Okay, I want to start off by getting out of the way something that is apparently in a lot of people's minds, which is that everything here is safe and sound and no, I have not been hit with rocks, rubber bullets or tear gas. Yesterday as a large group of us were exploring Old Cairo and Khan al-Khalili our trip was cut short by a couple of hours so that we could avoid the protests against President Mubarak that were going on downtown. We were then bussed out to the AUC New Campus (the campus that is in the middle of the desert where we take our classes) for a while to avoid being caught in the protests or any traffic surrounding them. So basically all is well and as always the folks with the school here have done an excellent job of keeping us safe and sound. :)
Anyway, enough about that madness. I haven't had a chance to post in the past few days but a lot has been going on. Monday night we had our Nile Dinner Cruise which was a nice little touristy break. To be honest, I'm not sure it was worth the money we paid for it since it is basically just like any other dinner cruise you could take in an American town, but it was cool to spend a little more time on the Nile anyway. The show included a belly dancer and two male dancers (I'm not sure what you would call those) who danced to Arab-style music played by a live band. My favorite part was the first male dancer who did a very elaborate spinning dance with a few different props. You might not be able to tell in the picture, but he was spinning very quickly and doing tricks with those props for a very long time, and then he suddenly took off that colorful skirt and started spinning it around his head and walked around the room with it like that without stumbling a bit. I'm still impressed!
Yesterday, as I mentioned before, we took a trip to Old Cairo.
Although not as exhilarating as some of our other trips, Old Cairo was still a fantastic excursion. We were able to see some very special and important religious sites. Old Cairo is among the few places that has a very prominent Church, Mosque and Synagogue all in one place, and the streets are all old and cobblestoned. We first stopped in The Hanging Church, a very old and beautiful Coptic Church. There are a variety of beautiful icons surrounding the inside of the Church, and it also had remains of martyrs from when the Romans attacked centuries and centuries ago. Some of the artwork was dated as early as 18 A.D. so I'm pretty sure these were some of the oldest things I've ever seen. After visiting the Church, we walked around in the old streets and saw an underground chamber-like area where Mary lived for a month after Jesus was born. We were told that that was the place where Jesus took some of his first steps.
We then moved on to see the synagogue that was built on the place where Moses was supposedly found floating in the basket. Finally we stopped by a mosque which I believe is the first mosque built in Egypt (but forgive me if I am wrong because I may have had my facts confused.) It is not to be confused with the oldest mosque in Cairo, because as the tour guide told us the oldest means it is the longest standing, whereas the first is the first one built, but may have been rebuilt a few times. You can see in the picture the rows and rows of prayer rugs on which people pray facing Mecca.
