, I chose to work today (Sunday), though I was still up for a little desert excursion.

Since Cairo is so crowded, it can be a bit of a shock sometimes to remember how startlingly empty the rest of the country can be. Our base was the Bahariyya Oasis in the Western Desert (of which the Black and White Deserts are just a small part), and on the 4-hour drive from Cairo to Bahariyya we passed...nothing. Just vast open expanses of desert as far as the eye could see, punctuated by brief spottings of camels or a few reststops. I suppose beach is still my favorite, but there is something I really love about the innate peacefulness of the desert, and this trip didn't disappoint.

We departed Cairo at 4 a.m. Friday morning packed into a minibus, drove to the Bahariyya Oasis, where we ate breakfast and repacked our bags into two 4x4 vehicles for the desert trip. There were nine of us, plus three guides. They drove the cars, made the food, tea and fire, set up the camp, and even played some awesome drum music around the campfire. We first drove through the Black Desert, which is black because of a former volcano in the area. We continued on through some really beautiful scenery, and eventually ended up in the White Desert, where we camped for the night.

The Black Desert was not necessarily my favorite, though the volcano was cool. On the other hand, the White Desert was really freaking awesome. Everything is very lunar looking, and you really feel like you are walking around on the surface of the moon. There are these strange white shapes kind of rising out of nothing, all in this white, chalky rock. It looked to me like it had been snowing on a Dr. Seuss book or something like that. And at night, the moon was so bright and reflecting off the rocks, you could see perfectly even without a flashlight.

In the morning, we stopped at a few noteworthy formations on our way back to Bahariyya. This included The Mushroom (not pictured), and The Chicken, which is the photo on the top of this post. It looks like the chicken is facing a tree. Pretty awesome.

And a sidenote: I didn't even realize it, but this weekend at Northwestern was Dance Marathon, a popular NU fundraiser that I have participated in for the last three years. Hundreds of student dancers dance for 30 hours to raise money for a chosen charity, with even more students volunteering their time to take care of the dancers, raise money with alumni, organize within the university, count all the money, set the dancing area, be in charge of music, lighting and more. It's an incredible undertaking that, I think, really brings together the student body. I missed it this year.

Former volcano in the black desert

Pretty desert photo

This is the awesome place we stopped for lunch. Note the very zen-like stream flowing through the middle.

Our campsite in the White Desert, set up by our awesome Bedouin guides. This was the chill-out area, though we also had a campfire and tents for sleeping off to the side.

Ooooh, wide-lens! Fancy! White desert at sunset. You can see another jeep out there as well.

Another view of the desert in the morning.

leaving on a jet plane...or am i?

On this blog, I have previously complained about forms of transportation, like the microbus from Taba or the taxis in Cairo. But I still felt pretty good about planes, until this week. Last night (well, I suppose it was early morning, actually) I was attempting to book airfare to Israel for Passover. What a struggle.

I should note that figuring all of this out (below) took a few days, as I waited to hear back from various people and rearranged the days I was going to travel. I originally wanted to go on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, but that didn't work out at all so I settled on Tuesday during the day (which means I need to take an extra day off work). Better to be there early than to miss the seder. Throughout this whole thing, I was speaking with my family in Israel to make sure someone was available to pick me up at the airport and that I will have a place to stay if I arrive a night early. I was also coordinating with two different travel agents, since some Web sites don't list flights to Israel, and others don't exist at all (Air Sinai, I'm looking at you). I was also e-mailing with my dad to keep my parents updated on the situation. So I was juggling many options at the same time. But of course, there were several problems.

First, no one flies from Cairo to Israel in the middle of the week, apparently. There is Air Sinai, Egypt Air's "secret" offshoot which has no Web site; there are flights to Israel but you need to book them through a travel agent or in person, and they only operates a few flights a week and none of them are when I wanted to go. There's El Al, which, in addition to only having a few flights each week, mostly on weekends, is also much more expensive than you'd think (though I suppose Passover is one of their busiest times, so maybe that's fair). I finally resorted to Royal Jordanian, where I could connect via Amman. It just seems to silly to need a connection for a flight that is under two hours. Comparison-wise, this is like having a flight from New York to Boston with a layover in Westchester. But RJ does fly to Israel every day, so that's fine, and I have flown the airline before and it's all good.

