Dream, Plan, Travel, Repeat.

I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve pretty much traveled the whole of Egypt at this point, and now I’m cursing myself for my procrastination and trying to figure out how to put together a nice, succinct posting in the next hour. Let’s see how it goes…

At the time of my last real post (not the short entry about the carcass), I was in the village of St. Katherine’s in the Sinai. There, Matteo and I visited the village’s monastery–which is one of Christianity’s oldest–at the base of Mt. Sinai. The monastery was a pleasant place, with neat gardens tended by resident monks; a chapel filled with early Christian paintings and dozens of simple hanging brass lanterns (which reminded me of the similar interior of a synagogue I visited in Kerala, India), and a corner dedicated to the (unseen) remnants of the Burning Bush; and a museum housing beautifully illustrated texts and gifts from world leaders dating back to the 5th century. I also had an interesting conversation with one of the monks, an older Greek man who had lived at St. Katherine’s for several years, about daily life at the monastery.

At 2AM the following morning, Matteo and I (grumpily) got up from our warm and comfortable sleeping mattresses at a Bedouin camp in the village and headed back to the monastery to tackle Mt. Sinai before sunrise. The trail up the mountain is wide and has a gentle incline (and there are dozens of Bedouin men offering camel rides to the top), so we found ourselves walking with men and women of all ages from around the world along the way. After months of breathing the dust and pollution of Cairo, I was thrilled with the crisp, clean air on the mountain and was dazzled by the amazing stretch of stars across the sky.

At the top, we sat at the edge of the mountain, huddled against strangers to ward off the chill, and waited for the sun to rise, while others crowded into wooden shacks owned by enterprising villagers whose cardboard signs offered exorbitantly priced “Starbucks” coffee and shai. At the first sight of the orange disk, frozen bodies began to cheer and a Korean church group burst into hymns. Finally, we were rewarded for our efforts by a gorgeous landscape of barren, white ragged mountains touched by red, pink, and orange rays, stretching as far as our eyes could see.

Upon returning to the village, we learned that the bus we planned to take to Dahab, our next destination, was indefinitely out of service (really– we’re beyond the simple scam phase), so we hired a taxi for the 3-hour journey. Our Bedouin driver was a nice man, and his reply of “Dahab, inshallah (God willing),” to each police checkpoint inquiry on our destination never ceased to crack me up. (Life, Egyptians wisely note, is never totally under our control, is it?)

Despite all its raves along the tourist trail, Dahab was a disappointment. A small resort town on the edge of the Red Sea catering primarily to budget and independent travelers, it reminded Matteo and I of a sort of Egyptian Las Vegas. (And that’s not a compliment.) The long promenade was lined with kitschy souvenir shops selling the usual lewd T-shirts (think camels in a variety of sex positions) and other overpriced and aesthetically-offensive tourist crap, and the water was bordered by restaurants that looked great with their trendy Bedouin-style cushions and low tables but, as we soon discovered, served terrible food. Apart from the shop owners, there wasn’t an Egyptian in sight; instead, there were lots of Europeans and Russians whose scantily-clad bodies seemed completely scandalous.

But we weren’t in Dahab for the town– we were there to dive at some of the amazing sites off the coast. And, for a day, we did just that. Unfortunately for me, however, I had problems equalizing the air in my ear canals during the beginning of the first of my two scheduled dives. (At one horrible point, it felt like my head was in a vice, but then I heard that reassuring “pop!” of air from my ears and felt fine enough to continue the rest of the dive.) After emerging from the water, it felt like my ears were full of cotton and I decided to sit out the second dive and jealously watched Matteo go back in. The next day, one of my ears was feeling a little sore, so I went to the doctor and discovered that I had injured my middle ear canal and would need four days to heal. And that, sadly, was the end of diving for me. (For now.)

(A side note: during this time, I was also practically crippled from the St. Katherine’s climb. My calves were sore for an entire week– so much so that I climbed stairs with the same posture and care that very old women have when they board a bus. It just wasn’t my week for physical fitness.)

From Dahab, we took a bus to Sharm el-Sheik (another resort town about an hour and a half away) and, after finding it to be more of a tacky strip mall than Dahab, hurried on to the ferry for Hurgada, a town on the western coast of the Red Sea which I will henceforth remember as the place where people load skinned carcasses into unlined trunks. From there, it was a bus to our real destination, Upper Egypt and the temples of Luxor.

