The Big Move

At the end of last week, I moved from Mohandiseen to the Meramees Hotel just off Midan Talat Harb in downtown Cairo. What a change! Downtown Cairo is so much more interesting, more walkable, more lively, more of everything, really, and really not any louder. Why was I in Mohandiseen again? My roommates and I had spent hours trying to figure out what makes that neighborhood so unpleasant. My best guess is that living in a big city normally involves certain trade-offs: in the city you give up calm, quiet and privacy, but in return you get liveliness, culture, convenience and fun. Mohandiseen forces you to surrender all of those things, and in return gives you slightly cheaper Koshari. I'm very happy to be here.

The room itself, on the other hand, is a major step down from my school provided apartment. This new room is most charitably described as "monastic," except that this place focuses less on quiet and cleanliness than you'd imagine a monastery might. It also has a very strange smell which, for better or for worse, I am used to. There's a good chance that I'll just spend the money and move to a hotel. Still, it's hard to mind too much when the neighborhood is so much better and the price is so much less. I have been eying the minaret of the neighboring mosque with some concern, since my room's balcony is twenty feet from the minaret's speakers. I'd better get used to waking up at 5:00 A.M. sharp.

My move was prompted by a change in schools. I've dropped out of the program at the International Language Institute. The classes were just too big - at one point, my class had as many as sixteen people, and you don't learn a language by sitting in a class with sixteen other people. So tomorrow at noon, I'll began working with a private tutor supplied by "Arabic4U." The name doesn't inspire much confidence - I can't imagine why anyone would want their educational institution to sound like a text message sent by a twelve year-old girl. Still, my hope is that in a one-on-one situation, the speaking opportunities will outweigh any issues that might arise by going to a school with a name that makes "Hooked on Phonics" sound Ivy League.

As I write this in the lobby of the hostel, I realize that the biggest advantage of this place might be the lack of internet access in my room. I'll have no choice but to study because I'm not going to sit out here all day with the backpacking set. I'm not sure when it happened (probably sometime during law school) but I've become the old guy. Yes, definitely time for the old guy to move to a hotel; preferably one where the toilet and the shower are served by different holes in the floor.