First Impressions?

So I've been here a couple days now and I don't really know what I'm feeling. I like it here, but I think there's just a lot to take in and process and I'm still doing that. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm actually here, in Egypt. I get super confused a lot when I'm reminded that it's January because it feels like spring or summer outside. My sense of time and place is totally whack. But anyways, I met and moved in with my welcome host mom and sister last night, Saadia and Reema. I'm staying with them for a couple weeks until I can move in with my permanent host family. The first full day in Egypt, yesterday, was spent inside a little hotel with the other exchange students and we had an orientation. Then I went to my host family's apartment in Giza and it's incredibly different here. At first I wasn't sure if we were supposed to even be driving on the roads back by the apartment because they're so rocky and hole-y. And tons of people were walking in the middle of the road. But don't get me wrong, I totally love it. Driving here is absolutely insane. Steph, you would die if you had to be in a car in Cairo. I thought driving in Brazil was crazy, but Egypt makes Brazilian driving seem very mild. Crossing the street is such an adventure! Apparently there's a whole communication system between pedestrian and driver through their eyes so they know if the driver will stop or not.

So tonight was utterly amazing! Egypt won a really close soccer match against Ghana for the African Cup! The streets were soo crazy! My host mom took me, my host sister, two other girls our age, the little neighbor boy, and my host mom's friend out to celebrate on the streets. We painted Egyptian flags on our cheeks and drove around honking, singing, clapping, banging a drum, and waving a flag out the window. Then the real celebration started when we got to a street that basically had just turned into a total party and we sat half out of the car on the window. People were piled into the beds of trucks, standing on top of cars, waving flags, chanting, being joyous. It was a beautiful moment. I've never seen anything close to that amount of celebration and pride.

Masr! Masr! Masr!


These last two photos are taken from the roof of my welcome host family's apartment.

The Very Beginning

So I thought it was time to begin blogging on my thoughts/feelings/ideas of going to Egypt, since I'll be leaving in exactly two weeks! As of right now, I'm excited, but at the same time I'm not as excited as I should be because I kind of don't believe I'm really leaving so soon. Although I'm going to miss my friends here and everything, I'm feeling pretty ready to move on to a new place for a while. It's not like I'm never coming back. It's quite odd to be finishing high school right now though since everyone else still has another semester left. I'm kinda sad I'll be missing all the Senior traditions, like senior skip day, senior pranks, the cookout before the last day of school for seniors, and of course graduation. But I suppose that's a small price to pay for living in Egypt for five months!

So I guess I should write about the basics in my first blog. Last January I applied for the NSLI-Y full scholarship to study abroad. I found out about the scholarship about two weeks before the application was due, so there was a ton of frantic running around trying to get medical forms and letters of recommendation and whatnot. Before the gifted coordinator at my school, Miss Mills, told me about the scholarship, I had never really entertained the idea of studying abroad in high school. I just figured I would do it in college because the high school programs are really expensive. But then I found out about this scholarship! I had absolutely no clue if I would get it or not, but I figured I should give it a shot. You should've seen me when I found out I got it. When I get super excited about something, I just go crazy in my room and dance like there is no tomorrow. It was fantastic. So up until a month or two ago I thought I was going to go to high school in Egypt, but I found out that I'll actually be doing a community service program instead! Which I'm really excited for, although pretty nervous. I haven't had that much community service experience, and all the other kids on the conference call for it had a loooot. I feel pretty inexperienced. But I guess everyone has to have a starting point, right? So in Egypt I'll be living with a host family in Giza, right across the Nile from Cairo. My host family has two sons but one will be in America the whole time I'm in Egypt and the other is older and doesn't live with them. He'll be around on weekends and holidays though. I had wished for a host family with like six kids but I'm sure I'll still have a blast. I've just always wanted to live in a household with tons of siblings. So I guess that's it for this blog!
Egypt here I come!