Our arrival in Upper Egypt seems like a good place to stop for now. Stories about Luxor, Aswan, Abu Simbel, and my current destination of Alexandria are coming soon.

Today I saw a man hoist an unwrapped, skinned lamb carcass into the trunk of an idling taxi with his bare hands. So that’s where my meat comes from.

Dearest family, friends, and random readers,

I apologize for abandoning you for the last month. I was caught up in Cairene life, teaching English at a local American school, preparing for graduate school applications, and dealing with day-to-day activities that seemed more mundane than adventurous. But now I’ve torn myself from that somewhat settled life and returned to a nomadic existence. I’m living out of a backpack again (which is much lighter now thanks to the generous offers of closet space by my new friends in Cairo), have clocked a surprisingly large amount of hours on buses traveling through the desert over the last few days, and currently don’t know where I’m sleeping tomorrow night, or the night after that, or the night after that. The traveler in me has returned, and I have lots of new adventures to share with all of you.

Matteo returned to Egypt on Monday after a 5-week stay in Italy, where he had to meet with some doctors for a (non-travel-related) medical procedure. (It’s a long, unadventurous story.) I was thrilled to have my travel buddy back and, on Tuesday, we re-started our journey, going through all of the big sites around Cairo that we put off when we first arrived in the city in August.

Our first stop was the Egyptian Museum, a massive building that I could see from my room’s balcony for the last 2 months. The inside of the museum is crammed with amazing ancient Egyptian artifacts. Unfortunately, while each piece would be incredible alone, seeing thousands upon thousands of haphazardly-labeled statues, sarcophagi, jewelry, and pottery spanning just as many years in dozens of poorly ventilated and ill-lit rooms filled with tour groups from every country imaginable was a little overwhelming. Highlights, though, included seeing gorgeous gold and stone-encrusted jewelry from royal tombs, animal mummies (including a gigantic Nile perch, a crocodile, and a couple of pet baboons), treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb (each of his three gold sarcophagi are masterpieces), and, of course, the real mummies of a dozen or so Egyptian pharaohs, who, despite their uniformly leathery skin, crumpled ears, and shrunken fingers, and toes, still look incredibly human.

On Wednesday, we took the Metro to the Pyramids. Yes, the Metro. (Without a doubt, the oddest thing about seeing the Pyramids was learning that the sandy, seemingly isolated desert plateau that they stand on is actually smack in the middle of Cairo’s bustling suburb of Giza.) We arrived before the plateau opened at 8, and were among the first people to enter, so we were able to roam the Pyramids and take lots of photos of ourselves looking like we were alone with the ancient structures, millions of miles from civilization, before the hoards came in and ruined the effect. In another stroke of luck, we bought tickets to enter the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the Pyramids, as soon as we entered (they only sell 150 tickets per day), but didn’t enter the Pyramid until 10:30 or so. By then, everyone else had already been inside, so we were completely alone.

At the risk of sounding totally stuck up, I’ll say this: after seeing some of the most incredible scenery and some of mankind’s greatest achievements over the last 7 months, it takes quite a bit to impress Matteo and I nowadays. But, crawling up a narrow, dark tunnel on my knees inside a totally empty pyramid, knowing that I was inside the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, with tons of stone above my head, hearing only the sounds of my nervous, rapidly beating heart and heavy breathing in the poorly ventilated air, was impressive.

Other, random notes on my Pyramids adventure:

* There are lots of touts that hang around the plateau, offering tourists rides on their camels. (I didn’t ride one–they seem like mean creatures, and I’ve heard that they’re an uncomfortable ride. I might eventually do it somewhere else, though, just for the experience.) It’s funny to watch the touts try to catch the attention of tourists– typically, you’ll see a rider and his camel gallop towards an unassuming group of foreigners taking photos then the rider, as if he just came across them by accident, will say grandly: “Lovely day. Camel ride?” (The funniest approach was when one rider yelled out to an Asian couple: “Hey! China!”)

* I cannot believe the outfits I’ve seen women wearing since I’ve re-entered the tourist circuit– tiny skirts, midriffs, spaghetti strap tank-tops with bra straps showing. No wonder Egyptian men think foreign women are so easy. At the Pyramids, posing for a photo across from a Bedouin man and several Arab women in hijab, was a woman wearing a skintight white spaghetti strap tank-top that stopped just inches from her chest and skintight white shorts that showed her buttcheeks. My mouth just dropped open when I saw her. The lack of cultural sensitivity among Western tourists (particularly Italian, Eastern European, and Russian women) is appalling– people just don’t seem to know (or care) that different rules apply when you’re in different societies.

