Yes, We're Still Alive

So, at this point, probably no one is even bothering to check our poor neglected blog, but for those of you who are, our New Year's resolution (a month too late) is too get back on the blogging horse. That said, what have we been doing for the past two months? I'll give a brief summary but you can expect better posts to follow detailing the really exciting stuff...you know, like getting a plumber.

Our classes ended in the second week of December, and our long six week break began. The first couple of days were spent saying goodbye to friends who were headed back home and to pulling together the stuff for our trip to Tanzania. It was very weird being done with our first semester, but we were both feeling pretty burnt out at that point and looking forward to our trip. It felt like everyone pretty much left all at once and we had a few unsettling days of being once again in a city where we didn't know anyone. I felt that it actually was a very quick and sharp transition back to feeling like a purposeless outsider as opposed to a resident.

Finally we left for our trip to Tanzania. The short story is that is was absolutely amazing. If it weren't for the fortune I would spend in sunscreen I would move there tomorrow. We were there for two and half weeks, and though we did the basic tourist circuit, it was a really fulfilling trip. After the initial scare of arriving there to find that our bags were still in Cairo, and of finding out that we needed to buy tons of American dollars in order to be able to pay for anything, things went pretty smoothly (thanks to Bill's excellent planning). We had a three day safari in the northwestern part of the country, starting near Kilimanjaro. Then we got a bus to the Usembara Mountains in the northeast, where we spent Christmas at an absolutely amazing lodge. It was an old converted farm house nestled up in the mountains, from which you could take all sorts of treks or simply just lie around and enjoy the peace and quiet. Next it was back on the bus to Dar Es Salaam. We spent a day and a half in the city, which was more than enough, and then took a ferry to Zanzibar. We had two days in Stone Town, the old port town, and then had four beautiful days on a beach on the eastern side of the island (Bill even managed to get up for one of the beautiful sunrises!)

By the time we left I think we were both ready to be budget hotel/hostel hopping, but we both simply fell in love with the place. I hope that I will find some way to get back there for a long stretch of time. We had a day to recover and do laundry once we got back to Cairo and then the Perdues arrived. We had a great time showing them around Cairo, but the highlight of the visit was our Nile Cruise from Aswan to Luxor. despite getting sick halfway through (yeah, back in the country five days and sick all over again) the cruise was an amazing way to tour Egypt's Pharonic history (there's quite a lot of it). So, after six nights in the south we headed back up to Cairo for a few more days.

Immediately after the Perdues left Carly came! (for those of you connect to Bill rather than myself, Carly is one of my best friends from G'burg). We did some more Cairo sights and then took another trip down to Luxor. It was actually really nice to go down again because I had been feeling pretty shitty the first time and didn't really get to appreciate the city as much as I should. Oddly enough, in the seven days Carly was here, it rained three times!!! Talking to some people later it sounds like this was something of an anomaly in Egyptian weather patterns, which is just our luck! I think we managed to make the most of it though :-)

Now we have a few more days before classes start up again. We're excited about feeling like residents again and having a sense of purpose. The city can be hard to get a handle on when you don't have a specific goal. We're going to try to use the next couple of days to sort our pictures from the trips and to finally write some blog posts. Hope you'll continue to read!