Happenings

I did finally hear back from the good people over at Housing about my residence assignment. As I suspected, it is one of the hotel dorms, buildings kind of co-opted by AUC to sustain their large number of students. Your standard amenities, though nobody has responded to my inquires about room assignments or roommates, so I guess I will just see what happens when I arrive on Saturday. To be honest, I don't see myself spending tons of time in my dorm anyway - I'm going to make my best effort to jump right into Cairo (just as soon as I overcome my jet lag/other flight complications) and work to keep that habit up.

A lot of people have been asking me if it's weird to think that while all my best friends are moving into dorms/apartments in East Lansing for the start of our senior year, as I set off for another country. Right now, I'm dealing with the weirdness of realizing that I am leaving this very week to go (after how long?), but the whole family is going up to East Lansing tomorrow to move in my siblings on Wednesday, and after that I think that yes, it will feel a little weird.

I got my visa on Thursday (after applying at the Chicago Consulate on Tuesday, what a great system), but I'm a little concerned because the application emphatically states that I may not bring "soft drugs" into Egypt. When I called to ask about this little note, the woman on the other end of the phone was a bit perplexed at the question (yes, we're looking at the same visa application), and could only explain that clearly labeled prescription drugs could be brought in without any trouble. (Which wasn't really the answer I was looking for...at all.) I'm sure my fear is unfounded, but I have this horrible vision that my Dramamine is going to get confiscated at customs and I will subsequently be unable to explain what kind of medication it is that I seek. (Like that time in France when I attempted to explain to the pharmacist that my roommate needed medicine for lactose intolerance and ended up buying some sort of anti-diarrheal instead.) And let me tell you, I will be the least fun person in the entire country if I do not have Dramamine.