Egyptian Facts

Here are some interesting little factoids I’ve learned in/about Egypt:

• You can never have enough sugar in your drink. Any Egyptian prepared fresh juice is most likely to have more sugar than actual fruit and tea always needs to have at least three spoons of it.
• A regular “pizza” here consists of cheese (not mozzarella, I believe), green peppers, olives, and tomatoes. Notice here, however, that no mention is made of tomato sauce. Yup, no tomato sauce on Egyptian pizza. One does, however, receive ketchup to eat with ones pizza.
• Which brings me to the topic of ketchup. It’s not the same. Unless it’s Heinz, it tastes very strange and very different. I have found that I actually like it,on my pizza, but not  on anything else because it has a very sweet taste and very little tomato taste.
• Simply put, food in Egypt is cheap….really really cheap. Unless you find yourself in a very touristy place, you can definitely survive on about 50 Ginea a week…which is less than $10. For example, a typical falafel/fool (beans) sandwich costs about 1 Ginea and a can of soda 2, which brings your lunch total to a whopping $0.60!
• Speaking of food, Egyptian food, as anyone who has studied here will tell you, is probably the worst of the Middle Eastern countries. I don’t know where they went wrong, but food here is just not good. Now I haven’t had much experience with home cooked meals, but I hear it’s not much different. It’s definitely a  bit of a bummer because I guess I expected good food before coming here and it’s been quite the disappointment. There is, however, a very cheap dish that I have come to love named Kosherie. It basically consists of rice, pasta, noodles, salsa, lentils, fried onions, and some other goodness all mixed together and topped with chilli sauce and/or vinegar. It sets you back only about 2 Ginea, which makes it all the more delicious!
• When answering a question someone asks about the future, instead of saying “yes”, you say “inshahallah”, meaning “God willing”. Egyptians simply believe that it is all in God’s hands and you can never be sure of the future. As a westerner this can sometimes be quite frustrating before you get used to it, because you’ll be setting up a meeting with someone and instead of saying “Yes, I will definitely be there at this time”, they say “Inshahallah”…which as a person who needs order and timeliness took a little getting used to.
• Taxis do not have meters, as they are all from eons ago and the meters reflect oil prices from that time period. This, however, makes it harder for foreigners as a lot of them love to rip foreingers off. The trick is not to ask what the driver wants at the end of the trip and simply determine it yourself and pay that amount. You must pay after you have exited the taxi and then simply walk away. I have never paid less than what I should have, just a ginea or so more than a native would, but that can still cause problems because I am still a foreigner. You have to act like an Egyptian would, otherwise they will demand more. They will generally yell at you through the window if they had hoped for more because you are a foreigner and sometimes will follow you as well. Which is when you employ the one-way street trick. As any big city, most streets in Alexandria are one way so you simply ask the taxi driver to drop you off slightly past your desired location, so that you would have to walk back and he couldn’t follow you if he wanted to. However, with Egyptian drivers being how they are, this doesn’t always deter them and they are more than willing to just back up into oncoming traffic sometimes.
• You cannot answer with a simple “no” to an Egyptian. Your answer will always be followed by “leh?”, or “why?”. For example, when refusing something to eat in the dining hall because we’re full (or because the food is disgusting), we must explain why we do not want to eat more. every. single. time. It’s a little bit like the “why” face every 2 or 3 year old goes through.
• To get someone’s attention in Egypt, a “psssssssssssssst” sound is made. At first this seemed to be quite derogatory and like we were treated like animals, but I have found myself using it as well when you have to get someone’s attention that would otherwise not hear their name. I suppose Egyptian ears are just so well trained for the noise that they answer it remarkably well. However, this is, along with a kissing noise, what men use on the streets when they want to get your attention…which happens A LOT and has made me hate the noise as well.
• To go along with this idea, simply put, being a girl in Egypt stinks (that’s putting in mildly, but I don’t want to use harsh language). In addition to that, being a foreign girl in Egypt is even worse. More to come on this topic soon.
• Cheap chocolate, i.e. Egyptian chocolate, is quite disgusting. Most freshly made chocolate containing items contain this “chocolate”, and it’s just not good.
• Chicken isn’t meat. It’s “meat and chicken”, but chicken itself doesn’t fall under the “meat” classification. When I had to turn vegetarian for health purposes one of the dining hall ladies was very confused as to why I was also giving up chicken.