* Another rant on clothing: if tourists aren’t wearing skimpy outfits, they’re probably wearing safari gear. I am perpetually surrounded by a sea of khaki, zippered vests, and Teva sandals. Egyptian men and women, on the other hand, are wearing jeans, collared shirts, and whatever else you see on the streets in your own town.

Next, on Thursday, Matteo and I left Cairo. (I often wondered if I’d ever leave.) Our next destination was Port Said, where the Suez Canal meets the Mediterranean Sea. Port Said was ok, but seemed too quiet after Cairo. Unimpressed, we left Port Said the following day, and headed for our present location of Mt. Sinai, where the Ten Commandments were supposedly given to Moses by God. The bus ride was long and fairly uneventful, but I enjoyed the scenery– along the canal, there were thin strips of green fields with yellow-white sand dunes in the distance and, once, we saw a huge commercial tanker from Asia in a narrow part of the canal, seemingly floating on the desert.

Expect to hear more from Sinai in the coming days!

Today, on my way to a coffeeshop, I passed two Egyptian girls and a boy around 8 or 9 years old. The boy was carrying a fake AK-47 (at least I assume it was fake, given its lurid red and orange painted body). That in itself would be troubling enough, but another element added an extra dose of surrealism to the moment: each of the children were cheerfully waving little McDonald’s flags adorned with a picture of Grimace (that fuzzy purple character) on one side. How disturbing and bizarre.

In other news, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’m going to resume traveling at the end of this month– probably around the 23rd or so. After then, I plan to regularly post about my adventures around the Middle East, so I hope you’ll return to this blog often!

For those of you who don’t read Arabic, Ramadan mubarak! And for those of you who don’t speak Arabic either, Happy Ramadan!Yesterday was the first day of Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and a month-long religious period that emphasizes fasting, prayers, charity, and self-accountability. In America, I was vaguely aware of Ramadan whenever my Muslim friends fasted during the day and were subjected to endless rounds of “Why aren’t you eating?” and “Aren’t you hungry?” But, believe me, Ramadan is a completely different experience when you’re living in a Muslim country.A festive air has hung around Cairo for the last week or so. Colorful, twinkling lanterns depicting scenes of stars, palm trees, and camels or arabesque designs crowd storefronts and spill out on the streets; inside, shelves are stocked with overflowing mounds of dried apricots, figs, dates, and almonds. Yesterday, I awoke to the sound of the call to prayer and looked out on my balcony at a city glowing in the sunrise’s misty pink and purple light, feeling the same sense of anticipation that I do on Christmas morning.Then I felt thirsty and took a sip of water. Oops. Looks like I broke the fast.With the exception of the very young, very old, sick, menstruating or pregnant women, or travelers, all Muslims are expected to fast during the month of Ramadan. Fasting includes abstaining from eating, drinking, and smoking. I was delighted to learn that smoking was forbidden, as the only thing I hate about Cairo is the fact that I often feel like I’m sitting in a chimney. The anthropologist in me was also eager to see what happens when an entire city of smokers suddenly can’t get their regular nicotine fix.I didn’t have to wait for long to see the effects of fasting. When I hailed a taxi around ten in the morning, I had to repeat my destination to the driver three times. He had a slightly dazed look on his face and then shook his head and blew out his cheeks to snap out of it. “Ramadan,” he said, grinning and shrugging his shoulders. After learning that I don’t speak a lot of Arabic, he mimicked taking a puff on a cigarette. “Cigar.” I giggled and told him that I was sorry. Encouraged, he pretended to take a sip from an imaginary cup and said in pseudo-English, “café.” “La café,” he sighed again, and wearily squinted at the road like he had just woken up. No coffee. Reminded of my caffeine-addicted relatives, a wave of pity washed over me and, as I exited the taxi, I gave him some baksheesh for coffee when he broke the fast at sunset.That evening, about a half-hour before sunset, the streets emptied and became eerily quiet. My room overlooks a large downtown traffic circle that is normally crowded with honking cars and buses; Cairenes lounging on the circle’s grassy interior, browsing shops, stepping into restaurants and fresh juice stalls, or filing in and out of the Metro station; and shady touts offering shady deals to the Pyramids and Luxor to clueless tourists with fanny packs at all hours, day or night. But that night there was nothing, save a lone car or two that was doubtlessly driven by one of the city’s few Christians. Everyone was at home preparing for the iftar, or breaking of the fast.I sat on my balcony, alone with the deserted cityscape. Then the evening call to prayer began. I glanced down at a building on my right and saw a family standing on prayer rugs spread across their rooftop, men in front, women in back, children arranged by height, praying and kneeling in unison with the muezzin’s calls in the direction of Mecca. After prayers, they sat down at a picnic table laid out with a feast. The adults laughed, the children got up and chased one another on the rooftop, and I wished that I was invited. Fireworks exploded from another rooftop, illuminating a mosque in the distance.That was day one. Twenty-nine more days to go.

