Three tries later

First things first...Happy Birthday Claire! What fun festivities are you up to in freezing cold MN this birthday?

It took me three tires to remember my log in for this blog site.....what is wrong with my memory!

Hey I am going to make Kousharie sometime next week as well.....Brad really wants me to make it but it makes our flat smell like onions for DAYS! I miss going to tea parties at the girls flats. What fond memories.

On a similar note...will any of you be in Indiana in early June? I am going to a conference for work and will be in Marion Indiana (at Indiana Wesleyan University). Just thought I would see :-)

Nothing else new but I wanted to say I love you all and miss you dearly.
em

recipes

salutations,
i have a few items of business.
Claire, i have your shisha pipe fixed and yes, we will be heading up north sometime in feb.
marcia, did you ever send those recipes? i want to make some grape leave rolls (the arabic name has left me momentarily). if you could email me that'd be great.
good day
ANdrew

oogley boogley

Well, I've finally diverged from studying. Note that this is a wonderful phenomenon because my opening sentence is usually flipped around to say, "well, I've finally diverged from being a skizoid and now I'm studying." I'm in the library... still.. after 3 and a half hours of studying and reading on everything that I've been behind on. I know, I know, its only the third week of school! Yet, its funny how some subjects take so stinkin long to get through! I've only gotten through 1.5 subjects of my 5 subject load this evening. So if you can't tell, this post is a post of nothing, but I thought I'd post just to post. Post up! I like post cereal too.
funny joke. maybe you've heard it.. here goes. So I guy walks into a bar.
ow.


hahaha!!!! I LOVE it.
Have you ever had a craving for macaroni and cheese and hot dogs? I usually eat this meal as a I-can't-find-anything-else-to-eat meal, but man, this morning I was craving it. then I made some. and then I found 7 dollars and 53 cents in the box!! not really. just seemed like a good number. okay, back to studying. ha, just kidding. I got to show my Contemporary African Politics class of 5 people a video of Aieed today. They were in awe. So was I. I have this thing called farewatchers from Travelocity, and I have it set to Cairo (of course). yesterday there was a ticket to Cairo for $880 plus taxes. I was tempted to take it. I actually went all the way through the deal and picked my arrival and departure dates and everything. it was kind of nostalgic. okay, I better get back to studying. but those study breaks are always needed. Hey Dena remember when we used to chase Amber around the flat? yeah, and I loved tea cake. I'm making a huge batch of kosheri next tuesday for our community potluck that happens at my house every tuesday night. I'm getting very excited. okay, back to studying for real.

sincerely,
lindsay

Marcia, Checka, Claire, Liz, Jenna, Bethany, Margaret, "Lindy", Andrew, (did I forget someone I am going off the memory of the picture).... THANK YOU SO MUCH for the picture. It was such a wonderful surpise to get in my mailbox yesterday. It was weird to see all of you together.....what a fun time you must have all had. I haven't had a chance to talk to Lindsay but I will have to ask her how it went.

The semester has taken off! It is RA selection time and I have been up to my ears in paperwork and have been really busy. We went to CA (San Jose) for MLK break. Aunts and Uncles who live overseas were back for a while and we hadn't seen everyone since our wedding (and that didn't really count anyways because we didn't get to have a decent conversation with anyone). We got to hang out with my cousins who go to Fresno state and then my little cousins.....who I think cured me of wanting kids for a WHILE. My aunt and uncle have 4 kids under 7 years old...and the twin boys are probably the wildest kids I have ever met. I am praying that GOd gives us girls....because coming from a family of just girls I really don't know how to play with boys :-) The picture is of Brad and I at the beach in Santa Cruz.

Another fun fact....Brad and I are going to Costa Rica for a week this summer! Yes we are already going on our second honeymoon :-) This parents gave us a time share to use and Brad wanted to go somewhere Spanish speaking since he is going to be a Spanish teacher. We are really excited and it seems a little sureal at this point.

I miss you all greatly. GFU is planning a Juniors Abroad trip to Cairo in two summers so I have been meeting with the director of the trips a lot to figure out an itinerary.....so I have been talking about Cairo a lot and remembering many memories:

*Tourist police that all of us girls took a picture with in SIWA (what were we thinking).
*Hiking MT. Sinai and staring up at the beautiful starry sky
*Taking the Orphanage Service Project people to Mokkatam for the first time...and loosing a taxi full of you.
*How boring the Egyptian Museum was.....
*Snorkeling at Dahab and relaxing at the restaurants
*New Welcome House hotel in Alexandria
*Getting told I was too skinny and had to EAT MORE!

