US Embassy and Arab League

Today we got nice and dressed up for class because we were going on tours of the US Embassy and Arab League after class. But before we could do that, Syonara gave us our first quiz. (10/10) I was pretty pumped. Because we were all dressed up we decided to take some pictures once class was over, Joyce was all about that plus I caught her taking some sneaky pictures of us during class, while I was playing snake on my cell phone instead of paying attention haha! Oops!

Before walking over the Embassy, the girls and I stopped at Fel Fel Beih where we got our awesome sandawitsh Ta9miyya (Falafel Sandwich) for only two pounds! So gooood!! They even had things on the sandwich that almost resembled pickles! So I was content.

Once we made the sweaty walk over to the embassy from the AUC, we had to pass through some pretty tight security. We could only walk in in groups of 3 and most of my electronics were confiscated, well all of them actually. A guy named Assem (pronounced Awesome!) led us through the building into the library where we sat through a presentation given by three Americans where served as Foreign Service Personnel in Egypt. Honestly, to be perfectly blunt it was a load of BS! Listening to them ramble about the sense of pride they feel when on stage with the American flag behind them, yada yada yada, it was all too well rehearsed and completely fake. Then, we had to listen to some guy discuss the AMAZING resources we have available to find dissertations and theses - tell me how that is relevant?! Whatever.

On to the Arab League, but first there was about a two hour gap before our tour so we hung out around the Nile Hilton Hotel and laughed at the overpriced food and gifts. After eating a way too expensive croissant to get me through the meeting, we went to the Arab League and were greeted by Hisham Youssef the Chief de Cabinet for Amr Moussa, the Sec. General of the Arab League. He gave us a brief introduction and then left the floor open for anyone to ask questions, leaving most subjects untouched. We discussed Israel and Palestine and U.S. involvement, Darfur, women in the Arab world and Hisham Youssef was very eager to answer all questions pertaining to these subjects.

Next we were led into the main hall of the Arab League where we proceeded to take soooo many pictures. It was a lot of fun in there and we were able to talk to Hisham Youssef and take pictures on a friendlier level.
The visit ended up being a lot better than I would have expected and definitely became an upper to the downer US embassy.