At one point today all three of us in the apartment noticed that the sky was darkening earlier than usual.  We looked out the window and beheld a dark gray smog enveloping the buildings on the opposite side of the river.  We could see it billowing and creeping towards us, shrouding this building, then that … Continue reading →

Just because I’ve found an apartment doesn’t mean everything is smooth sailing from now on, my friends.  Oh, no. We have a lovely gas oven and stove, but they are extremely old fashioned.  To use the oven, you have to turn the gas on and then basically throw a match in a little hole in … Continue reading →

Okay the reason I haven’t regaled you with all my moving in adventures is that our flat wireless isn’t up and running yet.  Right now we’re stealing from the neighbors, but I absolutely had to tell you about the very dumb thing I just did.  In the spirit of spiffying up my new digs, I … Continue reading →

I am most pleased to announce that after much trouble and strife I have signed a lease agreement! I’m moving in with two AUC students, Eva and Lucy.  They’re both undergraduates.  When I went to visit the flat the first time and they found out I’m a graduate student they both sort of unconsciously straightened … Continue reading →

I’m still hunting for an apartment here in Cairo, and tonight one estate agent agreed to meet me at 9 PM.  The time came and went and half an hour later I called to ask what was going on.  “Because of Ramadan all the people are praying late, so this is why I didn’t call … Continue reading →

I’m watching the news on the blast at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.  Even though that’s about two thousand miles from where I sit, I found the news rattling.   I met an expat the other day who described the Marriott as being like a little city, and so it is.  It has its own … Continue reading →

Yesterday a friend of a friend of my parents, Flora, offered to take me to Khan el Khalili and then to see some dervish dancing in the cultural center across the road.  The idea of going out and having fun really excited me because I’ve barely thought about that since I got here. She picked … Continue reading →

At the end of yesterday evening, a family friend told me she’d sent an e-mail to the Registrar’s office at AUC on my behalf.  She’d shown them my blog entry Research Fellowship: A Comedy in Three Acts, in which I describe my first day at AUC, and­ she showed me their response. Basically they accused … Continue reading →

I’m still homeless, living in the scary 70’s hotel.  I’ve been sitting in the hallway to use the internet because the wireless doesn’t reach my room.  There’s a big pile of sheets in one corner near the fire exit, which I didn’t pay much attention to at first but just today I noticed it is … Continue reading →

Yesterday I had to move out of the lovely Longchamps hotel into the place downstairs, the Horus Hotel.  (This building, in addition to two hotels, has several apartments in it.  I don’t think that’s unusual in Cairo.)   The Horus looks like somebody grabbed the seventies by the hair and unceremoniously dumped them here without … Continue reading →