There is a lot more of these that I have come to discover and as I remember them I will be sure to post more! For my next post I will be either talking about my Luxor and Aswan trip or finally the much needed discussion/rant on women in Egypt. We’ll see how I feel. For now, ma’a salaama!

Spring Break: Sinai

As I’ve already mentioned, I had the opportunity to go to the Sinai Peninsula for my spring break here. The trip consisted of three parts: an Ecolodge in the mountains, Mount St. Catherine, and Dahab (as well as Sharm El-Sheikh a little).

The Ecolodge:

After a 13 hour plus bus ride, we arrived at a random small Bedouin village, only to be told that it took another 30 minute drive by minibus to the lodge…through the mountains. At this point it was about 5 am and we are all ready to pass out and go to sleep, and to top it all off, we were freezing our butts off. It is unbelievably cold in the deserts of Egypt when the sun isn’t there, you just can’t quite imagine how cold it can be in a place where day time temperatures are well in the 80’s and 90’s. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to all of us when we found our accommodations to be quite different that we expected. The Al Karm Ecolodge is run solely by Bedouins and consists of a series of small buildings made of rock, essentially. There was no electricity or heating, obviously, so that made the first night sleeping extremely difficult. Even though I was absolutely exhausted, I was so freezing cold I could not fall asleep and couldn’t get warm again. We had initially planned to get up early and do a full day hike, but those plans quickly changed as it became apparent that we were all absolutely exhausted and not ready for a full hike. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to get out and explore and take pictures of the place. Soon afterwards a lot of us were up and we were served a Bedouin breakfast of eggs, cheese, salad, jam, and very delicious Bedouin bread. We topped the meal off with some lime green Bedouin tea and then were off on a small hike. One of the Bedouins led us to a small villages made entirely of rocks that was now abandoned. On our way back to the lodge we passed by this farming operations of sorts, it appeared that they were somehow obtaining water from somewhere and growing all the food themselves. It was quite impressive to see in the middle of the mountains. That night we had dinner at the Ecolodge, played dominoes, and just sat around a fire for a while. I wasn’t absolutely freezing to start off, so I was able to sleep quite well, which was a nice change. Overall it was a really nice place and it was great to be away from the big cities and see a bit of a different side of Egypt.  The Bedouins were different from any other people I’ve met in Egypt. They seemed to be very  quiet and reserved, but were very gracious hosts.

The Ecolodge

One of our Bedouin guides that led us on a small hike to an abandoned village nearby.

St. Catherine:

We arrived in St. Catherine around 12 pm or so and began a hike up a pretty sleep slope right off the bat. It leveled off after a while and the rest of the hike was quite easy. However, the views were pretty spectacular at the beginning because we could see the whole town of St. Catherine. We ate a delicious Bedouin prepared lunch in the mountains and just relaxed there for about two hours before returning to St. Catherine. We got back and checked into an Ecolodge in St. Catherine, where we just hung out for the night before heading out to Mount Sinai. We were all incredibly exhausted from the long day of hiking and we just hung around the common area and the fire. The lodge was quite incredible, yet simple, and I would definitely love to go back some day.

View of St. Catherine from the mountain

At about 1 am most of us got ready to head to to Mount Sinai to do the hike up it by night and see the sunrise at the summit. I, unfortunately, only made it about half way before experiencing some excruciating stomach pains, along with another person from the trip, and so we decided to head back. To me, the hike up the mountain wasn’t anything particularly interesting, on the contrary, I found it to be the least enjoyable part of the whole trip. It must be noted that there were TONS of tourist groups there and the crowd was unbelievable. To top it all off, there were camels and their owners about every 10 feet, which made navigating the trail at night extremely difficult. You were at constant danger of being run into by a camel from the back or running into one yourself in front. Needless to say, that part of journey wasn’t quite as enjoyable as the rest.

