Yesterday saw the most intense day of protesting in Cairo.

Wednesday night, members of the Gaza Freedom March once again crammed themselves into the small space of a hotel restaurant, planning what was to be done Thursday. Anyone who was ever forced to work in groups in high school knows the torture of achieving the consensus of a large assortment of personalities—this has been the challenge of the GFM, bringing hordes of languages and nationalities and opinions together to decide how to answer the question of what to do next. Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign stepped up to pacify the group, and with his charm, humor, loud voice and adorable Glaswegian accent displayed an incredible leadership ability and earned himself many a high-five of appreciation.

The plan was set: to gather in and around the Egyptian National Museum, looking like tourists, waiting for a visual cue at 10:00am sharp that would mark the beginning of a flash protest. Word spread by text message that police had trapped many of the protesters inside their hotel, preventing them from joining. As we lingered in the vicinity, pretending to browse postcards while exchanging suspicious looks with the police, it all felt like a good episode of “24.” (Click here to read more…)

Yesterday began at the US embassy in Cairo, where a number of American activists were penned in by the police and those who came later could not get anywhere near the fortress-like structure for any substantial period of time. We walked past but any time we stopped long enough to take a picture, an undercover policeman in plain clothes would run up and hurry us away with a “blease, blease!”

The Egyptians pictured above were bewildered and delighted to see such a motley group of marchers, walking through the streets of Cairo to the next demonstration. Protests are not easy to hold nor common in Egypt. A few students and I latched on to a group of Italians to lead the way. (Click here to read more…)

Three things there are a lot of in Cairo:

1. Pollutants in the air. And subsequently now also in my lungs, stuck to my contact lenses, up my nose, between my toes, oh noes, everywhere. My weakling of an esophagus has contracted as if into a fetal position to escape the harms of Cairean air, leaving me to sound (but sadly not look) like an asthmatic Scarlet Johansson.

2. Cars. Cars going this way and that, up and down and all about, swerving hither and thither and into one another. In a bid to make it home more quickly across the Nile, my traveling companion/gracious hostess Rafaella and I decided to hop into a cab and cough up the approximately two U.S. dollars the journey would cost us. For about 20 minutes, we inched just a few short blocks closer to home, trapped in a hellish snail-race of evening traffic. Suddenly, like Moses parting the Red Sea, our cabbie spotted a hole in the traffic and pursued it with some deft maneuvering and a whole lot of zeal. Satisfied, I turned to Rafaella to say “Hey, this guy’s good.” Or at least, this is what I had planned to say, but at about the first “o” of “good” I was interrupted. (Click here to read more…)

As I write this, I am sitting in an immaculate apartment in Zamalek, a neighborhood of Cairo on an island in the middle of the Nile. I just ate a meal of Portuguese Christmas dinner leftovers and took a mercifully hot shower, and now I’m watching the sun rise over the city to a soundtrack of happily chirping morning birds and grumpily honking morning cab drivers. I don’t know how long I’ve been awake, and I’m not sure what day it is. I’ve been on three continents in the past 24 hours, and I have no idea where I will be tomorrow.

This is what traveling is all about. (Click here to read more…)

A few different locales could could to be the leaders in the movie market. The first, and most familiar, is Hollywood. You know Hollywood right? That patch of grass in the South that produces an astounding amount of blood, sap and crap (Pardon that, please). Even without the machinery of Golden and Silver Age studios, Hollywood puts out a pretty aesthetically consistent and reliable product. American movies are appreciated throughout the world. How else do you explain Algerians (Click here to read more…)

By Sara Hayden

I did it. I have officially become a “real” or “great man” today, by Chinese standards. I prefer to identify myself as a real AND great WOman, but I think this differentiation was lost in translation. In any case, I feel like a real human and quite alive.

To achieve this new and prestigious label, I hiked up to the top of Badaling, one of five of the Great Wall’s main stops. For those of you who don’t believe that it was indeed a hike and prefer to believe in the fantasy that it is a pleasantly flat, single story set-up, you will be sorely disappointed when you see the stairs that come up to your knees. However, once you reach the top and look down through valleys that end in hazy cityscapes or striking mountains, it will be worth it. Promise. (Click here to read more…)

Dear Internet,

I found something interesting the other day when I was browsing you.

It’s a column by the adequately witty British writer/TV critic Charlie Brooker, about the truth behind museums and history.

Charlie Brooker on Museums

I’m going to put it here and hope that no one notices that this post took almost zero effort on my part.

Love,
-Kronosapiens

By Sara Hayden

The glitter has settled into dust from the 2008 Summer Olympics, and the city is currently awash in a gray haze. Blue sky has not been present in the entire week I’ve been here. I looked out the window to see the sun. All that was visible was a miniscule, orange-tinged blur that melted into smog. This air almost has a physical form. I can practically cup it in my hands, blow it around with my breath.

I made the trek to the Olympic Park to see the fabled Beijing Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. Interestingly, though these are currently two of the most famous Beijing landmarks, a Chinese architect designed neither.

The structures are impressive in themselves. The graceful line of the Bird’s Nest would sweep across the sky if contrast between where the stadium ended and the sky began were more immediately discernible. (Click here to read more…)

I’m going to let you all in on a little secret: I only go to Europe for the Kebabs. Specifically, the Döner Kebabs. Those of you who’ve never been to Europe, more specifically the Germania regions east of the Rhine, these Turkish delights are huge. Incredibly cheap, from 2-4 Euro.

There are no Döner Kebab chains, because you cannot be taught to make them. It must be known, the the way that lesser people have aptitudes in science, math, or art. Döner Kebabs are sold in small stalls (shrines, really) staffed by friendly, wise old hermits.

(Click here to read more…)

If it seems like every time a good thing comes along, I abandon you for it, you would be correct.

It’s been two weeks and I’ve missed you. But really, I can’t pretend to be sorry for something that I have every intention of doing again. I’m going to run out on you. It’s just how it works.

I plan to continue to treat you like a red-headed step child (I never got this reference, but my non-ginger Spanish teacher from high school thought it was hilarious). And the sick part is, you like it this way. Face it, I’m your best option. I don’t mean to be mean, but look at you. I’m a pull for you, anyway.

Enough of these sweet nothings, here’s what you want:

Two weekends ago, my friends and I went to Porto, which for you geographites is in Portugal. (Click here to read more…)