Is there a word in the English language that means “half-terrified, half-thrilled”? If so, I really need to incorporate it into my vocabulary.I canceled my October 1 ticket from Cairo to NYC yesterday. That’s canceled, not rescheduled. For the first time in my life, I’m overseas without a scheduled flight home. And that’s where this half-terrified, half-thrilled feeling comes in.I had the same blend of emotions when I first purchased my tickets for this round-the-world journey. After finalizing my plans with a travel agent around 2 in the morning, I hung up the phone, checked the e-mail confirming my $2,800 purchase of 6 months of travel insurance and flights to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and suddenly felt like I was going to throw up, pass out, or do both. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that tends to be my initial reaction to these kinds of huge, unknown life events. But then I spent the rest of the night lying awake in my bed, thinking about temples, forts, tropical beaches, and deserts, and feeling like I was on the brink of something incredible. Deep down, I knew that everything would be fantastic in the end.Really, I’ve known I would cancel this ticket for ages. I mentioned my plan to tons of people. I even accepted a teaching job that would last beyond my departure date. But when the time came to call my travel agent and finally cancel the ticket, I procrastinated. It’s one thing to casually talk about a life plan, another to actually take the first step toward realizing it. But, as I’m starting to understand, everything suddenly feels right, even pre-destined, when you do and you even wonder why you worried so much in the first place. (Now if I could only learn to skip the worried stage!)So, you ask, when do you plan to return to America? I have no idea. I’m applying for graduate school this fall, so I’ll need to return to the States (or move to England!) around August 2008 or so. But the time before that is a big blank page in my life calendar. Maybe I’ll ride a camel across North Africa. Maybe I’ll sell steaming cups of shai or tell fortunes to pedestrians in the streets of Amman, Damascus, and Istanbul. Maybe I’ll become a bellydancer. Maybe I’ll join a traveling circus and explore all those countries in Central Asia ending with “-stan” that no one knows anything about. Or maybe I’ll never leave Cairo, a city that I’m beginning to regard as an immense black hole for foreigners who planned to “just see the Pyramids” and then find themselves living like a local years later. In any case, as I realized on the night I purchased my tickets, I’m sure that the adventures awaiting me will be fantastic.

•    I’m beginning to suspect that at least 90% of the men here are named Mohammed. In my cell phone, I have the numbers for three Mohammeds, whom I have re-named “Mohammed,” “Mo,” and “Hammed” so that I can keep them straight. And it’s not just difficult for me—the ubiquitous name seems to cause problems for Egyptians as well. More than once, when I’ve asked for a Mohammed, the response is “Which Mohammed?” But, despite the complications that arise, the name remains, for obvious reasons, extremely popular. On a film set recently, I met a young Egyptian extra whose character was pregnant. I touched her stuffed belly and jokingly asked, “What will his name be?” She thought about it for a moment, and then smiled and said, “Mohammed.” Being a fan of originality, I protested, and she budged a bit: “Ok, Yusef Mohammed.” Then I asked her what her last name was, so we could try out the baby’s full name. Her last name? Mohammed.•    At my hotel, I saw a guy (whose name is Mohammed, incidentally) playing the “Arab” version of Mario Bros. It looks about the same as the one we play in the US, except Mario is dressed like a Saudi, with a long white robe and red-and-white checked head-covering.•    Renters in Cairo enjoy the most unbelievable rights. (For once, I actually pity landlords.) As I understand it, until recently, a landlord was unable to evict an Egyptian family once they moved into a residence and also could not raise the rent. Ever. As a result, some people are renting apartments in posh Cairene neighborhoods for ridiculously low prices. For example, I met a man who pays 60 pounds a month (about $11) for his 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom apartment. Moreover, he claims that he only recently started paying 60 pounds after lengthy negotiations with his landlord– his family’s contract (signed years ago) says rent is 15 pounds a month.•    Egyptians don’t distinguish between the sounds “P” and “B”– for instance, “pounds” is sometimes pronounced as “bounds.” This makes for entertaining English language menus that include dishes like “grilled lamp.”•    Recently, at a shoe store, I was introduced to “Fulla,” a type of “Muslim Barbie” made by a Syrian toy company called NewBoy Toys. (Why don’t they ever test these English names with native speakers?) The store’s walls were covered with glittery pink and purple backpacks decorated with flowers, butterflies, hearts, and everything else that little girls love. And in the center of each was Barbie…no wait, make that Fulla in a black hijab. Pretty awesome. (Here’s a photo of Barbie and Fulla side by side. Seriously, does Barbie really need lingerie?) I wanted to buy the backpacks for my cousins in the US, but decided that their 2nd and 3rd grade classmates (or their teachers, for that matter) probably wouldn’t appreciate Fulla as much as I do. Shame.

