Day of failure... Day of Success

Let me preface this by stating that our days in egypt tend to cycle between good days and bad days.

Today was a good day. Yesterday was a bad day.

Yesterday, our day begins bright and early at 9:30 AM (we are almost over the time changes! yay), when we decide to take a little stroll over to the downtown, to catch a bus out to "the compound" -- aka, our school, the American University in Cairo. The bus is AC'd at

least

and though it takes a while to get out there, its almost a pleasant drive. I got to liste

n to my iPod for a while for the first time since the plane. I mean, sure, there's the almost never ending danger of death on any of the highways, and the bus had to take a little off-road detour to get around some

road construction, but nothing major.

Let me tell you, AUC is freeken huge. Like... Just massive. I can see why I'm paying double tuition to go there, everything is made out of marble! Seriously... even the sewer grates.

Is this not a messed up place or what?

One thing that strikes me about AUC is how much they lack in help. When we got off the bus, there are no signs, no people telling us where to go, we are just plopped on this endless square mile of buildings and kinda have to "find our way around". Which actually involves leaving the secure part of the compound, and going to the welcome center, whereby, to get back in, you have to go through X-ray machines, even though we of course drove into AUC without identification, and walked around without getting scanned at all. Sure. Its all the "illusion" of safety.

Of course the bureaucracy is insane (apparently a lot less than other universities, but still stupid). The entire day consisted of us walking around, me swearing, and saying how much I disliked the school. I'm sure its very nice, but its almost impossible to actually get anything done, much less find anyone that is helpful. Regardless... I did get myself a student ID. The topper though, was when we tried to go home, they made us pay 20 LE (th

ats egyptian pounds) per person to get home, because we didn't have our bus passes (which costs the equivalent of one months rent!) which we need to get to and from the university. Uhggg... So thats 40 pounds down the drain. And, we get stuck in traffic on the way back. We end up just getting out of the bus and walking through the traffic because its faster. Of course 5 minutes later whatever jam there was clears, and the bus ends up getting to the metro station we're walking to just as we do.

If anything? I'd say my time in Egypt is basically a never ending Senfeild show, complete with wacky plot-lines, and laughtracks.

We do end up meeting george, in our attempt to get some dinner after the fast. We're starving. Well, we walk around for maybe 20 minutes to find this HUGE place where they serve Korma, the local uberdish. This place serves it up 5 stories tall, its amazing. Of course they are closed. So we walk home. Go a little deaf when some kid pops a bottle rocket in the alley we're in, and it makes my ears ring.

We end up eating at the same place we did two nights before, learning that one of our roomma

te prospects already signed with the Steelers the night before (like the football/draftpick references?), and we trudge home. Last night we don't even try to go out, after getting home from AUC we simply chill in our hotel room, and pass out.

Our caloric intake, we feel, is getting frighteningly low. We might be consuming maybe 600-800 calories a day, and we're starting to get a little worried. We still don't feel hungry.

Things get a little interesting last night when our future roommate finally gets hold of us, and says "YES" on living with us. So we got a third, and we call our "dude". Monzer. He makes some calls, and says he'll have the paperwork for an apartment in the morning. Meet at 10 at the apartment. Oh, btw, we need to pay him a security deposit, his "finders fee", and first months rent -- in cash -- before he gives us the keys. Thats 10,000 pounds. OMG. So at 7:30 we wake up and take the metro to Maadi, where the apartment is. We don't want to get money and then get pick-pocketed on the train.

So we search around for an ATM. We finally find one, and not finding a second, we realize we have to get all this money out of this atm, at one time. We did research the night before about how to get money, and three debit cards turns out the way to go.

Picture this -- Me and andrew are standing on a sidewalk. There are rows of shops all closed down for Ramadan. A block to the north of us is an area the size of a city block, covered in sand. There are palm trees dotting the street we are on (4 driving lanes, and parking kinda everywhere). Andrew is in a tee-shirt, white new balance, and shorts, and I'm in a plane white tee, shades on, the necklace my sister gave me around me neck, jeans, some black all-stars on my feet, and my pocket knife drawn. I play with the blade as andrew starts the withdraw process.

Its dangerous and slow because we can only take out 500-1000 pounds at a time. Anyone driving by who sees two white kids sitting by an ATM for like 5 minutes knows whats up. I'm glad I have a knife, just incase anyone has any ideas.

We take turns with our cards, so it doesn't start rejecting them. It takes 16 ATM transactions to get the 10k out of the bank. I shove the cash down one jean pocket, and we get going.

The deal process takes very little time. We read through the contract, andrew is a sissy and doesn't want to negotiate much (not his strong point). Its already a pretty good deal, and I doubt we could have gotten it down a whole lot. I'll get pics of the apartment later.

We read it over, argue about some stuff, fork over the cash (trust me, I've never felt so much like a mobster as that moment when I was holding 8000 in hundreds and 50's. Its a big stack.

We fork over the cash, get our copy of the contract, go over the papers, go

over the passports, go over maintenance, go down to a hardware store, buy a lock for 35 LE, go back to the app, have the handy man install the new lock, get the keys, make sure everything works, and voila! We now have an apartment.

The only thing we don't know how to do is get internet there. For some reason there is a 4-6 week delay on setting up internet in Maadi (for the people who run the phone). We're exploring other options.

So that was my day, walking around with 10k in cash. What did you do today?