(dis)Orientation

For a reason known only to the International Student Services Office, our orientation sessions were divided in two, on- and off-campus, and conducted over a week after we all had arrived.

In the painfully long on-campus session, we learned that the US Embassy will bring you biannual fruit baskets if you are sentenced to 10 years in Egyptian jail for drug trafficking, and they will try really hard to notify your parents if you're kidnapped, but no promises.

For our off-campus orientation, we went to the city of Alexandria. We were to spend two nights in a five star resort built on the grounds of King Farooq's palace on the end of the corniche, with the ostensible purpose of attending sessions such as "When In Rome" and "Addressing Common Concerns." I think the true purpose was to get all the international kids together and out of the city of Cairo, but whatever the reason, my lungs certainly appreciated the break: it's rumored that spending one day in downtown Cairo is the pulmonary equivalent of smoking 30 cigarettes.

I could write pages about how oddly organized the trip was (e.g. alphabetizing by first name only, resulting in many Sarah-Sarah-Sarah roommate trios), but suffice to say getting 250 kids and their luggage anywhere is a feat not undertaken without some inefficiency and confusion. We made it, though, and prepared for what our schedule billed as "fun in the sun" on the beaches of the Mediterranean.

The weather, however, had other plans: it was cold, gusty, and threatening to rain. A few brave souls ventured into the water that day, but most of us sat around outside and talked, bundled in the windbreakers we didn't think we'd need in Egypt. Getting cold, we walked around the palace grounds, and attempted to get inside the palace itself. Hammad has this theory that guards will acquiesce if girls lead the way, so he urged Sarah and I to walk through the patrolled palace gates with innocent looks on our faces, trailed closely by our posse of men. It didn't work. Come to think of it, it hasn't yet, but that doesn't stop us from trying.

We explored the outer spits of the corniche, getting close to the spray of the Med. In Jacob's case, he got too close: with our urging, he ran across a bridge being buffeted by high waves and ended up soaked. Clouds were rolling in and the wind was picking up, so we headed back to the hotel just in time to miss the rain. After a surprisingly lukewarm shower, the whole lot of us headed out for dinner at a local fish restaurant, where we stared at our dinner--and the dinner stared back. A whole fish halved down the dorsal line, a soggy fried grouper, and some middling-to-fair calamari made most people stick to the pita bread. That night, we wandered around the grounds some more, as we were too far away from the city proper to explore the nightlife. We ended up at the McDonald's within the compound enjoying some surprisingly delicious sundaes, and wandering around the neighboring Marriott, where we got caught up in a wedding. To the nice newlywed Egyptian couple who now have four awkward Americans in the corner of their wedding video, my deepest apologies. We got pinned between the horn player and the boom mic, and just froze.

The next morning, we were slated to enjoy three hours of orientation speeches by our advisor, the illustrious Tomader Rifaat. The woman owns any room she enters, and rules with an iron fist in a Chanel glove. Think The Devil Wears Prada, fi Masr. Breakfast was a buffet, where we enjoyed lots of honey, Nutella spread and odd pudding concoctions. I stuck to innocuous fare, but about 15 minutes into "Dos and Don'ts in Egypt" (where I learned valuable nuggets such as DON'T become friends with the security guards, DON'T drink the water and WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T date an Egyptian), I felt sick. Crippling stomach pains coupled with bad bouts of nausea found me curled in a ball on my cot watching CNN Headline News for the rest of the morning.

Eventually Sarah joined me and we spent the entire afternoon watching Animal Planet specials. A trout eating a mayfly never seemed so exciting.

Apparently this was the day to take some great pictures of Alexandria, as the previous day's storm had killed the light and all my pictures turned out so-so. Of course, I was in my own private circle of hell that day, as were several of my friends suffering from similar ailments, but some people managed to take some great shots. The sunset picture is from one of my new buddies, Alex.

That night we were bused to an infinitely better restaurant, and then summarily bused to a shopping mall. Why, I'll never know, but I managed to find a pair of flip flops to replace the pair I had lost in Siwa for US$10. The 45 minute drive in and out of town started to wear on us, and when we were given the option to take taxis back into town to go to a club, my friends and I opted to get into our pajamas and watch Arabic television instead.

The next day we packed up early, and were--again!--bused on a whirlwind tour of Alexandria's finest tourist spots. My only complaint was that we weren't allowed more than 45 minutes at any one place, but the locales themselves were amazing. We saw imitation Roman catacombs replete with depictions of ancient Egyptian gods (an early CYA attempt?), and the smallest amphitheater in the world. We visited Fort Qaitbey, the former location of Pharos, the Lighthouse of Alexandria. One of the Seven Wonders of the World, it gave Egyptians a 3 day warning of approaching ships. Its mirror is said to have burned holes in the flags of enemy vessels. There is a citadel there now, which provides an amazing few of the Alexandrian harbor. I could have spent a long time there.

Finally, we made it to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the newly constructed Library of Alexandria built to replace Alexander the Great's library that fell victim to fire. Architecturally spectacular, the modern building is designed to hold 8 million books but currently houses only 30,000. The shelves looked very empty; rumor is they're having a book drive. Nonetheless, I was impressed with the beauty of the building. The Georgetown kids sighed collectively and wondered why our library's design more closely resembled the catacombs we had viewed earlier in the day.

After that, we piled back onto the buses and drove for four hours back into the city. Although we had really done nothing all weekend, I was exhausted. One fantastic shower later, I was in bed, resting, with the intention of preparing myself for the beginning of classes at AUC.

As it turns out, no amount of sleep could prepare me for the inauguration of add/drop season.

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Coming up: Adventure! Frustration! Abundant bureaucracy! Or, how I ended up with three ID cards.

Pictured: Jacob and I stand watch at the citadel.