I turned 24 yesterday. It’s been five years since I’ve celebrated my birthday with my family in California, so I always feel a little homesick on those days, but I’ve also learned to embrace the adventure of beginning a new year in a different environment. On my 20th birthday, I spent a day at a beach in Accra, Ghana with friends. On my 21st, I arrived in London following a biking trip with Matteo through the Cotswolds, and then, despite my sore legs, danced the night away at a nightclub. For my 22nd birthday, I went sightseeing in Washington, DC. On my 23rd, I wandered around New York, one of my favorite cities in the world. And now I’ve celebrated a birthday in Cairo.Thanks to some relatives’ disinterest in the concept of time zones, my birthday began around 6:30AM with a phone call from the States. (I love you all, but– really– I’m going to have to place some conditions on that love.) Then I dozed off for another four hours until I dressed and headed over to my new workplace for an orientation. (Update: I’m going to teach English part-time to Egyptian adults! Stories of my [mis]adventures in teaching for the first time ever will be coming soon!) Afterward, with work out of the way, I moved on to the fun stuff.First, Matteo and I headed over to Khan-e-Khalili, a neighborhood in Islamic Cairo that features a sprawling bazaar filled with merchants selling gold jewelry, sheesha pipes, carved silver platters, belly-dancing costumes, and tons of other goods. The streets were wide and pleasantly dotted with leafy, green trees. The neighborhood is also filled with lots of beautiful, medieval mosques; hilariously, one’s stately air was tempered by its creative muezzin, whose jazzy rendition of the afternoon call to prayer — beginning with Allah u Akbar, or “God is Great”– reminded both Matteo and I of someone in a black turtleneck reciting beatnik poetry.Next, we headed off to a dock in Garden City, a neighborhood south of downtown Cairo, to rent a felucca for an hour-long sunset cruise on the Nile. The cruise was fun, but also a bit of a hassle. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been a tourist, and I had quickly forgotten what a pain it can be to do touristy things. Bargaining the price down to a decent rate took about a half an hour (one man brought his price down to our range before saying that the rate was “for the boat only– captain is extra”) and then, once we were on the boat, we had to remind the captain halfway during the ride that we paid for a one hour cruise, not a half hour cruise with another half hour “rest period” in front of the dock. Annoying. Nonetheless, the moments that we watched the setting sun while being carried along by the breeze were wonderful.For dinner, we went to Sabaya, a Lebanese restaurant at the Intercontinental Hotel that was so, so good. The service was without fault, the decor was beautiful (white walls, dark carved wood screens, plush pillows in reds and golds with arabesque designs, romantic candlelight), and the food was incredible. We started with some mezze — pastries filled with goat cheese and herbs; a cucumber, tomato, and onion salad with pomegranate sauce; and freshly made, still-warm pita bread — and then, for the main course, I had the best, most tender grilled lamb of my life. (God. My mouth is watering at the thought of it.)I just realized that I talked about dinner before dessert. That is the normal order of things, isn’t it? But, being that I have a huge sweet tooth and it was my birthday, we had dessert first (and, well, afterward too) — a platter of bite-sized Egyptian pastries from a downtown bakery called El Abd. I had been eyeing these pastries for the last few weeks, but didn’t know what to choose from the bakery’s extensive displays. On my birthday, the choice was easy– I tried one of (almost) everything. My favorites included a rectangular, flaky pastry filled with a kind of sweet cheese (I’m going back for more tonight), and another type of sugary, crusty candy roll filled with pistachios and drizzled with honey.After dinner, we planned to go to Palmyra, the supposedly “top end” of the cheap and “delightfully seedy” bellydancing clubs in Cairo. But, once we arrived, I quickly realized that Wednesday night is a fairly dead night to see bellydancers and that the empty club made a “delightfully seedy” atmosphere feel more like “10AM at the strip club.” So we crossed that one off our list for another time, and went to go see an un-subtitled Egyptian movie, Kar Kar, in a language that neither of us can understand, instead. The movie had tons of physical comedy, though, that made it absolutely hilarious (Egyptian men are the best dancers ever— women aren’t the only bellydancers!) and totally enjoyable.And that was my memorable and very happy birthday. I think my 24th year is off to a great start.

