Spring Break and Spectacular Pants

Although there aren't any great adventures to speak of, there are a few things that I thought worth writing about.

- First, the outline for my spring break travels are now set. On March 26th Matt (ND), John, and I will be heading to Athens for a few days, perhaps with a fellow Notre Dame student as a guide. Then we're going to make our way across Greece, in a mostly northeastern direction. Finally, after a possible excursion into Bulgaria, we are going to be spending 3-4 days in Istanbul, before flying back to Cairo on April 6th. Of course Athens and Istanbul are both fascinating cities, with plenty of history to occupy an enthusiast. The fact that there are some nice mountains between the two sweetens the deal.

-On the subject of trips, my family is now booked to visit me in Egypt this summer! The vacation should have all the hallmarks of Calton travel, most importantly a certain emphasis on food. Since they will be here for over two weeks we should be able to travel to most of Egypt, including some places I wouldn't be able to see otherwise, like Abu Simbel.

-Today I went through a hour and a half of training, and am now apparently qualified to teach English. One of the activities that past Cairo study abroad students strongly encouraged me to do is STAR, a program that allows students to teach English to refugees living in Egypt. I heard all sorts of good stories about the program, so its one of the things I'm most looking forward to over the semester. Anyway, today we received our textbooks and a few hints, and by this Thursday I'll be instructing about 15 refugees from a variety of nationalities third year English. After looking into the textbook I realized that I might have some homework to do myself; the first lesson was on appositives, which is a grammar term that I probably forgot about two days after I learned it. Turns out its pretty easy, but it served as a reminder that most of us only really learn grammar when we learn a second language, or attempt to teach one to another person.

- 'Ahwas, or coffeehouses, are one of the things I might miss most in Egypt. Nothing makes you feel like you're in a Naguib Mahfouz novel like spending a couple hours drinking tea, smoking sheesha, and having some casual conversation, sometimes even with locals. Last week I met a man from Eritrea at a local 'ahwa, and our conversation ranged from Seattle's miserable weather (his sister lives there) to education in Cairo. All of this for under a dollar.

-Unfortunately, I haven't been able to see much of the Winter Olympics. For some reason, the Egyptians just don't seem interested in sports involving snow and ice. However, my attention has been brought to Norway's mens curling team, and perhaps more importantly to their pants. One picture of those things is enough color for this whole post. Usually I'm all about the host country, but it will be hard to root against these guys tonight in the gold-medal round against Canada.

- In honor of the Olympics, I am going to be adding a new feature to this post, in which I propose a new, hopefully bizarre, question to Life, the Universe, and Everything. To those poor souls who are confused, it has been established that the Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is 42. See The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide for more information. Unfortunately, we're not quite sure what the question is. I'm not claiming to know the question, but hopefully some of my suggestions provide food for thought. And now, without further ado:

How many pounds does a Olympic regulation curling stone weigh? (In case my explanation above was confusing, the answer is 42)

And as a special treat, we're going to make it a double feature, since it's the inaugural run.

How many lines of text are found on a page of one of the famous Gutenberg Bibles? (One of my all time favorites)

That's all for tonight, thanks for reading and have a great week!