Dahab:

Meaning “Gold” in Arabic, Dahab definitely deserves the name. It is, by far, my favorite place in Egypt. There is honestly not much to do in Dahab, but you can easily spend a week or two there and not realize you just spent that much time…doing absolutely nothing. There are cafes upon cafes and restaurants upon restaurants lining the beach and most in the traditional bedouin style. I spent hours on end reading and drawing along the Red Sea and definitely had one of the best four days in a while. Lining the beach is a boardwalk of sorts lined with shops and restaurants. While the shop owners do hassle you a lot when you walk by, it’s something you just have to deal with as a tourist in Egypt.  They were pretty entertaining though because their attitude completely changes as soon as they see that you speak Arabic. I can’t stress enough how much better it is to know the language in particularly touristy areas in Egypt, or any third world country for that matter. You get to know the people so much better and just get to enjoy the experience all the more because you don’t see the shop owners as just hassling nobodies. Plus, there was always an automatic discount Naturally, we still had to do some heavy bargaining, but it was nice to be rewarded for speaking Arabic, no matter how broken it may be.

A typical restaurant in Dahab. This one, in particular, was the one I spent the most time in.

The boardwalk, lined with shops and restaurants.

No explanation needed

We also drove the two hours north from Dahab to Sharm El Sheikh for half a day. While Dahab is pretty touristy, it does not compare to Sharm El Sheikh. It’s a nice enough place and there’s definitely a lot of things you can do there, I personally did not like it all because it was just way too touristy and just didn’t have any feel of Egypt to it. We initially didn’t have plans to go visit it, but our plan to go to Ras Muhamed for some snorkeling failed because we weren’t with a tourist group, and therefore settled to go snorkeling at one of the beaches in Sharm El Sheikh. However, this happened after we drove around Sharm El Sheikh for about two hours, which resulted in much grumpiness.

A partial view of Sharm El Sheikh

A very brochure-like picture

We finished our trip in Egyptian style, as we waited for no reason at numerous check points as they checked each one of our passports. At one point, at a particular check point where one could potentially see Israel and Jordan, we were made to wait almost an hour so that they could get us an escort until we reached the end of the Sinai Peninsula. Very Egyptian. However, I suppose ridiculous security is better than none, as it is the area of Egypt that tends to have the greatest problems with terrorist attacks.

Overall, it was an amazing trip and I definitely felt ready and refreshed to take on the second half of the semester. Unfortunately, all that energy was spent on a 14 hours bus drive.

A long overdue post

I am quite ashamed of how long it has been since I last updated this blog and have vowed to update it very ardently in the next few weeks!

As promised, I will post on the issue of women here in Egypt, but I will hold that off until the next one. In the meantime, however, I will update you guys on what I’ve been up to in the last month or so.

In the middle of February we took another down to Cairo to explore a little more of the city and to attend a concert at the Cairo Opera House. This second trip to Cairo was definitely a lot more enjoyable than the first and we got to see a little more of Ciaro than its traffic! In the morning we visited the massive Egyptian Museum and got to see some magnificently preserved mummies. One of them was even smiling! I’m not sure if it’s real or even possible, but it was still interesting to see. Unfortunately though, they do not allow photography within the museum so I only have a photo of the outside of the museum. I would definitely love to come back to the museum as one morning was definitely not enough to see everything important there is to see. Even though photography and touching were mumnua’a, or forbidden, you could still see foreigners and Egyptians completely disregarding the rules, which is quite disappointing to see. After the museum we had amazing falafel sandwiches at a random restaurant our friends had discovered the day before, and then we headed out to Salah El-Din’s citadel. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see all of the things at the citadel because it was closing, but the things we did get to see were pretty spectacular. It’s a HUGE fortress, essentially, within a beautiful mosque within, amongst other things. Needless to say, it was a lot bigger then the citadel in Alexandria! After the fort, we spent a few hours wandering the city and saw an extremely old mosque as well as visited the shop of a glass maker. Overall, it was a great day trip and I had really enjoyed it…until the concert. Now, the only way any of us could deal with the situation of the concert was by hysterically laughing it off because there was no other option. The concert was for one of Egypt’s most famous singers, Muhamed Mounir, and to say it was packed is an understatement. First off, the line into getting into the concert almost got us trampled, were it not for one of the Egyptian students who was with us. Once in, because we were separated from our group, we had to find them, and when we did it was only half of the people. We made are way closer to the stage and soon began to get more and more squished and began to realize that it was a very dangerous situation for the girls, in particular. Thankfully enough, one of the guys from last semester, took charge and organized a defense with the girls in the middle and the guys around us. Needless to say, we will forever be thankful to all the guys for sacrificing themselves to the constant bombardment of people. Naturally, as all things in Egypt, the concert started wayyyy late so we were just stuck in the squishfest for more than an hour before he came on. A little into the concert we get a message from our program director, who was in the other group, saying they needed help because they had more girls than guys. It took us a while, but we found them and all were in a spot a lot less crowded for the remainder of the concert. It was quite the experience to remember, especially for someone who is slightly claustrophobic, but most of us laugh about the night because of the whole ridiculousness of the situation.  After this second trip, even though it was a better picture of Cairo, I still left liking Alexandria more because I definitely noticed the people in Alexandria are a lot nicer in general than in Cairo, especially to foreigners. This was especially apparent with the taxi drivers, as one of them actually got out of this car because we refused to pay his ridiculous fee. All in all, a good trip!

