hafla!

Today we went to class and had our final hafla! We had some Arabic goodies and had an interesting speaker come to talk about Egyptian history... there were musicians and we got to see the photography students' work. After the party we came back and got to work on the paper for The Yacoubian Building. Aaaand that ate up most of the day.

1. Hassnaa: I'm really glad we got to know Hassnaa (our teacher). When we were leaving she kept saying "Don't forget about me! You're going to forget about me!" In her honor I think I need to post some of the best quotable Hassnaa quotes: "I am a little bit evil." "Bil Arabi" (in the most sing-song-y way possible) "I will kill you." (jokingly, of course) "boks. I hate this word." (books) "I am smarter than you." (usually exemplified by her ability to pronounce Massachusetts) "It is fix-ed." Also, her refusal to accept our abbreviating shukran (thank you) as "shuks" and confusing it with "shucks" and thinking that it was a bad word.

2. Arabic music at the hafla!:

3. Saqqara tomorrow: tomorrow some of us are going to Saqqara and Dahshur to see the Step Pyramid (the oldest one in existence) and to go into the Red Pyramid. I think that my idea of what a pyramid looks like inside is very inaccurate. I have this vision that it has a bunch of cool chambers and compartments, but after seeing some diagrams at the Egyptian museum I know that's not really the case. But I think it will be a little sad tomorrow when my Hollywood-influenced pyramid perception bubble will officially be burst.