Friday, April 15

It's a beautiful morning. Joe has just gone back to bed and I have just gotten up after snoozing all morning. Fridays are my favorite because we don't have to get up for anything, and the city is pretty quiet because no one really does anything until Friday prayers. It's one of those crisp, cool mornings where the birds chirp like crazy and a cool breeze drifts in the window. It's definitely spring now. I'm really trying to appreciate it because before long the heat of summer will be back upon us. We will be back to sweating everytime we step out the door. We've already forgotten how cold we were just a few months ago, shivering in our apartment under two blankets a piece. I know you don't believe me, but it's the truth!

We are looking forward to a lazy day. We will probably end up going to our school's "Spring Fling on the Nile" tonight. We're thinking maybe it won't be so bad to hang out on the Nile this evening. The students rent a big boat. They get a DJ and dance, talk, you know, do what teenagers do - while we float down the Nile. I love going down there, especially to ride on feluccas (open sailboats). The Nile's very calm, so it's peaceful just floating around.

We saw something interesting yesterday on our way home from school. We got stopped in traffic. We've been in slow-moving traffic before, but we've never actually stopped. People were getting out of their cars, so it was obvious we weren't going anywhere soon. There wasn't any traffic coming in the other direction either. Our driver told us it was President Mubarak coming through. It's really crazy what they do when he's going to be coming through a street. They have hundreds, and that's not an exaggeration, of soldiers come and line the streets. So, once they finally opened the street again we drove past hundreds of soldiers. They all stand with their back to the street. At first, they were about 2 meters apart, but at one point, they stood only a foot or so apart. There are so many of them! Joe tried to take a picture, but our camera battery was dead. It's really weird seeing so many soldiers lining the streets. The driver was asking us if they do this in America. We didn't really know. Bush is in D.C., so we've never seen him travelling through the streets of Cedar Falls or anything. Here, though, it's a regular occurance, as Mubarak doesn't have many other places to travel other than Cairo.

Like I may have said before, it's always an adventure in Egypt. You always get to see something different or new.