In February, we also got a chance to go to an engagement party. In Egypt, a man and a woman don’t date, but instead get engaged. They usually knew each other a little before, and if they like each other, they can get engaged. The party is a huge deal and there’s a ceremony involved and everything.

Also in February, we went to a brunch at the apartment of the director of the American Cultural Center, and I have to say I never felt more American. It was just for the American students studying Arabic in Alexandria, namely at the TAFL center, and the food included such delights as muffins, bagels, and my personal favorite, banana bread. It was a lovely escape from the food we’ve been suffering at the dorm and we can’t wait for the next one!

The beginning of march brought mid-terms upon us, so we were kept a little busy with those. It was nothing compared to exams at Middlebury and what awaited us at the end of it was our Spring Break! For Spring Break, I went to the program organized trip to the Sinai Penninsula where we visited a variety of locations that I will devote an entire post to because it was just absolutely amazing.

For now, I must leave and study for an exam for my Egyptology class, but I hope to return in a few days with pictures and more posts!

The treatment of women…

I will get into this topic in my next post, but I just wanted to post a link to this article on BBC first:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7514567.stm

School

Once Orientation was done with, we began our classes here in Alexandria. Unlike a regular study abroad  experience, we don’t actually take classes with other Egyptians and have normal classes. Instead, we take classes at the TAFL  (Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language) center in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alexandria. Most of us have only studied the language for 2 or 3 years, and all of those have been dedicated to learning Modern Standard Arabic, known as Fus-haa. You see, in the Arabic-speaking world, there is Modern Standard Arabic and there are dialects. When you are a student learning the language in college, you generally only learn the standard Arabic and very very tiny amount of dialect. Unfortunately, what this means is that when I came to Egypt, I could communicate fine in Fus-haa, but couldn’t say a word of dialect, or Aamiya. I cannot describe the frustration I felt, having studied the language for so long and being able to carry on a conversation quite well, but not actually able to use any of that once I got to Egypt! It was so frustrating in the beginning, trying to erase all the Fus-haa words out of my vocabulary and incorporating new ones, and it still is a struggle. I do have the basics down now and can have a conversation without a lot of trouble, but I still find it very hard to separate the two sometimes. So, you may be asking yourself, what is Fus-haa good for then? It’s the “official” language, so to speak. It’s used in media and television, and is a form of communication between two arabic-speaking countries who use a different dialect. The Egyptian dialect is the most widely understood due to Egypt’s great film industry, but it’s not spoken everywhere, which is when Fus-haa comes into play. It’s quite an interesting issue, and the arabic-speaking world has problems with such a high number of dialects and a standard language that only educated people can speak. Some argue Fus-haa is old (it’s the language of the Qur’an), outdated, and too complex at times. I don’t know what a possible solution would be, but I do know that it is a problem that needs fixing.

ANYWAYS, I started this post talking about school and went off on a tangent, but it was an important one . At the TAFL center, I am taking five classes: Fus-haa, Aamyia, Media, Geopolitics of the Middle East, and Egyptology. The Fus-haa class is simply a continuation of the same things we were learning in the States. However, the standard of teaching is not quite the same. I don’t know if it’s just that I have grown accustomed to the excellent standards at Middlebury or what, but the teaching styles/abilities of some of the professors here are definitely quite different. I’ve been lucky enough to have had amazing Arabic professors on top of that, so it’s a bit of a shock sometimes to be in Fus-haa class here. It’s definitely not something horrific, but just takes some getting used to. Having had Aamyia ingrained into our brains 24/7, it makes Fus-haa class a little difficult and I always find myself using Aamyia instead. It’s quite a brain exercise to be doing both at once. In Media class we look at different Arabic media and learn key words that are prevalent in the media such that we would be able to understand an article much better. If you think about it, news articles use a lot of the same words over and over again, and once we get a strong foundation in those, then reading an article in arabic shouldn’t be so hard…hopefully . My geopolitics class has been an interesting one, and I’ve been able to keep up with the information very well, which suprised me. Although, we do always seem to get into a discussion during every class  of what the Middle East actually is and which countries are in it. Lastly, the Egyptology class is a class I have one-on-one with, with a professor from the actual university. We’ve only had one meeting and it was quite nice because he spoke in Fus-haa and spoke to me like I was back in first grade, which is all that we wish for from a professor, as funny as it may sound.

