By Cassidy Delahunty, editor-in-chief 
During junior Ahmet Uysaler’s sophomore year, he packed up his things and moved to Egypt by himself. With no friends or family to accompany him, Uysaler had one goal: to learn Arabic. Staying in a district of Cairo called Nasr City started Uysaler on an incredibly unique experience. Uysaler describes it as a gap year, but in the middle of high school.
Uysaler attended a program hosted at the Nile Academy. He and the other 11 high school students who were a part of the program stayed in apartments for the year, supervised by volunteer college students.
Uysaler sites his favorite experience of the year as going to an amusement park. Roller coasters and all, but the park was empty and in the middle of a desert.
Uysaler says that despite the amazing sights and experiences, he still missed a lot from home. While he mentions his family first, wifi and internet is a close second for Uysaler.
“There isn’t really traffic [or] lights or anything,” Uysaler said. ‘You can just cross the road and walk wherever you want, in the middle of the night, whenever you want.”
Other than the vast amount of sand around him, the biggest change for Uysaler was the amount of freedom and independance he had outside of the country.
“When I was there, it was fun, but you miss America,” Uysaler said. “But when you come back, now you miss Egypt too.”
Uysaler returns to a vast treasure of pictures to remember the unique experience.  Still missing Egypt, he is now starting junior year at Prospect having fulfilled his dream of learning Arabic.