Ana Hadia

SO MUCH HAPPENING. Today was our first day of real classes. We had class from 9-1 and I actually really enjoyed it. Our teacher's name is Hasna and she's really funny and giggly. I like the Egyptin dialect we're learning because it's much simpler grammar than standard Arabic. Class is a little lengthy but I really feel like I'm getting something out of it.

After class we came back and grabbed some shawarma from a little stand called Baraka and it was fabulous. Then we came back, changed into nice clothes and visited the U.S. Embassy. We were supposed to be meeting with some important guy but he got caught in traffic so basically some random guy was just giving us really diplomatic answers to everything and I didn't think it was very interesting.

After that a few of us decided to go out to dinner at a restaurant that Rob suggested (Caire 1940), and we probably walked around for over an hour trying to find the place, only to realize that we had walked by it twice and it was like 5 minutes from our hotel. They had authentic Arabic food and it was really worth the hour of wandering around.

1. "Hadia": It means "calm and quiet". Hasna nicknamed me Hadia when we decided we should all have Arabic names because she was having trouble remembering some of our names that are hard to pronounce for Arabic speakers (Conner, Curtis...). Anyways, I really like the word, because it sounds like what it means.

2. diplomats: I don't want to go on a big rant here, but I can't stand listening to them address groups. Even when we get to ask them questions, they only answer the questions they want to answer. It's frustrating. I want to know what they're really thinking, but sometimes I wonder if I will ever have what it takes to get involved in diplomatic relations enough and know people well enough that they would tell me their true opinions.

3. Adventure: When we went to the restaurant, Jackie, Tori and I decided to order dishes that we had no idea what was in them. Tori and I both got stuffed grape leaves with "kawari". We didn't know what it was but we ate it and it was delicious. The next day we asked Hasna what it was and she pretty said "ewwww" and we were freaking out. Then she told us it was the meat from a cow's leg. It totally could have been WAY worse.