A few weeks ago, shortly after I arrived in Cairo, I went to dinner with an American student who referred me to a casting agent for the Egyptian film and television industry. Thinking that it would be amusing to finally be “discovered” in Cairo after failing to successfully do so in both Hollywood and Bollywood, I gave the agent, Nova, a call.Then, last Saturday, Nova called to ask if Matteo and I wanted to play a “foreign couple” in a film’s restaurant scene the following day. Of course, we replied, it’s the part that we were born to play!So, Sunday morning, we joined Nova and his van of foreigners destined for extra work and headed off to the film studio. The studio is in Giza, so I saw the Pyramids along the way (yes, the Pyramids), first peeking from behind a group of bland, concrete apartment buildings, and then standing alone on a desert plateau that looks extremely isolated in pictures but is really just steps from a bustling Cairene suburb. (The Pyramids — dare I say it?– seemed disappointingly small next to the apartment buildings, and the whole affair seemed hilariously anti-climatic, but I’ll still go “see” them as a tourist one of these days. After all, I do need a photo of myself in front of them to put beside the one of me at the Taj Mahal.)Upon our arrival at the studio, Matteo and I were sent to the stylist, who immediately rejected the outfit I was wearing (dress pants and a long tunic I wore to a recent job interview) in favor of a dress that I had also brought with me. I got into the dress, and then was told by a different stylist that they decided that instead of sitting at a table with Matteo, Matteo would sit with another person and I would play a waitress in the film. I was hurried into another room, and given a costume to put on.Before I describe the costume, keep in mind that this is an Egyptian film, and that apart from some time on the beach in Tanzania, I haven’t publicly displayed my legs or shoulders since March. Ok? Ok.The film scene that I was in takes place at a nautical-themed restaurant/bar called “Submarine.” The foreign waiters were given navy-blue long shorts with suspenders, a T-shirt with the “Submarine” logo, and a pair of comfy-looking white and navy-striped laceless Vans. Tame enough. My waitress costume, on the other hand, was a getup doubtlessly created by a sexually-repressed Egyptian man harboring fantasies about Japanese schoolgirls. Navy-blue tube dress with a short, flouncy skirt. White-trimmed navy-blue square flap (like the back of American sailors’ shirt collars) tied around my bare shoulders with red ribbons. White gloves trimmed with red embroidery. White knee socks. Round white cap with a gold anchor patch. Three and a half inch red platform shoes.I looked at myself in the mirror and laughed for a long time. Then I teetered off on my platforms to the hair and make-up room. The room was full of Egyptian women extras (several of whose scandalous “dancer” outfits, with their teeny-tiny skin-tight mini-dresses and metallic stripper shoes, made me feel comfortably conservative), but the hairdressers and make-up “artists” (I use the term loosely) were all men. The hairdressing experience was easy: all waitresses were to have their hair blow-dried straight. As for the makeup …Nova told me later that the make-up guys usually go through a day or so of training… women left their chairs wearing several inches of clown makeup. Blue-eyed girls received masks of bright blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick. Brown-eyed girls (like myself) had purple eyeshadow with a streak of white powder at their brows and purple lipstick.Laughing even harder than when I left the dressing room, I moved on to the set. There, I climbed another ladder rung toward stardom: rather than being just an average waitress, the director selected me to be one of two waitresses tending the bar where the film’s lead actor sits during the scene. Score!Then I alternately worked and sat around for another 12 hours or so. (If Egypt has any labor laws, the film industry is oblivious to them.) Lots of takes, lots (thanks to my strategic position) of face time, and lots of joking with the lead actor, who was a nice guy but was obviously a little annoyed that I didn’t understand how famous he was. Despite my designated role as a “bartender,” I was mainly yelled at to “dance, dance, DANCE!” to the music being “sung” by the lead actress on the restaurant’s stage while occasionally spilling colorful fruit-flavored syrup into wine glasses (and all over my increasingly stained white gloves). At the end of the night, I was exhausted — my feet hurt from those awful shoes, my arms were sticky from all of the fruit concentrate, and my gloves were disgusting!– but happy with my first film experience and, better yet, 500 Egyptian pounds richer than before.I went to bed around 6:30 that morning, and awoke around 2 in the afternoon to find that Nova had called to see if I could return to the set that evening for some re-shoots around the bar. Feeling slightly over the movie star experience, but being unable to turn down another 500 pounds (that’s 15 nights rent!), I said yes. So I met him again for the van ride to Giza, saw the Pyramids for a second time along the way (yawn), squeezed myself back into that delightfully classy waitress outfit, and had make-up re-plastered onto my face.I arrived on set thinking that everything would be more of the same, but the night ended up being delightfully different and better than before. My fellow bartender (a fun Sudanese girl who I had befriended the previous night) was the only other foreigner there, and we spent a grand total of 15 minutes working before hanging around the set waiting for the director to dismiss us. During that time, I met an older actor (famous in Egypt for his villain roles) who, as the son of an Egyptian diplomat, had tons of fun travel stories to share. I also had my first cup of Turkish coffee, which is deliciously sweet and thick. (Turks will also flip the glass over and read the drinker’s fortune in the pattern left by the grounds.) After a few hours, we were free to go.But the night still had one more surprise in store for me. Waiting for the van that would return me to my hotel, I met the film’s director of photography and discovered that he had received his MA in film from UCLA in the 1990s as an Egyptian Fulbright student. Small world moment! We declared our alumni pride, trashed USC for a bit, talked about LA, and, naturally, indulged in celebrity gossip (Bruce Willis is apparently a sweet man, while Demi Moore struck him as “a complete bitch”). He gave me his number in case I ran into any problems in Egypt, and then returned to the set. Meanwhile, the people sitting next to me told me in awed tones that the man is renowned as one of the major players in the Egyptian film industry. Life is hilarious.Now I’m recovering from those long days and reveling in my new-found wealth. Rent’s paid for the next month, and I’m a star(let…ok, extra). It was truly one of my best adventures yet.