Overall, school has been going pretty well. Last semester the students complained about not having enough homework, but now they seem to be giving us too much! We’re still trying to work things out and I hope it settles down to a comfortable load soon. It’s definitely nowhere near the infamous Middlebury homework load, but it keeps us busy enough so we can’t go out and explore the country, or even Alexandria. I’ve definitely had a nice break from atoms and cells, but I do have to admit that I miss my sciences quite a lot and can’t wait to get back to Midd and start lab work again

I’ll be sure to post soon on some cultural aspects of my stay here, but until then…Peace.

Dijana

The most important topic there is…FOOD

As per my friend Allison’s request, this post will be dedicated to food in Egypt! My experiences with food in Egypt can be categorized into four groups:

1. Dorm food

2. Actual Egyptian food from restaurants and such

3. McDonald’s

4. Fruits/Juices

We have dorm food for breakfast and dinner in a separate room especially sed aside for us in the building. The food in the dorm can be classified as edible most of the time, but generally isn’t quite a pleasant experience.  We’re not provided with a lot of protein containing foods, so you kind of eat whatever meat you’re given. Usually, this is a piece of friend chicken, or ground meat on a stick. Tasty. Not surprisingly, vegetables are also in short supply and we’re only given extremely cooked vegetables, or one sliced tomato. What is in great supply is rice! We have the same exact rice every day for dinner, and it wouldn’t be bad if the rice actually had a good taste or if I actually liked rice in the first place. When we went to the Carrefour, a HUGE supermarket in a nice part of Alexandria, there is an entire aisle dedicated to just rice. We’re also given a traditional Egyptian bread at dinner made out of wheat, I believe, but I’m not so fond of it.  In summary, dorm food, as one may suspect, is not the best, but we take what we can get!

As far as the actual Egyptian food we have in restaurants is concerned, I could eat that all day and every day. Not only is there a wide selection of everything yummy, the places we go to regularly for lunch are so cheap that I can have lunch for as low as about 20 cents sometimes! Once, four of us had a great lunch, including drinks for about $4. I usually get something with falafel in it (generally a think pita-like bread with vegetables in it as well as two falafel balls), or shawuarma. Shawuarma is similar in nature to gyro/kebabs, I say similar because they’re not quite the same. The bread used for shawuarma is simple sandwhich/grinder bread with that specific type of meat, vegetables, and sauce. However, the ones here don’t really have a specific sauce, so they’re not quite like a gyro or kebab. A short note to add about falafel: apparently, in homes it’s generally eaten for breakfast. My doormates and I had no idea until we asked the kitchen staff if we could be provided with falafel and they asked “for breakfast tomorrow”, and we replied “no, for dinner”, and they just gave us that look that said “weird americans” and laughed. I just can’t imagine having something that strong for breakfast! It really is true that Egyptians are able to digest anything (something they’re quite proud of).

My last point brings us to good old McDonald’s. Two weeks into being here in Egypt, I found myself, quite shamefully, craving Micky D’s. Luckily for us, a brand new McDonald’s branch opened right across the street from our dorm! The food did taste a little different than what we’re used to, but it probably was actually better for you as it seemed to contain less fat. The prices, however, reflected the same dollar value as in the US. This means that a typical meal at McDonald’s costs about £20 or £25! For Americans this is only $4 or $5, but for Egyptians, where you can have a meal at Abu Rabea for £2, this is extremely expensive! Thus, McDonald’s becomes a “nice” restaurant to go out to, and you could definitely tell that by the people found within and how nice the building is. Even better, they have a doorman!

