Keeping up the pace

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Photo time... finally! Since our university programme at the Language Centre got into full swing it's been hard to find the time to get my thoughts together. If these first two weeks are anything to go by, it's going to be a busy year! We have 14 hours of fusHa (Modern Standard Arabic) a week and 4 hours of the Egyptian dialect, which isn't as balanced as I would like but the expectation is that you will learn the dialect out on the streets and in everyday life. This is true of course, but the homework for fusHa is pretty heavy too, which leaves little time to get out and about! Classes in general are a mixture of translation, reading comprehension, literature and media. The reading comprehension and literature classes are really challenging, as the teacher has a policy of speaking exclusively in Arabic but I suppose that's the best way to learn. Anyway it's not too bad, as we discovered last night in our Tuesday evening (6-8pm) literature class; when Arabic fails there is always the opportunity to roll around on the floor and play dead just to make your point. This might sound a bit drastic but we were reading an Arabic poem about men in a village who wanted female company and in a drunken state decided the best way to achieve that goal was to pretend one of them had died. As you do. 

Here's some photos of the flat which I'm sharing with three of my friends; Hanna, Sara and Chiara.

 

 A limited view of my bedroom due to the mess it's in at the moment, but at least you can see my beloved fan!

 Our living room

 The corridor with the bathroom on the left and bedrooms on the right

 My balcony overlooking the villa for the Saudi Consulate staff (unfortunately for my curiousity no one is ever home)

Panoramic view from my balcony

 The landlord's father constantly watching over us!

 The kitchen (out-of-shot: massive fridge on the right)

 The reception area: all the furniture here was previously in my bedroom behind on the left, the door in the top-right is the living room

 The dining/study area

I love this photo! Hanna and Chiara before their trip out to Rosetta (rasheed in Arabic)

Hanna also is keeping a blog during our time here which you can find here. She's much more organised with pictures and things than I am! Meanwhile last Friday we visited the catacombs here in Alexandria, which were a really bizarre and intriguing mixture of Greek, Roman and Ancient Egyptian art and funerary customs. I managed to sneak some pictures even though you're not really allowed cameras inside, so I'll post an update with those soon insha Allah (God willing).