Arabic Lessons!

I've finally started to take Arabic lessons with a tutor named Ahmad, me and Brennan hired him and he's pretty cool, we think he talks a bit like the Godfather, use your imagination i guess. it's really good because he's teaching us a combination of Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Egyptian arabic. Some places teach just Moderns Standard, which is pretty difficult for learning to speak with regular people, and some places teach the Egyptian Colloquial but using the roman alphabet, which i really don't want cause learning the arabic script is pretty important for getting around. One of the biggest goals i have is to be able to read road signs, billboards, etc. at lightning speed so i can know where I am and what things are in the city. That way if i'm ever get lost, i'll at least have some way of finding my way. so anyways, after almost a month of living in Cairo, i've finally started some arabic and it's nice because it took a while to arrange it.

We got DSL for our apartment, but unfortunately right now it's not workin! I have to call up the company or have my friend Fawzi (Big Papa) do it cause this is one thing that will be really nice to have with a fast connection for phone and the ability for all three of us to be using it at once.

probly the funniest thing i can mention about today is that we were sitting in Cilantro Cafe for our Arabic lesson. here's a description of our situation: "Sittin in a cafe in Cairo taking arabic lessons, eating a chicken pesto sandwich and hearing the sound of Whitney Houston's Greatest Hits playing on repeat over and over again in the background...." how random is that situation?? never would i ever think that i'd be stuck sitting in a cafe in cairo listening to Whitney Houston repeating over and over in such a depressing way, i really felt for the waiters sitting working there who have to listen to that stuff every frickin day! And it's like they have no power to change the CD, it's always some d-bag manager or company policy that insists on putting the store music on (what's with that?). Anyways, this lesson was a 2 hour class so it repeated probly like 10 times, and it wasn't even a full CD, it was like 4 songs or so. It really is hilarious how Egyptians here know so many random things about my culture. Like Brennan was talking one time to our friend Fawzi and he was referring to something about the Eagles, and Brennan went into this explanation about "oh yeah, the Eagles are this group that sings classic rock...blah blah blah" and Fawzi was like "yeah, i know, I have 2 of their albums...." It's really frustrating sometimes cause I don't know what to expect from people. A lot of people know so much about America through TV and radio, so when i try explaining things like "i have to show you this movie" and then they're like, "oh yeah i already saw it 5 times", it's a killjoy for me. But then I don't want to assume that people know everything, like saying "remember in Anchorman when Will Farrell says...blah blah blah" cause then people sometimes don't know what i'm talkin about and act like why would they know that? so i don't wanna come off as some ignorant american who expects people to know everything but at the same time it's kinda hard.

Another funny/random thing that happened the other day was that Brennan, Jacek and I took a cab to the metro station the other day and the cab driver had some electronic music box that was hooked up to his brake pedal so that every time he put on the brakes, this stupid song music came on playing "it's a small world" - no words, it sounded like a computer midi file, very faint but just annoying enough for you to hear it over and over again every time the cab driver braked (just imagine in Cairo which is some of the worst traffic in the world). Then we got into a cab today coming home from work and the guy had decorated the inside with what looked like black fishing nets, and then stuck some sort of flower decorations everywhere too. That was a hoot! some of the stories we get out of these cab rides are pretty incredible. probly one of my favorite parts about Cairo....