But of course, it can't be that easy. The RJ Web site makes it possible for a customer to book a flight from Tel Aviv to Cairo, but not from Cairo to Tel Aviv. Why? You've obviously got flights to Israel. Why not make it possible to book these flights? So I turned to Orbitz, where they are currently acknowledging the Cairo-Tel Aviv flights, but not at the proper times. It looked like my options were: pay about $1300 for a flight that connects through Germany or France (completely ridiculous), or have an overnight layover that would give me a sleepover in the Amman airport. I eventually chose the second option, but will try and go standby on an earlier flight. If that doesn't work, I will stay overnight in an airport hotel and be in Israel really freaking early on Wednesday morning.

Anyway, it's all settled now and I have airfare, and I am really looking forward to going to Israel for Passover. I am not sure if it's for the joke potential (it's Exodus, people! Leaving Egypt for Israel on Passover? Too perfect!), or because it's just been a while since I was last there (Jerusalem in November). In any event, Passover is pretty much my favorite Jewish holiday (yes, more than Hanukkah), and I am excited. To be on the lookout for plagues and attempt to part the Red Sea. Just kidding. I really am excited!

Still, Egypt and Israel are neighbors. I've crossed the land border and it's open and fine. There is peace now. So why is still so freaking hard to get from one country to the other?! I know, I know, you all want to give me world's littlest violin right now. If finding airfare is my biggest worry, I should count myself lucky. But you know what, it's still insanely frustrating. OK, I feel better now. Rant over.

dam

Last night I got back from Amsterdam, which was excellent. I met Michelle there for four days -- she first went to Prague to see a friend studying abroad, and then we chose Amsterdam as something of a midpoint for us to meet up. We met in the airport Wednesday midday and took the train to our hotel. We had a great few days to explore the city, and only got lost a little (this was probably my fault... it usually is).

Some highlights included: a canal cruise to see the city (I really enjoyed the adorable canal houses), walking on many bridges (Michelle, the future civil engineer, has a thing for bridges), the Rijksmuseum (which had lots of artifacts and art, with many by Renoir, Vermeer and Rembrandt, including his famous The Night Watch), the Van Gogh Museum (including dozens of famous ones, like self-portraits, sunflowers and Starry Night), the Heineken Factory (no explanation necessary here!), the Anne Frank House, and plenty of walking and exploring. The above "iamsterdam" sign is outside the Museumplein, which is where the museums live. We thought it was cool and played in it for a while, in one of the sunnier parts of our long weekend (as you will see below, it was pretty cloudy most of the time and rained a bit on Friday).

There were some things we wanted to do but were not in season, like a nearby windmill village which is supposed to have like seven or eights windmills and other cute village-y things, but only one is open during the winter so it didn't really seem worth it to go out there. It's OK, I'll see the windmills next time -- it just gives me a good excuse to go back. We also saw tulips, but not to the extent I imagine we would have seen them during the spring.

Michelle turning the gears at the Heineken factory. This was before the beer taste-testing.

Outside of the Anne Frank House (the building on the left with the windows). They are pretty strict about no photos inside, but this is the street she looked out on every day for two years.

Canals and bridges all lit up at night. Pretty!

Michelle and I outside the Royal Palace in Dam Square.

Royal Palace (not open when the family is in residence, and it was closed to tourists when we were there)

More canal and houses, as seen from our canal cruise.

This is the Old Church as seen from our canal cruise. As you can see, it was a rather overcast day, which I think makes it look rather gothic.

I know it's a bit blurry, but here we are sitting in a giant wooden clog. It was about as awesome as you'd expect.

this is the worst deja vu ever

Last night, a bomb went off in Cairo. Police have already arrested three suspects, although no one has claimed responsibility yet, as far as I know. I am OK, and no one I know was hurt. The place where the bomb went off, Khan el-Khaleili, is a bazaar in Old Cairo, a place where I have been a bunch of times. This one hit pretty close to home -- not literally, more in the figurative sense that I know the place and it's a part of my life here.

But really, I guess my first thought when I heard about the bomb was, "I can't believe this is happening again." During the summer of 2006 I was interning at a newspaper in Jerusalem when the fighting with Lebanon started in the north. At first, it seemed to disrupt daily life just a little -- people I knew stopped taking the bus and avoided Ben Yehudah St. for a few days, since those had been previous targets. But it soon became clear that Jerusalem was a safe place. As the north of the country got evacuated, more and more people flocked to Jerusalem; there was a consensus that even if Hezbollah's rockets could reach Jerusalem, they would not attack the city.

