Due to popular demand, I will be posting more often, insha'allah. This extremely common Arabic phrase means "god-willing", and gives you an excuse if something you say will happen does not happen, because God just didn't will it.

The days here are going by faster and faster and I can see how short these five months can really be. It gives me all the more reason to relish every moment here and never take it for granted. Oftentimes if I am on the melancholy side I will just remind myself that I'm actually here, in Egypt, and it's so fantastic and I feel incredibly lucky to just be here. Then I usually don't feel so melancholy. But I don't often feel very melancholy to being with, so it's all good.

So to get you up-to-date on my happenings in Egypt, last Saturday we had an AFS outing for the group of 9 kids I came here with. Even though we only met close to two weeks ago, I feel like I've known them way longer. We are totally BFF's.

Monday I went to the pyramids! It was fantastic and I definitely want to go back and spend more time there next time. We went into a couple tombs that were outside of the pyramids, and for the first one we crawled through these tiny passage-ways only to end up in a small stone room that was extremely hot. So for the second one we were a little apprehensive about going in, but we did, and that ended up being a very good choice, as this tomb actually had interesting things like hieroglyphics on the walls. So after this we walked by the Sphinx on our way to the place where we were getting horses to ride into the desert. It was quite large. Then we rode horses into the desert! I'm pretty sure none of us had ever ridden a horse before, and the experience itself was something to talk about. It was pretty painful. And you bounce uncomfortably a lot. But once I got used to it, it was absolutely incredible. Then on our way back, I fell off the horse. They made me switch horses for some reason but didn't shorten the straps on my feet, so I lost my balance when the horse started galloping and I fell off. At the time it hurt pretty badly, but afterwards it was quite hilarious, and it still is. The day afterwards I was so sore I could barely move at one point. But it was an amazing experience and I'm so glad it happened.

A few other days this week was spent at my community service organization, Resala, giving placement tests for the English course I'm going to teach. Since I'll be speaking in all English, the students have to have at least some basis in English.

Then today was really fantastic, although equally tiring. We had another AFS outing and woke up at 6:30 to go to a place to get extensions for our visas. Then we did a lot of standing around, then went to the Egyptian museum, but we pretty much just stood around there too. None of us were really in a museum mood, even though it probably is the most fascinating museum I've ever been in. Then we ate some traditional Egyptian food, kosheri, which was delicious. Then we did what Egyptian teenagers do all the time, hangout in a cafe. After that came the real fun, when we took a feluca on the Nile! And of course had a dance party, but Egyptian-style, which included belly-dancing and some form of strange dancing from the guys.

It's been another wonderful week in Egypt, and insha'allah the computer will soon allow me to post pictures!