Flight Around the World

Wow it's been a week since my last post... So much has happened and I don't think I'll be able to cover it all, so I will focus on several aspects of my journey. For the first part of the journey, I flew into New York and met the group that I am staying with. There were thirty people in the group, but only 25 are with the same program that I am and only 16 will be going to the same school.
A little backgroud on the program- it is called the National Security Language Initiative and is sponsored by the State Department of the United States government. Students are selected to go to each of 7 countries, and the program that I was chosen for is to study in Egypt. We haven't started language classes yet, but our first day learning Arabic is tomorrow.
The government divides the scholarships for this program between several different organizations to better carry out the goal of the program. The Egypt program, along with a couple others, is through AFS, an experienced exchange organization. Therefore, we go through much of the same process as other AFS participants with a few added details. This means that like students in other progams, we meet with our groups for the first time at a university in New York city. Here I got to know people not only from my own program but who were also going to other countries. After a few meetings and some free time, we left for Cairo at about 11:30 at night. Our flight was delayed because one passenger forgot not to check his medicine and it had to be retrieved, but finally we took off.
I can usually sleep really well on the airplane, but only managed to sleep for 5 hours this time since the group was lively and interesting enough to keep me awake for a long time. We arrived in Cairo later than planned, but that really wasn't a huge setback. Here you can see the contrast between the view in the two flights, NY City being the one at night and Cairo being the daytime picture.


After that we went to a hotel and had some further orientation activities. In the USA I had heard that since Cairo is in a desert, people here are very concerned with water conservation. You can imagine my surprise when I saw this right outside the hotel:

We also saw a championship soccer match between the USA and Brazil. I'm glad I cashed in on the moment while the USA was winning 2-1 since Brazil ended up with a 3-2 comeback win:

At the end of the day yestersday we met our host famlies. Mine is very nice and has hosted students in the past. The food here is also greart, and I have learned some (very) basic Arabic even before the lessons.
The weather here is hot and sunny- always. Also, nobody wears shorts so there is a constant heat and a degree of sweating outside, but nothing too extreme. I prefer this weather to very cold weeather, but look what happened to some chocolate that I had left over from the flight:

Well, I will post again as soon as I can and report my Arabic progress. Also Friday we are going to the Pyramids, and Sunday to a soccer match.

-R H Kramer

Final Farewells

I have finally begun packing and preparing for my flight Friday, and I am excited and eager for my journey to start. But since my departure is drawing closer each day, you could say that this last week is not only a busy week in the sense of last minute preparations but also in the sense that it is really my last chance to see most of the friends that I have had in high school. I might see some of them again in the context of hometown visits and class reunions, but that will be under different circumstances. For this week, I finally get the sense that anyone I see I will be out of my life for a long time to come, and that i should make the most of these final chances to say goodbye.
One example: A couple days ago I was listening to some music and reading when my brother came to ask if I wanted to play video games with him. I told him I was busy and didn't go. Then a few seconds later, with a pang of guilt, I realized that I only had a few days left around him. Though I would certainly be seeing him again, I quickly left the book and the Ipod and went to join his Mario Kart race. I also have seen a few friends that I haven't seen much of in this (3 week) summer as well as some that I have seen more frequently. This has helped to give me a sense of closure in my final days here. My I previous experiences suggest that I won't be missing too much about home in my time in Egypt and Europe, but it is still nice to have some final chances to be around people.
However, I have to balance that with the fact that I will soon be leaving and have to bring a lot with me. That means that I have been packing, doing some last minute shopping, deciding what to take, and worrying about forgetting things that may have been forgotten. I was able to do a lot of this efficiently, but we'll see how my packing skills work out... I always tend to have the smallest and lightest suitcase in the group. I also got some presents for the family that I will be staying with, mostly souvenirs from Chicago, the city that I live near. I tried emailing them, but the email that I was provided with did not work so I guess I will be meeting them when I get there. I will also bring some photos to spur conversation with them and I guess I'll take it from there. I'll post an update from New York, where I will stop before heading to Egypt.