Eventually that summer, I had to leave Israel early because of the fighting. Obviously this incident is different; it's an isolated event and not a conflict situation. The worst part I think is that Cairo feels like such a safe city. I am comfortable walking around downtown Cairo at night in a way I was not in Evanston, where muggings were fairly frequent in the areas near campus. Yes, women get hollered or whistled at in Egypt. But no one tries to beat you and steal your purse. It's comforting, compared to other big cities in which I have lived. Something like attack makes you question that.

I have to believe that goal of this bombing, like any other terrorist action, is to disrupt people's daily lives, to make them afraid. The best thing to do is not to give them that satisfaction, to keep living your life as you normally would. And that's exactly what I'm going to do.

european art for a change

The great Cairo Museum Tour continued yesterday with a visit to the Mr. and Mrs. Mahmoud Khalil Museum in Dokki. The museum is housed in the villa that used to belong to the Khalils, though it was also later used by Sadat as spare office space (his villa was next door). The museum is, I think, one of Cairo's hidden treasures -- it's full of European art and items (urns, perfume bottles, snuff boxes) from Japan and China. There are originals by Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. Overall, not the kind of thing I would expect to find in Cairo. But I think what made it truly great was that guided tours came free, so when we entered the museum we got a full tour by Mahmoud, an extremely knowledgable art student who was more than happy to show us around and give us lots of great background information on the paintings.

I took a class on European art when I was studying in Madrid, and have been fortunate to go see many great museums in Europe in the past few years. It was nice that I felt like I was able to identify a lot of the artists and styles of painting and all that in this museum in Cairo. Extra points for my profesora in Madrid -- looks like I learned something after all on study abroad.

Also this weekend, I had a nice Shabbat dinner with friends. We did potluck style, so I contributed this good pasta salad that I do with veggies and cheese. (It's not really possible to get Kosher meat here, so all Shabbat dinners are pretty much vegetarian by default. Though I did have some friends bring Kosher chicken from Israel in the fall, so that was nice. But anyway.) There's going to be a bigger Shabbat dinner next week that was organized by people at the Israeli Embassy, but unfortunately I will be missing it since I will be traveling. I am going to be meeting Michelle in Amsterdam, which I am really excited about. Look forward to many exciting posts about windmills, tulips, clogs and cheese.

non-violent protest

As many of you might have read a few weeks ago, a German-Egyptian activist named Philip Rizk was taken by Egyptian state security after organizing a peaceful march in support of Gaza. Read about it here. In any event, Rizk, who is also a blogger, made a documentary about Gaza after living there for two years. That film, "Palestinian Life: Village Stories of Sumoud and Non-Violent Resistance," was screened last night at AUC's old campus in Tahrir Square. Rizk, who was returned home last week, was missing for a few days when lots of people were speculating about his disappearance. His story is pretty well known in Cairo, so it was also noteworthy that he showed up to introduce his film and take questions at the end. He didn't endear himself to the Egyptian government too much with all his activism about Gaza. He criticized Israel for the attacks, but also the Egyptian government for not doing enough to help.

Anyway, he's obviously no Michael Moore, but I thought the film was interesting. The screening was packed (people were sitting on the floor and on the stairs), and there was a Q&A portion after the 30-minute documentary. As Rizk noted during the Q&A, the images that most often make it into the mainstream media are violent ones: Palestinian men with guns and keffiyahs, Israeli soldiers with guns, bloody shooting victims, homes reduced to rubble, the aftermath of a suicide bomb. He said he wanted to highlight the lives of ordinary Palestinians -- these are farmers and goat herders who live in small villages (or caves, in one example) and whose lives have been touched by a violent conflict they have done their best to avoid. The Arabic word in the title, sumoud, refers to a kind of steadfastness. It's a way of saying that their resistance is to keep living, to keep doing what they have always done and not led themselves be goaded into fighting. It's classic non-violent resistance.

