God DAMN it feels good to be back in Africa. As some (okay, all) of you know, my family moved to Cairo, and I'm visiting them over the break. Cairo is...gloriously third-world. I feel at home. The law is a joke, people project like opera stars when they argue in the street, car horns are used for punctuation by mustachio'd men driving rickety motorcycles (with two passangers wobbling along, wearing the commuter's blasé stare), street cats slink on the edges of each and every sidewalk. No dogs, though. Apparently a dog once bit Muhammad, and after that they've been very unwelcome here, taking all manners of abuse--so the cat has filled the niche. It means loud mewling late at night instead of loud barking early in the morning, a tradeoff with which I couldn't be happier. The city, though! How it teems with unprotected life, with unrestrained tempers, with neon lights and jaywalking! I bask! I bask! This is what I was raised on! Ahhhh...

Oh, and happy (secular) holidays, people! Go do yourself something that will leave you with bodily harm and a deep conviction that personal safety is overrated!