Hey guys,

Well last time I posted was from Ireland. Since then I've seen a little bit of England, spent Christmas with a random family whom I met online, did the boogie with half of my ethnic roots in Italy, and walked to Switzerland from there.
The real reason I went to Italy was to attend a youth conference: the annual Taize European Youth meeting. Taize is an ecumenical community in France, well known for a distinctive kind of meditative common song and prayer. Its recurrant themes are inner peace and human solidarity. That is quite vauge yet is the essential reality of what it's about.

Fortunately, Christmas was not as difficult as I thought it would be.
Disappointingly, I did not find what I was looking for at Taize.
Unexpectedly, the most spiritual time I had during my whole break was the day I walked to Switzerland, when I took off without a map, and walked from the train station to the edge of the city, and over the mountains on my own in silence.

Hey I can't believe we've known each other a year.
I had this funny thought: that day we (minus Emily at this point) all met in the airport, it was so awkward. We were all tired and unfamiliar and not entirely sure what to make of each other. And now a year later, what wouldn't I give to be back in JFK for a few hours with the same group of people!
It is still simultaneouly heart-warming and heart-breaking to look at the group pictures from New Year's Eve.

This week term number two out of three will begin in Oxford. In eight weeks this term will be over, and I will fly back to the States for the majority of my spring break. I will wear a green bridesmaid dress and speak at a wedding in PA. I will give Christmas presents to my family. I will contemplate the fact that a mere eight weeks and thirteen research papers separate me from an undergraduate degree. I'll reflect that I look rather silly in green, but remind myself that the wedding is decidedly not about me.

For now I will end this correspondance with the most sincere expressions of love to you all, as well as hopes that Dena gets that foaming at the mouth checked out. (can dogs carry bird flu? because didn't you get bit in Turkey?...)

keep it real (but not too serious),
Chels

P.S. Corrine, when are you getting married? Do you have a date yet? I love your Christmas photos!! The one with your hair fanned out on the floor....my family wanted me to do that with my sister one year. She flatly refused. I vehemently refused. We never took the picture. It really looks fantastic with you four.

clarification

that was weird. i posted in my other blog and it showed up in the mesp blog. if anyone saw the posts and was confused, i apologize.
later
ANdrew

continuing the peace summit. Dave would be proud. 

That's hot. 

Roomies bringin peace to the Middle East. 

Smoke Rings. 

Ahh the memories. They all come back with a little Falafel and Sheesha.  

the morning after

Happy January Day! We're all here hanging out in the Ghali's kitchen. Cecka is strumming on her guitar. Dena is adding her beautiful vocall melodies to Hotel California. Marcia and Claire are looking at Cecka's scrap book from Turkey. Kroese and Lindsay are playing mancala (I'm jealous--one of my favorite games.) Bethany is somewhere making a thankyou card. Liz is carefully packing her clothes, and Bethany and Jenna are somehwere in this huge welcoming Egyptian house. I've elected myself honorary blog poster since no one else has done it yet, and it seems you all deserve an update.

It's been a wonderful weekend full of good food and hilarious memories. I think we've recalled each and every one of you as we told story after story. Highlights of the weekend:
- Cooking foul and falafel and mehshe with Marcia's mom
-smoking the shisha
-coffee shops
-buying ice cream at Hy-Vee between picking Dena and Claire up from the airport, and eating it from the carton in the parking lot
-playing dress-up in Atomic Garage--a vintage store in West Des Moines
-watching _Empire Records_ the extended version!!!!!!!!!
-talking to Barrett, Josiah, and Andrew U. on the phone when they called from California (we had at least 8 phones here at the Ghali household.)
-Bileela!!!!!!
-meeting Liz's fiance, Andrew (yet another--Andrew, I mean)

Soon we'll all pack ourselves into our three cars, and head off in different directions. It's been good to fellowship together, although I often looked around at our group of ten survivors, and felt like we were missing people. And we were--all of you who could not be here. We missed you all and wished you could be here. We love you all. Reunion II at Chris and Heather's wedding? Or Liz's. Or both.

Later, dudes.