The Top Three

I've been asked by a lot of people, in the course of my four or five months here, what my favorite things about Egypt are. In response to the question Autumn and I decided to come up with an "Egypt: Top 5!" list. It became a pleasant game that we would play while walking to the bus, shopping for groceries, switching classes, etc., and proved to be much more challenging than we had expected. I mean, how do you summarize a country in a few short bullet points? Could we really think of five things that encompassed all the new and exciting experiences we had lived through during our stay in this exotic country?

Turns out we couldn't.

But we thought of three.

So here they are!

Carolyn and Autumn's Top 3

1) Street cats! They're everywhere, and are adorable. Autumn and I like making tsk'ing noises at them, because they think they're far too cool for school and we like to offend their feline pride by cooing over how adorable they are.

2) They deliver alcohol right to your door! And it's super cheap! I mean, you'll go blind if you drink too much of it...but beggar's can't be choosers, right?

Carolyn's #3) The sunsets are beautiful. Granted, it's because of the horrible haze of smog that constantly engulfs the city - but if it's going to be poisoning me, at least it can look like a creamsicle in the process.

Autumn's #3) Our balcony

Listing our top three favorite things made us curious: what did our friends and acquaintances think of this quirky little country? So we did a little surveying and this is what we came up with [NOTE: It's a work in progress - I'll be adding more lists to it as they come in]:

Guthrie's Top 3
(Guthrie is American, and a one-semester study abroad student like us)

"1) Produce stand vendors are awesome. i haven't met a non-awesome one yet.

2) People being uber-dramatic over everything. i can't say its a good thing but it makes me laugh a lot so I'm putting it on the list

3) KITTY CATTTTTSZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

Guthrie's roommate Andre's Top 3
(also American, also a one-semester study abroad student):

1) You can throw your trash everywhere, and no one cares

2) Stray cats!

3) You can pee in the street!

Mohammad's Top 3
(Mohammad is ethnically Sudanese but grew up in the UK. He works as a professor in Egypt)

1) Getting his paycheck (because the school waited two months to give it to him)

2) The moment he will fly out of Egypt

3) Sleeping, and dreaming about not being in Egypt

Mathias's Top 3
(Mathias is Autumn's friend from her Hands On trip to Haiti. He's French, but technically from Chile. He came to visit us in Cairo for a week back in September.)

1) Autumn - awwwww

2) Dalida, a really famous singer who grew up in Egypt but is Italian in origin. She has sung in ten different languages! Look her up, I don't actually know anything about her.

3) Deliverable alcohol - though this is a cop out, since he stole the idea from Autumn and I. Lame.

Tim's Top 3
(Tim is in his first semester as an AUC graduate student, studying Refugee Law. He's from Seattle and has red hair!)

1) Carolyn and Autumn - oh wait, not Autumn - she got demoted for having already been on here

2) The friendly people

3) The terrific food

[NOTE: Having listed the last two, Tim proceeded to laugh hysterically for five minutes, after which he lapsed into a dark silence]


More surveys to come insha allah!