Alive and well in the City of the Dead...

My weekend didn't start out as planned. I had originally intended to return to the Friday Market to redeem myself after my last episode there, which saw me lose my bag and the Club Zamalek soccer jersey I had just purchased. But after a late Thursday night, spent primarily on a felucca in the middle of the Nile, I was unable to wake up early enough to make a go of it and instead spent Friday vegging out in my room. With most of my friends in Alexandria for the weekend, it looked like I was in for an equally dull Saturday.

Fortunately another ND ex-pat, Josh, was around for the weekend, and he suggested visiting Qaitbay Mosque, a  worthwhile destination located in Cairo's legendary City of the Dead. So along with Brandi, a friend from Georgetown, we hailed a cab at 10 am and set off.

Apparently, this mosque isn't as popular as we (or the guidebook) seemed to think. The taxi driver (after pointlessly meandering around Zamalek for 10 minutes to jack up our fare) took us to the general area, but it was evident after a while that he had no idea where to take us. We picked up on this and asked him to stop, salvaging what had already been an expensive taxi ride (30 pounds!). We consulted the guidebook and realized we weren't too far off, maybe a mile or so. After crossing a busy highway by way of a foot bridge, we were in the City of the Dead and that much closer to Qaitbay.

Despite some of haunting images and ideas its name can conjure up, the City of the Dead is not a community that's home to zombies, banshees, and other assorted ghouls. What it is, however, is a neighborhood that has developed amidst a wide expanse of mausoleums and burial grounds. Known simply as al-qarafa ("the cemetery") by Carineans, the area has been home to both the living and the dead since the 7th century. Although economic advancements in the 16th century saw its use as a residential area decline, Cairo's subsequent influx in population and poverty has made it a popular option for members of the lower class. Follow this link for an informative, yet very difficult to understand, wiki article.

Despite the fact that it was broad daylight, the area did give off a bit of a creepy vibe. I attribute this to the sheer emptiness of it. Even though we were in the midst of an expansive sprawl of structures, the streets were quiet and people were scarce, at least by Cairo's standards.

Also unnerving was the sheer amount of feral dogs roaming around. As one of my companion's aptly noted, it was the first time we'd been somewhere where the dogs outnumbered the cats (although there were plenty of them as well, and they can be seen in the Stray Cats of Cairo album).

After walking for a few minutes, and finally getting directions from someone who knew what they were talking about, we located Qaitbay Mosque. At first, I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. It seemed fairly nondescript. Yes it was pretty and ornate, but I didn't see how it compared to the sheer magnitude of the Muhammad Ali Pasha Mosque I'd seen the weekend before. However, a fairly helpful tourist policeman, who was honestly the only indication that this was a somewhat notable site, shared with us a bit of the mosque's significance (and then of course wanted a tip). It dated back to 1314, and is also depicted on Egypt's one pound note, as shown to the left.

After checking out the mosque for a bit, we moved on to see what else the City of the Dead had to offer. For the most part, it was more of the same: an endless of expanse of mausoleums and burial sites, repetitive, but interesting nonetheless. Eventually, we came to what looked like a decrepit, abandoned mosque. We scaled the wall and began exploring. From what we could make of it, it appeared that half of the mosque had collapsed years ago. Clearly, it hadn't been in use for a while (expect, perhaps, by the rebellious youth of the area, as we found vodka and playing cards amongst the debris). After nosing around for a bit more, we discovered a peculiar hole in the floor of the mosque that led straight down. We debated seeing what lay below, but after realize we hadn't come prepared with ropes and climbing gear to make the 10 foot decent, we gave it up (forgive me, Nathan Drake). Maybe next time.

After wandering around a bit more, the noonday sun and the heat were getting to us, and we decided to grab some lunch and then take a cab back to Zamalek. Feel free to head to Picasa to check out the rest of the pictures from the excursion.

Tomorrow, it's back to AUC for classes, including my first test of the semester in Arabic. Also of note, I'm in the midst of an application to get funding from Notre Dame to stay out here and take language courses until the end of July. The deadline is March 1, but it's a bit of a hassle, because I'll have to fax hard copies of documents back to ND. Hope to take of all of that within the next few days.

بكم؟- two and a half kilograms of banana...

"بكم؟"  (bi-kam) means "how much?" in Arabic. I think, as a reoccurring feature, I will be posting a picture of some item on here and asking you, my loyal readers, "بكم؟".Whoever gets it will probably win a prize of some sort. And since I've changed the settings to allow anyone to comment, not just those with Blogger acounts, everyone who comes across this site should be able to offer an answer. Only 1 guess per person, and we'll stop the guessing when someone gets it right or I put the next one up.

Here's the first one. Remember to guess in Egyptian pounds ($1 equals roughly 5 Egyptian pounds). Oh, and 2.5 kgs is approximately 5.5 pounds.

  بكم؟- two and a half kilograms of banana

The Cairo effect...

On the date of my departure for Egypt, January 22, 2010, I am fairly confident that I weighed the most I have ever in my life, at about 207 pounds. I entered college back in '07 weighing 187 pounds, and had been adding on a few pounds here and there throughout my freshman and sophomore year, cracking the 200 lb. mark on occasion. But I was always capable of bringing it back down into the 190's with a little bit of exercising.

