Day Two

January 22nd

"Every day I wake up and thank God for two things: One, that I am a man and two that I am American." John Paul told me this on the first night when we were walking by the US Embassy. I didn't realize how true it was until today.
As I said before, Egyptians are second class citizens to America in their own country. The entire country is a police state. Any place, where their might be tourists there are police men just sitting in the street guns in hand watching people go by. JP told me that if ever someone was following you, just the tell the police. He then said don't stick around to see what happens, because apparently they just beat the shit out of the guy.
Also being an American lets you do anything. We traveled on the Metro today. Let me describe the metro for you. First of all it cost I think 5 cents (American) to ride it. So its really cheap. Its also pretty dirty in the subway. There are very few trashcans throughout the city so people just throw their trash in the street or when in the subway station on the ground. Luckily Mubarak solves the potential mass unemployment by hiring tons of poor people to just pick up garbage and sweep the streets. He also hires tons of police forces and that means a lot if you are an American. Anyways, the subway was super crowded. Think of the trains in India you see in pictures, but just subtract everyone sitting on the roof. We were packed so tight that you couldn't move. Also they don't really give you that much time to get on and off. So here's how it goes. Since we are Americans we are the front of the line. The doors open and people kind of stand to the side to let people off. Then the doors open and people pour out pushing away the people that were slightly in the way. Then we get pushed from behind and jammed into the car. It fills to the brim and half of the people who were waiting to get on the train get left behind at the station. Also on the train, do not accept people giving you a seat, because if you sit down its so crowded you won't have time to get up and get out. The prime real estate is right by the door. Don't let anybody take it away from you.
Its awesome to be a man because you don't have to put up with any of the things that girls do. This applies in the biological sense and in the sense that guys don't have put up with the stuff that girls do. Apparently Egypt has the second worst record for abuse of women's rights. Second only to Saudi Arabia. So far no incidents, but its early.
Today it rained again. I wore my cream colored Notre Dame track-jacket. When the rain dried on the track-jacket it left dark streaks. Basically it rained filth. It was gross. Apparently it only rains this much once every four years. Cairo was obviously not prepared for it. There were huge puddles of mud everywhere. It was, well, gross.
We started eating Egyptian food today. It was really cheap and apparently most of the time its vegetarian. This is because meat costs so much more. I really do like being in Cairo. Its very novel at the moment and I still feel like a tourist, except when I walking around doing business for school. I have gotten used to walking through the traffic. There was this one time when two American tourists were at the crosswalk waiting for the guard to stop the traffic and I just strolled right through the masses of oncoming traffic dodging cars. It made me feel like a baller.
However, my ameema (the colloquial Arabic) is still really bad. Listening is definitely my worst ability, so its kind of hard to communicate. But hopefully with more time it will get better.

Hoorah,
Glen