Day 4

Day 4 Wednesday, 2nd of August

I woke up almost at 7:00 AM, thanks to Adam's alarm clock this time! We went to have our breakfast together. I was dressed in my famous "No Problem J" t-shirt, with my sandals. I attended the core class in the Student Union hall. The core class is administered by Bill..as you can see in this photo.

Bill asked me just to introduce myself..nothing but saying who I am..u know! 1 minute :) In this class, Bill gave an outstanding presentation about Islam. I was very glad of what he was saying..I still remember parts of what he said..with his deep calm voice:
"Islam..the fastest growing religion in the United States, 1 billion muslims all around the world..Islam is not just a religion...it is a way of life..Islam gives solutions and answers for the most difficult issues of life."
After Bill, Nadia spoke about Egypt giving a 30 minutes presentation. We finished at 10:30 AM. I was stopped after the class by Celina(?), an Indian girl who told me that she has a friend in her university who attended AUC for sometime. I think I remembered the guy,..sort of! Then, I went to stay on the swimming pool, waiting for anybody who wants to ask me about anything. I met Nasser, who told me that I should attend the class of Heinisch today because he is going to speak about Islam. I said..yeah cool! :) I will for sure. I spent some time talking to Jennie, who was around. Also Heinisch himself came, and we had a quick chat. I had my lunch, then I went to take a look on the island of Stromboli, with its terrifying half dead Volcano!

I was somewhere on deck, searching for a good view with the Volcano. Unfortunately, I am not here! Anyway, I went to my room to get my camera. I found a message left for me, that says:
"Hello,
This is Amanda Laichak and Michelle. We would like to welcome you on board. Me and Michelle are going to be your escorts during your stay. Today, we are going to have a Pizza/ice cream party in Taverna at 7:00 PM. Hope to see you there!

Amanda!"

And..that was the first day I met my friend, Amanda..Mandi! :)

Still, it was like 5:00 PM. When we were passing by the tip of the boot (which is the very last part of the Italian boot), I met Heinisch. He was heading to his class. Acting as if I did not know that he was going to speak about Islam, I asked him to attend the class! :)) (how smart!!) :)

This is Henisch (to the right). I think the guy with the cap is Nasser AlDamer. Reinard H. is an excellent lecturer. His lecture started like that:
"So...today I came here to make fun of myself in front of Saudi and an Egyptian, for myself somebody who does not believe in any religion, and he is going to speak about Islam."
Reinard spoke about the pillars of Islam

and I was answering some of his questions and commenting from time to time. Then, he started to speak about prayers, and he tried to explain to them what it means to pray, and what a praying mat looks like, and what a "qibla" (Mecca direction) is.
So, I made as if I want to be excused and ran quickly to my room, from which I got my praying mat and the qibla compass. I returned back to the class, and showed it to the people there! That was really quick! :) It was fun anyway! :)

So, it was about 6:15 PM..dinner time. Although I knew there is a Pizza party, I preferred to have my full lunch (because I don't like Pizza so much..especially outside Egypt, because you can never be sure of the ingredients! u know..Pork and stuff!). So, I had my dinner in the preferred place on the swimming pool.

I am not there, as you may have noticed! :) It is just a photo from the web page to give you the view during lunch on the swimming pool..which is in front of the buffet.

So, 7:00 PM...time to meet the people. I entered there, and I found a group of about 10 girls I think! :) I was the only guy there! :)

So..this is Mandi...or Amanda! The quality of the photo is not that good..but the person in the photo is greater than any photo..I believe! :)
Amanda and a group of her friends were celebrating the birthday of one of their friends. She told me that she was my escort, and that Michelle is in fact "my date"! for the Ambassador's ball, which would be on day 5!
Amanda said something really funny: "When we all knew that they are going to send a guy to be the interport student of Egypt, all the girls said.."YEAH!!..NEW FRESH MEAT!"" :)
Well..if u know that there is a guy for each 3 girls, you will get convinced that the girls were right anyway! :)

I asked her about the exact role of the interport student, and she talked about past interport students. She said that the lady from Russia stayed in her room, because in fact she could not speak English! For the guy from Belgium, he gave a 30 minutes presentation about beer! For the guy from Italy, he was shy! (Later on, Samantha told me that she believed he is a gxx...guess the two letters!...anyway!!) :)

So...it was about 8:00 PM. They were showing a movie or so. But, instead I went to take a look around the ship where I met again Maria Khalifa.
This part is funny, for people who know Arabic! While we were jogging, I was exchanging with her some Arabic words! :)

So, Maria who was born in the US knows lots of Arabic! Here is a list of the words she can say, with the cutest Arabic accent I have ever heard! :o)
Maria can say: "Ayooooooou", which is the exclamation saying for people from Alexandria! And..she says it better than any Alexandrian in fact!
She knows "3arbagi", saying it like Arbagi...which is nothing but an insult, which means donkey carriage rider! :)

She can also say: "zay el khazoo2"..imagine this!!! As well as "gatak neila", "abooya w 2ommi!", "ahbal", etc.!! She used to play "basra" with her grandma..!! Also, she knows a good list of Egyptian and Lebanese food! She likes Magda El-Roumi, like myself in fact!

It was about 10:00 PM when we finished this Arabic session! So..shall I say that Maria and her roommates and all the girls on her deck got the nickname "Sex Bomb" ?!:)
I went with her to show me where is her room, in my way back to my room. I found that all the girls in that floor got Sex Bomb on their doors! :)

They were showing that night a stupid.(literally stupid) movie about the building of the pyramid! I went with Maria, where we watched that movie,..that ended at 12:00. The surprise now is we have to add one hour for the jet lag between Rome and Cairo. So, a stolen hour made it actually 1:00 AM!
But since Maria went to sleep, and I do not sleep that early...I went to the swimming pool. There I met Samantha, Achante and Alok. So..Samantha is funniest person on board...no doubt! Let me describe her first due to the absence of photos!
I used to call her Whitney Houston, but she believed that Whitney is a bit older. Anyway, she looks like Whitney...with a bag on her back, a pen in her shirt, sun glasses on her head (it was 1:00AM)...and a tongue that never stops...jokes, stories, funny things, personal stuff (sometimes)...and a nice smile that looks like Garfield's smile...! :)

Sam and Achante spent that night talking to me about discrimination against people with African origins, and Sam also spoke about the Jewish community and religion! These were stuff I have never talked about with somebody before. It was in fact my first time to meet a Jew in this trip!!

The discussion continued until 4:00 AM in the morning..and that was the time to sleep I guess! :)

Day 5 7 Days with SAS