This is Masr

Well I have been here about a month now and I am still really enjoying it. I went through a few days of being irritated with this city, but it was mainly because I sprained my ankle and got pretty sick last week. I am much better now though, and have gotten to spend a lot of time playing bball and making friends at this playground near my apartment. I have done a lot since my last "posting", but I dont really know what information would be the best to share. So I will just ramble for a bit. Earlier this week I went to play basketball and slowly some better athletes have started showing up to play with us. Tuesday four new guys came and they were all about 6' 2" and very athletic. We had a great time, but when I first got there I went to this wall to take off my pants, because my shorts were on underneath, and to take off my longsleeve shirt. As I was taking off the longsleeve it caused my undershirt to rise to my chin exposing my very chiseled chest to a bunch of girls I did not see. It was a pretty awkward situation, and although no eye contact was made and no one mentioned it to me, I still felt like a big idiot. The culture here is obviously very different and dealing with Muslim girls is something I have no grasp on yet. Anyways we actually had a few girls play basketball with us last night, and I seemed to be the only one noticing they were even on the court. I was also the only one who would ever pass it to them, and the few times a girl scored I was the only one clapping or saying "nice shot". This is another point of humor here in Egypt. Whenever someone scores everyone says "nice shot" in English, its weird, but they arent just saying it because I am there. They also say "nice pass" in English, and I dont understand why. It must just be one of those things they learned when playing basketball. One more story about bball, last night I bought a 3 EGP bottle of water at the courts, and after taking a few sips I placed the water next to the bench and went back to play some more. When I returned for some water later, I noticed a teammate picking up my water and just having at it. I walked over and noticed there was nothing left. This thoroughly confused me, but just showed that I guess whats mine is theirs once you become "friends" and I wont be buying bottled water there anymore.
High fives, well low fives to be precise are very popular. If you say anything funny or clever a low five is heading your way. These also work if you are talking about something and the other party in the conversation agrees. For example, yesterday my friend Hussein was talking to me about Will Smith movies, and when I said "have you seen Men In Black", I was given a low five. This does not really highlight every facet of a low five, but hopefully you get the idea. I really want to bring this aspect of Egyptian culture back home with me, so be prepared. Also the kissing on the side of both cheeks has become pretty normal for me and happens daily. I get it a lot at the basketball courts and I think I will try this when I get home, too.
Lets see, I think I am going to my first soccer match next weekend, one of my friends asked me to go with him so that should be cool. I also had to get my visa renewed this week, and ilhamduillah it was much easier than I thought. I was told it would take a full day, and I probably spent a total of 20 minutes in this building. I did have to drop off the application and pick it up 2 hours later, but it was pretty easy.
My Arabic teacher is pretty cool, she gets a lot of sarcasm and we have a lot of fun in class. She is only 24, but is very bright. She reads some English newspapers and after class we sit down and she asks me a few questions about it. She wanted me to explain what "tit for tat" meant and I did a pretty bad job. First of all I have heard "tit for tat" maybe a total of 5 times in my entire life and so I had to rely on context clues to not sound like a total goof when explaining a sentence to her. Hopefully she doesn't ask me about scapegoats, I dont know why but that popped into my head as something that would be hard to explain to someone who doesnt speak great English.
I have a stalker who calls me about 20 times a day. This guy must have got my number from someone at the basketball courts, but he just calls and calls and calls. My roommate has a stalker to, and holds the record for 38 calls on one day. Its pretty strange to call someone that many times, but I have come to say as most expats here do that "This is Egypt".