Saturday, October 29

It has been a long week. Last weekend was very exhausting, as we moved into our new apartment in Ma'adi. It wasn't that hard for us, though. We hired two guys to move us and for less than 30 U.S. dollars, they had us moved in no time. It was amazing how fast they worked. I don't think I lifted a finger. Our new apartment is really nice. It's clean, which is key here in Egypt and a little difficult to find. The appliances are fairly new and nice. We live on a quieter street, kind of a subdivision off of the main area in Ma'adi. You can even see a pyramid from our apartment balcony. We'll have to send pictures.

We like this area of town a lot. It's the home of most foreigners, so there are a lot of businesses and restaurants that cater to ex-pats. We don't feel like such oddities anymore. We liked being special in our old neighborhood, but it does get old being stared at. Here, we are just one of many. The unfortunate thing is that we will miss out on practicing our Arabic. Even a lot of the taxi drivers speak English in this part of town.

The good things - it's greener, closer to the Nile, so much quieter, and the other teachers are not too far away. We've been really busy settling in and picking up a few new things to put in the apartment. Leia likes it too because now she has two balconies to sun herself on all day.

We're in withdrawl because we are waiting for our internet to be set up at the new place. It will take nearly a week, so right now we've been frequenting the neighborhood internet cafe. We couldn't hold out any longer.

Next week is the Eid vacation, so we have a four day weekend. Yeah! It will be the end of Ramadan, though, so our schedule will go back to three o'clock days. Oh well. We'll just enjoy our four-day weekend.