Vacation!

Ok, so I am going to start with recent events and move on to older ones. For the past couple of days my family and I have been in Sah7el, or the North Shore for the Eid. It is near Alexandria on the Mediterranean Sea. We have a small cottage there, that is near enough to the water to walk to the beach. The water is a brilliant turquoise that contrasts with the super white sand beautifully! Eid takes place at the end of Ramadan and is a huge festival time, people take vacations and spend time with friends and family. Young children receive new clothing and/or money. Everybody is cheerful and happy.
Today, we went for one last swim before we came home and we saw two jelly fish! I accidentally touched one, and that is when we decided to get out! The waves are huge and even though between waves you may only be standing in a foot of water, when the wave comes you are swamped! Aisha and I got washed into shore a couple times too. When I said family I meant family+extended family. My dad's two sister's, their husbands, and kids were there as well. It was a blast hanging out with them. We played board games, word games, and even played spray each other with the hose games :D. All this took place in a mixed gabble of English and Arabic.
On our third day there we headed to Alexandria so they could show me around. First, we went to Pompey's Pillar... this huge pillar in the air, it was pretty sweet! The whole family was amazed because as Egyptians they would never even think to go to tourist places, but decided that it was cool. Then we went to a cemetery. Only, it wasnt a normal cemetery, it was underground and from the Pharonic ages. You could see the burial places of the wealthy and the poor as well as the places where they had lowered the bodies into the ground and washed them. Quite fascinating!
Then we went to a famous foul (beans) and ta3mya (falafel) restaurant to stuff are faces...ice cream was next on our list so we went to a gelato place called Azza. Azza was my Arabic name at the camp I attended so I thought it would be fun to go.
The next day we went back to Alexandria to see the Library. Let me first say that I think this is one of the most fascinating places I have been a long time! The arcitecture alone is wondrous, but what is inside is the most important. They have hundreds of thousands of books on seven levels lit by natural light. They have computers for the public to use as well as conference centers. We went into the rare manuscripts room and old Korans, Bibles, and Torahs, as well as the only scroll left from the old (as in Pharonic times old) Alexandria Library. IN addition to all this they have amazing technology. They just got a machine that copies books. You put a book in and it will copy 200 pages in seconds, in a couple weeks this will be open to the public for the cost of the book alone. They are now working on an online library, working to scan all of the books on their shelves so that they would be available to people all over the world. Also they have been working to save snapshots of webpages before they expire. So that knowledge is not wasted. You can go on their website and check all this out at www.bibalex.org. Yea, I may sound like an advertisement, but it was super cool, and I got in for the price of about 85 cents. That was the cost for foreign students, for Egyptians it was about 15 cents.
Ok, now onto the past couple of weeks, I have been hanging out picking up more Arabic. I started Modern Standard classes which have been helping a little. I am now able to find my way around Zamalek and have been exploring. My friends and I now have a cafe that is "ours" and we are now regulars there. We found a library where you can actually take out books (not common here) but have yet to be there when they are open. I know my way well enough that I can get into a taxi anywhere in Cairo and direct them home. This is a huge plus because now I can explore on my own and always have a way home. I am learning to barter with taxi drivers and am pretty good at it, its also fun to try to talk to them. You get some pretty awesome conversations between my broken Arabic and their broken English.
My host mom took me to Carefour, which is like the Walmart of the Middle East....its has EVERYTHING! Its super fun! I also went to CityStars, which is the biggest mall in Egypt and most defiantly compares to the Mall of America! It has about 10 floors, its big enough that you could get lost! Two other American girls and I went on an adventure to Khen al Khalili, which is an outdoor market. We didn't buy very much, and didn't have the greatest experience, but we made it there and back, which added to our confidence. We all want to go again!
I am looking forward to school starting in 10 days!
Check out my photos on facebook, or if you don't have facebook check them out here:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119800&id=564185968&l=6af2ab56a9

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=123668&id=564185968&l=9f238fd9b8

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126414&id=564185968&l=1e4f51de3b

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=126452&id=564185968&l=616e2f6825