STORY TIME!

Oh my gosh, before I peace out for the night, I have the BEST STORY!

I can't believe I forgot to post this a few days ago...okay, so I was making mac'n'cheese on the stovetop downstairs in the kitchens and there was a guy next to me frying some eggs and beans together and I noticed his bean can was in Arabic and so after a little awhile I told him his dinner smelled really good to strike up a conversation. Turns out, he barely spoke English! But combined with my limited Arabic skills and his limited English skills, I totally found out that Rhami is from Egypt and he was with a bunch of other people from Egypt and they were touring for 10 days in Bulgaria or wherever and then 10 days in the U.S. and then another 10 days in Canada, etc. So we talked until he was finished making his dinner and then he left and while I was wrapping up my mac'n'cheese cleanup, he pops back in the room saying "Abruu!" ('cause apparently that's how you'd say my name in Egypt, or so he told me), and he's holding a new can of I-don't-know-whats (but on the label, they look like chickpeas) for me so I can decipher the Arabic on that, and he's also holding a round, woven thing that you hang up in your house...when I tried to ask him what it represents (e.g. friendship, family) he just showed me how to hang it up on a wall lol. So I have no idea what it means for real, but I find this gift to mean understanding because even though we could barely understand eachother through talking, there was an understanding anyway, somehow, and there is a sense of peace in that. Needless to say, I was so flattered and I can only hope that I will meet many others as generous as him in the coming years of my Middle Eastern escapade.