Egypt!
Cairo is wonderfully aggravating, with daily protests against the regime’s constitutional amendments, snarling traffic, frequent elevator malfunctions, vernal blossoms on the trees in Zamalek (the rest of the city doesn’t have trees), days both miraculously clear of pollution and others choked with it, Cairoians still wrapped in scarves and sweaters against the chimerical chill in the air, endlessly bemusing cab stories (our driver today had an air freshener advertising Viagra), afternoons lolling in the courtyard at American University–Cairo drinking in the sunlight as if we had just survived a Minnesota winter. On Thursday, I awaited the end of classes with more eagerness than usual, as a friend and I planned on riding horses at the pyramids to catch the sunset. . . . Laura S.