First day of Arabic class was great. I already knew the Arabic alphabet but the details on the letters pronounciation is always helpful. It's also worth noting that colloquial Egyptian Arabic is different from standard, or Fusha. I'm used to pronouncing my alphabets using Fusha and also with some Urdu influence, so this was a challenge. Arabic alphabet is almost identical to Urdu alphabet (which is influenced by Persian and Arabic), except Urdu has more letters, and just like Arabic, it is written from the right to the left. Today wee didn't go through the whole alphabet but learned how to write each letter either as an alone, in the middle or at the end of the word. In any word, all the letters connect to another letter from the right side, but not all letters connect to another letter from the left. and we learned the letters that fit this criteria. After getting some familiarity with the letters, we also learned some greetings, which proved useful right away. As soon as we came back, I found myself greeting the hotel workers and each other.
One of the best things I like about Egypt, is having the ability to find a prayer place easily. When we went out for lunch, I needed to pray Zuhr, and the hotel worker guided to me where there was a prayer area. It was pretty much a floor in a building, and while I was confused at first to find out where to pray exactly, a man leaving the prayer area, kindly pointed for us to go in and said that we can just carry our shoes in. When inside, another man directed us to the side of the room and encouraged me to continue. He then slide curtains around the area so I could have my privacy. This was amazing! People were so kind and I didn't have to ask for anything or say anything in Arabic/English and they pretty much knew what I came here for and were so accommodating. Back in NYC, it's so hard to find a proper place to pray that has proper accommodations. Here, there was privacy, and area where women can easily come in and pray to fullfil their obligation. I felt at peace and performed my prayer and then easily made my way to the restaurant where we were eating. It was only a couple of stores away. Back at home, I would have to research online to find the closest place to pray, which would often be far away and pray it was open. 
The lunch experience itself wasn't so amazing because we were rushed. There were nearly 30 of us eating at the restaurant, so it made sense for the order to take time, but we were in a hurry to go to our afternoon visit to meet Dr. Dina from Al Ahram. So after gobbling down a couple of bites (those that were fortunate to even get some bites) we went to to Al Ahram to meet Dr. Dina. While we sat along an oblong table in a conference room, Dr. Dina, explained to us the political history of Egypt from around the 1950's onwards. While it seems that Egypt has gone through different economic strategies, it's political regime/ruling party has stayed consistent through out (this is probably because the opposing party doesn't have much power and resources -financial or the ability to organize). Overall, the talk helped me get a better understand of Egypt's political system and served as a good structure for me to add on the knowledge I would get as the program continued.
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