Time to go home!

I've officially reached the point that I just want to go home. I can't exactly claim that the came out of nowhere; it's been brewing for the past couple of days to maybe even the past two weeks. I miss my family, my friends, and just my day to day life. Don't get me wrong, day to day life in the States gets tedious, mundane, and stressful but that just tells you something about how I'm starting to feel here. The really ironic part is I know that I'm going to miss a lot of the people that I've met here and I don't want that experience to end. My roommate is an interesting character, "Really now? You don't have coins for the vending machine?" That's not actually something he said but it's definitely his style.

I can barely even get a good night sleep. Every single day I wake up and I feel like I got my ass kicked from sleeping on this "bed". The bed is literally maybe a 3 or 4 inch thick mattress that has 11 wooden slats under it for support. God forbid the slats shift at any point in time because you're gonna wake up aching from a lack of support. So I woke up today at 6am as Charlie was coming home from a wedding to vomit and use the bathroom. Since then I've been attempting to sleep all day. I think I sleep in 45 minute spurts before I wake up again in bed because of how god forsaken uncomfortable this bed is. I swear to you when you're sick, this is the worse place to be. You just want to want to relax and recover but I simply can't do it. I can't tell him I hurt so damn much from being sick or being in the bed for nearly 24 hours.

Nile Dinner Cruise

So apparently there was some meeting of the American Society for International Law and the Egyptian Society for International Law. I say apparently because although we were supposed to a part of this event, nothing substantial happened whatsoever. We had a "networking luncheon" with local law students at AUC and students for Iowa School of Law. Why on earth would we want to have an international law luncheon with students from Iowa and local Egyptian students? It was so bad that one of the students describing the Iowa program had to qualify their "international" program by saying "There is more in Iowa than just corns and cows." That's horrible when you know the state has such a stigma about nothing being there that someone immediately tries to defend it without provocation. Oh yea... the legal field is one of, if not the least respected field to go into in Egypt. A local resident told me that educators and lawyers are what become of the lower rung of students in Egypt.

We also had another opportunity to "network" when we went on our Nile Dinner Cruise. To be honest, I only went with the group because it was free. I've been interested in going on one of the cruises myself but they are fairly pricey by Egyptian standards so I thought I'd get my cake and eat it too. The experience was unique to say the very least. Of course it was good times and laughs with the other students here with SHU but I saw a Sufi dancer for the first time and a belly dancer. The Sufi dancer was simply amazing. I swear to god that he spun not stop for probably 15 to 20 minutes but I figured out he kept himself from getting sick; he'd snap his head around then he'd move his body so his head wasn't in constant motion.



The belly dancer on the other hand... Well let's just say she made me feel like what I thought the Sufi dancer should have felt. In case that's confusing, she made me want to vomit. I saw a belly dancer when I was too young to really appreciate it so this was essentially my "first time" and it was a bad experience. I think most if not of all the guys (wait I know of one that thought she was hot) thought she was borderline repulsive for a belly dancer. When she stops moving but her belly fat doesn't there is something drastically wrong.

Long Overdue

I know of couple of people that have blogged while studying abroad but I just never considered doing it. After spending the last couple of days with my head in a whirlwind thoughts I finally realized that blogging may be a way to alleviate some the jungle that is my mind. There have been so many experiences that I've had here that I want to be able to remember but I know the reality of the situation; most memories don't last a lifetime but rather are replaced by the mundane idiosyncrasies of everyday life.

First of all, I'd like to apologize to all you because I have been removed from everyone while I've been here. I haven't contacted anyone on a consistent basis while I've been out here and some of you not at all. I just got wrapped up in being away and neglected to realize that I'm going to be here for quite some time so I can't forget all of you. It's an adventure here and I want to share my experiences with all of you so keep an eye for updates. Unfortunately my posts are going to be out of order. I'll keep you guys up to date as things happen while tying in the experiences I've already had.