The first semester of this, my junior year, was a different story, as a combination of factors aligned to create the perfect storm of weight-gain: I was no longer involved with rugby, didn't play basketball nearly as much as I had in the past, and worked an entire month at Culver's over my extended Christmas break (read: stuffed my face with Butter Burgers). The unthinkable had occurred: the breadth of my hips was comparable to that of my shoulders. The truth set in, and there was no way of escaping it: I was fat.

However, this past week, less than a month after leaving Minnesota in the most cellulite-ridden state of my life, I stepped on a scale to find myself weighing 195 pounds. That's right, 195 pounds. In only 4 weeks, I've managed to lose 10+ pounds.

But before you rush to praise me for my compelling demonstration of will power and discipline, or request info on whatever workout regiment and dietary practices I've been following, let me simply say that I really shouldn't be receiving any of the credit. The fact that I am 10 pounds lighter is by know means the result of a concerted effort on my part to get healthier. Instead, it can be attributed to the realities of being a penniless student in a foreign country.

If you know me, you know I tend to be a pretty frugal person (ok, I'm flat out cheap). Although my family members may dispute this claim, this is simply due to the fact that they are even stingier than me (although trends  in the motorcycle-buying and vacation-every-month categories have led me to conclude that two of them are anything but).

At Notre Dame and at home, my penny-pinching ways have never been an issue when concerned with feeding myself. At school, we have a pre-paid meal plan that allows us 14 all-you-can-eat gorge fests a week at some of the best dining facilities in the nation. Back in Minnesota, food is never in short supply, whether it come from the stockpile of Malt-O-Meal we keep in the garage or from the Culver's binging I'm afforded free of charge.

However, with these sources of "free," or at least already paid for food gone, I find myself eating far less. Even though the favorable exchange rate makes eating in Cairo very cheap, the concept of paying for food out of my own pocket is a significant mental block. As a result, my meals are less in both frequency and portion. On a typical school day, I'll limit myself to felafel at lunch and koshari at dinner, spending no more than 15 pounds (3 dollars). On days where I don't have school, I sometimes eat even less, maybe only having a single meal in the afternoon.

Perhaps the most interesting development isn't how little I'm eating, but how easily I'm doing it. I don't feel like I'm starving myself, because I honestly don't feel excessively hungry, which is truly bizarre. If I were back home or at school, and I hadn't eaten in 3 or 4 hours, my stomach would be threatening to consume me from inside out. But out here in Cairo, in the real world, without a hot meal the swipe of a card away, my stomach is forcibly held in check by my desire to conserve money. If anything, this strange change in behavior provides some powerful insight into the psychology of hunger.

Additionally, this change in behavior and the subsequent loss of weight has rendered the two pairs of jeans I bought right before coming to Cairo (which were sized according to my waistline at the time) baggy, loose, and unsightly. Oh well. A small price to pay for saving money and not being fat anymore.

Making plans and buying tickets...

For the last few days, my ND compatriot, Ben, and I have been conspiring amongst ourselves about plans for Spring Break, 2010. Ben was originally going to travel with another group, but I managed to convince him to join me on what is shaping up to be an amazing excursion. I'm really excited about what we have in store for us, but for a variety of reasons, I won't discuss my full itinerary here.

This morning, we made our first concrete move: we bought plane tickets.



Well, I guess this reveals stop #1 on our trip. We'll be flying into Beirut and spending a few days in Lebanon before moving on. The break doesn't officially start until Friday, March 26th, but Ben and I want to get the most out of our trip, so we'll be taking a couple days off from school and leaving on Tuesday the 23rd (which we don't have classes on anyway). We'll be gone until Wednesday, April 7th, so just over two weeks. Looking forward to it.

Too hot to handle...

I had originally planned to write a post gloating about the favorable weather I was enjoying here in Egypt, rubbing it in that I had escaped the death grip of yet another miserable Midwest winter, while ya'll are currently buried under a foot of snow. I mean, c'mon! The weather here is warm and sunny and I actually have some color to my skin, as opposed to the near translucent paleness I would have developed back in South Bend.

But that was before yesterday. Yesterday, February 14th, it was 90 degrees Fahrenheit. 90 degrees. Awesome, I know. But if it's 90 in mid-February, imagine what it will be in March, or April, or May. We're talking 100+ temps on a daily basis. Even though I enjoyed the weather yesterday, I couldn't help but thinking that it was exceedingly close to surpassing my threshold for comfort. And again, let me reiterate: it's mid-February.

Today's more of the same: mid-80's before noon and sun so intense that it hurts for me to open my eyes while outside. I'm coming to the realization that the next few months will easily be the hottest of my life...and that I need to invest in a pair of sunglasses.

When in Cairo...

...these are the places you should go. I've gone ahead and made a Google Map which highlights the attractions of Cairo that I've patronized thus far, whether they be dirt cheap koshari joints or crazy, off-the-beaten-path markets. It's a little bare right now, but I'm sure it will fill up as the semester proceeds.

Check it out.

View Places to Go in Cairo in a larger map