A quick November Roundup

So I started out hot, blogging quite a bit in early November and then I sort of petered out. Some of that is due to school, which has been great. ILI has been well worth it. I am currently taking MSA and an intensive grammar class. The grammar class is actually not quite what I was expecting, as it is oriented more towards Arabic composition. In that sense though it's quite a personal challenge, because I had sort of resigned myself to aspiring to at least be reading level fluent, but certainly not writing level fluent. This is mostly do to the stringent Arabic composition rules that are difficult for non-native speakers to master, but also because I am not a particularly good writer in English! I am starting to think that Arabic grammar in fact does prove the concept of infinity. I have a tangible understanding of infinity due to studying Arabic grammar. Gotta love studying adverbs inside adverbs. I would strongly encourage anyone studying Arabic in Cairo, or thinking about it to look at ILI. I am not sure I would strongly encourage Cairo though!
The really exciting news around here though has been the trip my Mom took to visit me here in Cairo. She actually just left this morning and should be on her way back to the US now via Amsterdam. The entry following this blog will have a ton of Petra photos, as we made a lightning quick trip from Cairo to Petra, crossing three borders in less than an hour. Two times in a row now I've crossed the Israel border without being subjected to a humiliating interrogation. Perhaps a greater wonder than Petra. This trip also marked the filling of my passport. I know longer have room in passport, and will have to apply for additional pages. That or get a new passport, which is probably the better solution given its contents. I have filled a passport in 10 months, and there are only 2 non-Middle Eastern countries in it. Problematic.
So we spent a little time in Jordan, and had a lovely time. It reminded me of just how much I do miss Jordan, and how much more comfortable I was there with the language, the people, the culture, the cars stopping at red lights, etc... We had a wonderful experience going to Petra. We hired a service taxi to Petra and Noga and I wound up talking with our driver some in Arabic. We agreed that he would pick us up at Petra when the gates closed around 5. We arrived there, and realizing we were starving asked our driver if we might stop for a quick snack at one of the non-touristy falafel places. He said sure, and as we drove through Wadi Musa, the tourist town built up around Petra he made a number of calls inquiring as whether there was bread, eggs, etc.. Mildly confused we arrived at his home of all places, where we had an amazing dinner and got to talk to our driver and his family for quite a while. It's just little things like this that reminded me of how wonderful Jordan is. It's not that Jordanians are more hospitable that Egyptians but rather Jordan is just much more accessible than Egypt. Egypt also has a much more firmly established tourism culture that often makes it difficult to interact with people here. Plus I am just biased. I much prefer Jordan to Egypt, but it might also be that the pollution here is giving me splitting headaches. There's no pollution in Amman.
Anyways, this is just a quick update, I am hoping to write more later. I have to go find my cellphone now so I can go to the Egyptian Museum. I actually haven't been there since March or April, and then I went through so quickly so I need another go at it.

One quick word-I installed Leopard and while it isn't so far above Tiger that it's mindblowing, it's an upgrade. What on earth are you windows users doing? I can understand the money thing, the hardware is expensive. So build a hackintosh, or run Linux. Honestly, Windows is just painful to use. Not only that, but Quicksilver and Provoc might make OS X worth it in and of themselves. That and the new Safari is pretty good. Opera is still better though! On that note, the reason why the photos in the following set is horizontal only is because I haven't installed photoshop yet to flip the photos. Sorry!



Listening to:
Delphium-Aphex Twin
The Suffering-Coheed and Cambria
The White Stripes-A Martyr For My Love For You
Muse-Butterflies and Hurricanes
Rise Against-Worth Dying For
I have gotten reobsessed with podcasting after losing interest for a long while.