Yesterday, Matteo and I ate dinner at a popular Cairene restaurant. We were seated directly across from a middle-aged Egyptian couple, who were served their dinner shortly after we ordered our own.After some shy smiles, the four of us launched into an amusing pidgin conversation consisting of sign language, the English words “OK” and “good,” and Arabic. We said hello, confirmed relationships (they were married, and we were “married”), and talked about kids– in response to the woman and man’s pitying looks for our childless union, Matteo notably declared in Arabic that we wanted a walad or boy (I thought he was encouraging sexist traditions; he claimed he couldn’t remember the word for “child”), resulting in a rousing chorus of my favorite Arabic word, inshallah (“God willing”), from all present.Then, as I continued to wait for my dinner, the woman gestured to her plate, asking me to sample some of the chicken that she was eating. I thanked her and declined. A minute later, she asked again. And again I declined, “La, shukran.” Undeterred, she speared a piece with her fork and shoved it toward me with a teasing, yet utterly no-nonsense look on her face. Well, ok then. I plucked the chicken from her fork with my fingers and popped it into my mouth.Pleased with her victory, she proceeded to feed me additional pieces of chicken from her plate, commenting through obvious gestures- and with giggles shared by her husband- that I needed to fatten up (presumably to be in fine form for conceiving that precious little walad). After the chicken, and after several unsuccessful attempts to explain that I had a dinner of my own coming shortly, I was treated to some of her stuffed grape leaves, cucumber and mint salad, and pita bread.Later, she began transferring food from her husband’s plate to mine. He laughed each time. Whether her actions were cruel punishment for some offense I had unwittingly committed or were simply acts of relentless Egyptian hospitality, I’ll never know. (In any case, the food was tasty.)A half-hour or so later, finished with their meal, the couple cheerfully waved goodbye and left Matteo and I alone at the table. And seconds after their departure, the waiter served our dinner.