Aida!

Wow. I saw my first real, real Opera (bad high school trip to Romeo and Juliet and 3/4 of a rehearsal of Don Giovanni don't count) for approximately $1.50. Not only was this a financial feat (especially for 5th row, center seating) but it was a showing of Aida, which was written for Cairo. Though Verdi's Rigoletto had to open the Cairo Opera House because Aida had not been finished, Aida was specially commisioned. It was pretty wonderful. I expect to take advantage of the Cairo Opera House many times before the end of the semester. The experience also highlighted somewhat of a turning point since arriving in Cairo because I realized that I am beginning to like her. Despite the pollution and crazy traffic and cab driver arguments, my feelings of overwhelming inadequacy and varying frustrations, I have an opportunity to pretend like my future is far away and that I can do anything I want, including seeing operas on a regular basis. My mom really hit it home when she told me something to the effect that I am learning what I am meant to learn, not necessarily what I think I should be learning. I guess it just boils down to expectations and all of that. I can still have goals, and I certainly do, but I have to be ok with not doing everything at once.
I realize how silly this sounds, after all, the opportunity to be here is staggeringly amazing, continuously reinforced by the Hurricane, the anniversary of the Sept. 11th bombings, and reminders from mom that "missing us is a small price to pay for all of this." I guess I just mean that the 'culture shock' cycle that everyone tells you about is very,very real, and that I'm moving into a different point on it. : )
Briefly:

1) Everything seemed very calm on election day- I heard about one peaceful demonstration, but I didn't get to see it. I'll let you know the reports from my Comp Pol class tomorrow.
2) I have 350 channels of Satellite tv- which means bad Turkmenistani music videos, several channels of product sales in German, and Moroccan soap operas, which I can use to say to Jayanthi "see! You can't understand any of it can you! I told you they don't use vowels!" It literally took us an hour to flip through everything, plus the additional minutes of us sitting in awe at said bad Turkmenistani music videos. God TV was also pretty cringe-worthy.
3) We have a third roomate! Her name is Lisa, she is a 23 year old German, and she is working at the Goethe Institute around the corner. Jayanthi and I are very excited that it worked out so well and that we now have a bigger friend network. We went with Lisa and 3 other German girls to Coptic Cairo on Saturday.

I have to run to my Arab literature class, but I will post more later.