A’aseer, or juice, is another Egyptian favorite around here. Small juice places can be found on any street, and a fresh glass of strawberry, orange, mango, guava, sugar cane, or banana juice can be purchased for about £3 ($.75). Depending on the place, you may get a particularly junky drink, or a very smooth one. One thing is for sure though, they add a TON of sugar. Anyway you look at it though, it’s absolutely delicious and extremely affordable. On a similar note, strawberries, for whatever reason, are also extremely cheap. Just today, my friend Maya and I bought a kilo of strawberries for £6 (~$1)! Even during the summer strawberries in Vermont go for wayyy more than that. And, of course, they are delicious and don’t taste like plastic

Well, I think that about concludes my food rant. I sincerely hope I have provided enough detail Miss Dappen.

Ma’a salaama!

the first few days

After a day and a half of travel, the other students and I finally made it to Alexandria! The flight from JFK to Cairo was over 11 hours long, and then we took a van from Cairo to Alexandria, which was another couple of hours. Needless to say, the journey was long and arduous!

My friend Naureen and I were dropped off first at the dorm for girls in the Al-Shatby region of Alexandria. Here’s the link to Google Maps:  (http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=st+mark+alexandria+egypt&ie=UTF8&sll=31.055516,29.824955&sspn=0.483042,0.379584&ei=7lBmSeXlIYWw2AKxrqnzAg&sig2=Fs0HZct8pPXQO_Q0_2xX_g&cd=4&cid=31210723,29917753,4067930359938235133&li=lmd&ll=31.210443,29.916179&spn=0.004148,0.009656&t=k&z=17) The dorm is the building in the center of the map, directly across from the labeled “A”. The building is absolutely huge! Certainly bigger than anything you would find in Vermont, and to top it off, we live on the 6th floor with an elevator that refuses to come when called (unless you bang endlessly on the door). Inside, the dorm is obviously not quite up to par to American standards, but the rooms are quite big and nice. We receive breakfast and dinner in the dorm as part of the room and board and the food is pretty good, but foreign obviously. As an Egyptian custom, we are forced to eat SO much by our “nutritionist” Mama Houdda. The more you refuse more food, the more she piles on! She’s quite the character.

Alexandria is quite a beautiful, and seemingly forgotten, city. Few new buildings exist, instead you see a lot of old and quite beautiful buildings that seem to have been left to age for decades. However, the best part of living in Alexandria definitely has to be the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. Walking along the Corniche, which is the newly built gigantic road alongside the water, is definitely one of the greatest thing to do around here.

the Corniche, a 12-lane road that runs along the beach and is one of the most terrifying things to watch

ahhhh, the ocean. not to elicit any jealousy or anything, but it’s about a 2.5 minute walk down to the beach… :)

Unfortunately, however, the Corniche has also been the place where, as a woman, you get cat calls and semi-stalkers. It’s a part of life here, and it certainly takes some getting used to, but what can you do? However, the view of the ocean makes all of this worth it, because nothing compares to it. One of the first few days here we spent some time at this wonderful cafe with a student from last semester and drank fresh juice, under palm tree unbrellas, at sunset, by the sea…Need I say more?

One of the Khalid’s (our program director) rules is never to cross the Corniche. I first want to mention that driving and traffic in Egypt is absolutely and completely chaotic and totally ridiculous! There are marked “lanes”, but no one abides by them and there are “lights”, and yet again, no one abides by them. Quite the mayhem. To make matters worse, as a pedestrian, you have to cross these streets and it takes some practice so for now, I am simply terrified of crossing them and dread the task every day. The Corniche is a 6-lane road with traffic that moves at more than 50mph, so having the underground tunnels is simply marvelous!

Welcome! Ahlan wua sahlan!

Hello everyone!

After doing some serious and quite profound thinking, I’ve finally decided to keep a blog about my stay in Egypt. I was unsure at first, but after a few days I saw that the stories would just be too good to not share. Seeing how my ability to remember stories is quite minimal, I think this may turn out to be a great idea! I will try to post as regularly as I can, but as with many things, it may be left unfinished! I will say ahead of time, as you may already know, my English speaking and writing skills are quite horrendous so I ask you to bear with me and my mistakes

I will be sure to post in the near future about my first week in Alexandria, and I cannot wait for everyone to see how much I have already fallen in love with this place!

Peace, Love, Dove,

Dijana