Elizabeth Skene

Friday night, in an attempt to cultivate some interest in football [mission not accomplished], I headed downtown to watch the game with Dan & a new friend, Liz. We watched at Johnny’s, a pub on the Le Pancha Nile riverboat in Zamalek. Very overpriced & a little too fancy for my taste, we were still able to enjoy the game & conversation in the air conditioning.

After, we decided to walk back downtown, with a quick stop at the Cairo Tower. I really want to go up in the tower, but I’m really having a hard time justifying the 70 le entrance fee. I made do with photos from the outside, instead.

We then walked across the Qasr el-Nil bridge, through Midan Tahrir & back to Midan Talaat Harb [where Dan lives.] We spent an hour or two in a cafe, got ice cream & then I headed back to Heliopolis.

I’ve tried write an introduction to this video, but I can’t find the right things to say & I’m too privileged to make pithy remarks . It’s about Palestinians watching the World Cup projected onto the Israeli separation wall.

Last night I laid in bed, unable to sleep. It didn’t really help when, at 1am, a wedding party came down our street, car horns honking nonstop, parked in front of our apartment & set off fireworks in the middle of the street. I’m happy for them & love the enthusiasm, but it didn’t really lull me to sleep…

Now it’s nearly 10am & 90 degrees & the forecast is mid-100s all week. Yikes.

Here’s to cold water, fresh fruit & the luxury of air conditioning!

Here at the RBSCL@AUC [Rare Books & Special Collections Library at the American University in Cairo], I’ve become quite the social media guru. I’ve been blogging, tweeting & Facebooking for the library and, last week, my mentors mentioned starting a Flickr page. As an avid user my of Flickr myself, I was excited about the opportunity.

Today I sat down, explored the servers and hard drives at AUC and found some really amazing images and photographs. After loading them them onto Flickr, I posted a blog and sent out tweets inviting users to comment/tag/note them.

We’ve talked a lot about crowd sourcing, community participation and folksonomies in my classes at SI, most notably Wikipedia and the Library of Congress Flickr, but this is my first time being directly involved in such a project.

To my surprise, after a half a day, we already a lot of tags, comments and other descriptive information added. I’m so excited about this and I can’t wait to add more photographs.

Here’s an example of the types of things we have up:

Feel free to check it out & add information!

On Sunday I took myself to the zoo & spend a lovely afternoon wandering around, looking at animals & feeling relaxed. The zoo was surprisingly large & pretty crowded, but I enjoyed watching all the families there. I didn’t see any other foreigners & I don’t think I attracted too much attention, so it was nice to feel inconspicuous for a while.

As always, many more pictures on my Flickr page.

My friends’ band, Natural Monuments, just came out with a few digital singles. Their first album, For Sanity’s Sake, quickly became one of my favorites & got a lot of play. It now brings back vivid memories of driving around Jackson, MI in the summer, windows down, singly loudly.

You can download the new songs for free from this website & check out some of their older stuff on their Myspace.

Here’s the press release they’ve written up:

On their first release since 2007′s For Sanity’s Sake EP, Natural Monuments have added a slight punk edge to their summery pop hooks. The drumming is still precise and quirky, but their guitars have upped the amount of chime and jangle ala R.E.M., The Feelies and The Byrds, creating a sound somewhere between classic Kinks and Slumberland Records bands

I’m lucky to have such talented friends!

Back in January, I made a challenge to myself – read 50 books in 2010. Excited, I made a Twitter account for reviews, complied a long “to read” list, began winter semester & promptly stopped reading.

Well, now that I’m here all alone in Egypt, I’ve started reading quite a bit – 5 books in the two & a half weeks I’ve been here so far! My total is up to 7, which is a long ways off track, but I’m hoping to have 25 books read by the end of July. It’s a lot, but I have a significant amount of time on my hands, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

Lastly, I’m not sure I ever put up pictures of my newest tattoos. A lovely birthday present from my husband, my half-sleeve is nearly complete. I added a skull, another book & some flowers. It truly has become an “information sleeve” – a card catalog representing libraries, a skull & book representing archives & birds from a book representing dissemination of information.

All of it’s been done by Frank at Depot Town Tattoo – I high recommend you check out the shop if you’re ever interested in getting tattooed, they’re all amazing artists & wonderful people!

Break time’s over – back to work!

xoxoxo

Mid-morning break! Instant coffee, music & a quick blog update.

Last night I put 60 photos of our trip to Alexandria on Flickr.
Here’s a quick rundown of what we did while there:
- Stayed at Normandy Hotel, right on the Corniche. Fairly clean rooms, pretty dirty bathroom, but we paid 100 le for 3 people/2 nights [approx. $20] – you can’t beat that deal!
- Visited the Fort at Quat Bay and the Aquarium Museum on the Eastern Bay
- Ate at the Fish Market, which was one of the best meals of my life
- Enjoyed the cafe life
- Made lots of friends who wanted to take our picture & were welcomed to Egypt by so many people
- Visited the Catacombs of Kom el-Shaqoufa
- Walked around the Alexandria Library
- Did some shopping, lots of wandering & LOTS of laughing

Here’s a few photos from the weekend:

Alisha, myself & Lila at the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa

View of the sunset from our hotel balcony

The Fort at Quat Bay

Cab ride through Alexandria

Myself at the Library of Alexandria

If you’re ever in Egypt, a trip to Alexandria is a must!!

This morning at work, I got down to work on the social media aspect of my internship. I created both a Twitter account and a Facebook fan page for the RBSCL. I’d love if you followed us & ‘Liked’ us!

Back to work!

I can’t believe I’ve worked almost a full week – just tomorrow & then it’s the weekend! [In Egypt the work week is Sun-Thur & the weekend is Fri/Sat. The reason is that Friday is the Muslim holy day, so many places are closed so people can observe it, like how Sunday day of rest in Christianity]

Not only am I excited for a few days off but, even better – ALISHA IS COMING FROM BOTSWANA TO VISIT!!!
I’m beyond excited about this! I’ve only gotten to see her 3 times over the past 2 years & we get to spend an entire week together & I can show her my life here & have adventures! I’m picking up her & a friend tomorrow at 6:40am, going to work for the day & then we’re taking a train up to Alexandria. We’ll explore the city & come back on Saturday. I absolutely can not wait!

The weather has been pretty nice so far – mid 80′s or so. I have a weather bar at the bottom of my web browser & I had to laugh when I saw it today:

Here’s a close up, in case you can’t see it:

That’s right – it’s a flaming thermometer!! Luckily we should be able to go swimming this weekend!!

Lastly, here’s a video of people crossing the street in Cairo. There aren’t any stop signs or traffic lights here, there’s no such thing as a traffic lane & horns are used liberally. Coming home from work I cross about 3 lanes of traffic going one way & then another 3 going the opposite way. It’s quite a feat & I’m rather proud of myself, so hopefully watching this will show you why [especially because the cars are going considerably faster on the road I cross!].

I just called a hotel in Alexandria to make a reservation, which was a little difficult since he didn’t speak much English. Although I think it’s under the name “Loiz,” he said “see you tomorrow,” so at least they know we’re coming! Win!

Anyways, time to sit in the bath & read a book. I’m so excited to have a bathtub here – it’s definitely one luxury I don’t have back in the States. I’m trying to enjoy baths now before it’s a million degrees out, although I suppose I could always take an ice bath!

Ciao!