And I, hippie-camp-attending, peace-loving, bleeding heart liberal that I am, thought that was a great focus for the film. A lot of the West regards Palestinians as nothing but jihadists, and Gaza as nothing but a breeding ground for malcontented future terrorists. I don't think the film made any points that were particularly surprising (these people have hard lives, have been screwed over by multiple governments including their own, and there is no real end in sight, etc.), but that doesn't mean it was less powerful.

I was particularly intrigued by one part of the film where Rizk highlighted the actions of B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. They have an initiative called "Shooting Back," where Israeli activists give video cameras (and lessons on how to use them) to Palestinians in the West Bank and then instruct them to film abuses by local Israeli settlers if they see any. One of those film clips is in the movie, and it shows a few settlers with sticks (or baseball bats or something) beating up an elderly Palestinian woman in her field for no reason at all. It's a little wobbly and grainy, but the images are pretty disturbing nonetheless.

Some parts of the film were a little funny, whether intentionally or not (one enterprising Palestinian family took leftover parts from bombs and turned them into festive flowerpots), but the real winners came during the Q&A. One questioner mentioned that he would be in Gaza for three days on business (what business trip takes place in Gaza these days, I have no idea), and asked what did Rizk recommend he see if he had only three days in Gaza? I don't know if he meant to be funny, but really...that's your question?

And most disturbingly for me, though this film was obviously made with the best intentions, for me it raises more questions than it answers. But those musings will be another post for another time.

at least they had bats

One of my New Year's resolutions this year was to get out and explore Cairo more. Every time I live abroad, I always get close to leaving wherever I am and realize there is still so much I want to do. So to avoid having that happen here, I decided to be more proactive about seeing Cairo. I have been doing something each weekend for the past few weeks, and this week decided to go to the Fish Gardens, located nearby in Zamalek. Despite the confusing title, the Fish Gardens is supposed to be a nice park near the Corniche on the Nile, as well as Cairo's aquarium.

It was the worst aquarium I have been to, ever. First, there were almost no fish. OK, there were two that were alive. The rest were dead and preserved in oversized test tubes. Not kidding. Basically, the park has a series of man-made caves that have aquariums set into the rock. Almost all of the aquariums were empty -- some had water but no fish, others had no water or fish. Some just had garbage at the bottom, leading N to remark that one particular tank must contain the "crumpled-up chip bag species" of fish. In fact, we found one tank with two large, ugly fish, and another with four turtles. That was it. Then at the end, we found that a number of the tanks contained oversized plastic test tubes with the perfectly preserved remains of the rest of the fish in the "aquarium." Some tanks had like 7-8 kinds of dead fish in them. It was really depressing.

The only bright spot here was that N heard the caves also had bats. Sure enough, standing in the middle of one of the larger, fish-less caves, we did hear the squeaking of many bats up above. Some of them swooped occasionally. We didn't stay too long because none of us wanted to get pooped on.

Luckily, the gardens part of the Fish Gardens was lovely. We brought along some books/magazines/newspapers and spent a nice afternoon sitting in the grass reading, napping, chatting, etc. It was an unusually warm winter weekend here (even in the midst of what everyone is calling the mildest winter in Cairo ever, thanks Global Warming!), so it was great to go out in t-shirts and sit in the sun for a bit.

There is a zoo in Giza that I would like to go to eventually (it's on my list of things to do), but after the disappointment of the Fish Gardens I think I should wait a while before attempting more animals.

what's in a name?

In America, my name is often mis-pronounced, but people eventually get it right. Elsewhere, I sometimes have to engage in preemptive name correction. In Spain, I knew the "z" in Aliza would be pronounced like a "th" thanks to the Spanish lisp. In Latin America (the accent I was used to at the time), it would be more of an "s" sound. In Spanish classes at Northwestern, I was usually called "Elisa" or "Alisa." So when I got to Madrid I just started introducing myself as Alisa to avoid being called Alitha. It was a good decision.

Since Arabic is not too far off from Hebrew, I thought getting my name right wouldn't be a problem, especially given that Aziza is a fairly popular name and it's only one letter off from mine. Well apparently, that letter makes a difference. For a while I would introduce myself and the other person would repeat back "Leeza?" But after months of correcting people, I give up. Now when Egyptians ask my name, I just say Leeza (like the talk show hostess). It makes my life easier.

And on the bright side, I have not been called Eliza since I got here, so I suppose it could always be worse.

the mummies creeped me out a little

After living in Cairo for seven months (I know!), I finally made it to the Egyptian Museum. The thing about the museum is that, like many other things in Egypt, it has so much potential for greatness but is plagued by inefficiency. The museum is housed in beautiful mansion-esque building, and obviously they are overflowing with relics: royal mummies, the King Tut collection, dozens of statues and jewelry and all that other ancient Egypt goodness. But you also get the feeling that these priceless artifacts are not particularly well-cared for; the only room with temperature control is the mummy room (which you have to pay an additional fee to enter), and despite dozens of "no touching OR ELSE" signs, A1 and I spotted many people touching whatever they liked with no interference. In one place, we saw a 4000 year-old statue...with a telephone and notepad on top, being used as a desk. Yeah.

There is this wealth of artifacts arranged in the museum in somewhat chronological order, but things are just kind of loaded into display cases. Not everything is marked or labelled or explained, and in some places there are extra statues or whatnot kind of wedged in behind other things. It makes it a cool experience to explore the museum because you never quite know what you'll find, but on the other hand it can also be frustrating because you know you're probably missing a lot as well.

But anyway, the museum had tons of awesome stuff. There were shoes and jewelry that, even though they are around 5,000 years old, are still...wearable looking. The King Tut collection was also pretty cool, with all the loot they found from his tomb in the Valley of the Kings (which in Luxor, and which I visited with my family in December). The mummies...well. They are lying in glass display cases, and they are very...human looking. It's a little creepy. I did not think the movie "The Mummy" was scary, bu the actual mummies were a little disturbing. They still have hair and teeth and fingernails. Their skin is still on, so you can even tell what they might have looked like when they were alive, except that now they are shrunken and shriveled and have been dead for like 4000 years. So while I enjoy learning about ancient Egypt, I think that's enough mummies for me.

On a more random note: I know I have written before about how I enjoy Cairo Scholars. Well this afternoon I saw the best post ever, which involved someone asking to borrow a hamster. Not keep or adopt it, just borrow a hamster for a week and then return it. The individual noted that they would prefer a white one. Yeah, I don't know either, but it's funny.

back in the USSR

This past week was full of excellent cultural experiences. On Monday I went with a group of about 16 friends to Peking, a Chinese restaurant in Zamalek, to celebrate the Chinese New Year (it's the Year of the Ox, which is totally my sign, so I think that means it's my lucky year or something). Then on Tuesday we went to see Aida at the Cairo Opera House. Since it wasn't sold out, we got moved to really good seats in front. For those unfamiliar with Aida, it's incredibly appropriate to see it here since it takes place in Egypt. The sets and costumes were great, and while I am not usually an opera person, I enjoyed it a great deal. It was nice to do something classy with my friends, and it's always fun to have an excuse to get all dressed up.

On Friday I went with some friends to the Cairo International Book Fair, which is spread out through a few different exhibition halls at the Cairo convention center in Heliopolis. There are displays from major publishers and bookstores from around the Arab world, and other countries like Spain, France, Italy and Greece also had booths. I wasn't about to buy a ton of Arabic books (my reading level is not that great), but I did want to pick up some children's books. That is much more appropriate. After debating between enticing titles like "Maggie And The Cat" and "There Is A Ghost In My House," I opted for "How Great Is The Summer?" which I am excited to start reading. I also got a translated version of "Little Miss Giggles," which is part of a series I am sure many of you remember fondly. I wanted the "Little Miss Sunshine" one, but they were out. Sad! I was also tempted by an Arabic copy of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," but ultimately decided against it.

The other excellent part of the book fair was the massive used book tent, where the different stalls had stacks of magazines in every language going back decades (Cosmo in Spanish from 1998, Glamour in German from 2005, Foreign Affairs or National Geographic from pretty much any year conceivable, etc.), old comics like Batman and Superman in Arabic, huge collections of well-worn English paperback novels, etc. There is no real logic in the way things were arranged, so it was pretty much a browsing situation. I love book fairs, so this was my favorite part. Below are some photos of the book fair, including a photo of my number one find in the used book area (which I did not buy): Lonely Planet U.S.S.R., publication date 1989. I know, it's awesome.

More book fair -- some of the stalls were outside.

Me reading Harry Potter in Arabic.

Lonely Planet U.S.S.R. Note how it says "travel survival kit" in the top right. This is clearly the most awesome thing I found at the book fair.