Zenit Chughtai was picking up necklaces as gifts for her two younger sisters when she got caught up in protests last week in Alexandria, Egypt, where she has studied Arabic since June.
Emerging from a bazaar last Wednesday, she found herself among officers shooting tear gas at protesters. "It was unbelievable. Even now I'm just like 'Did that really happen?' "
Chughtai, 22, a Michigan State University senior from Washington, D.C., managed to escape Egypt's political tumult on Thursday.
She is one of five MSU students -- and four others from the University of Michigan -- in a program through the American Councils for International Education in Alexandria. At least five more students from various state universities are studying at American University in Cairo.
The Michigan schools spent the weekend and Monday working on getting their students out of Egypt. Two students, one each from MSU and U-M, opted to remain in Cairo.
Chughtai said her program is on break until Feb. 13 and she might not be able to return.
The situation in Egypt also has prompted quick action from some Michigan travel agents.
An exhausted Ihab Zaki, owner of Spiekermann Travel in Eastpointe, successfully navigated a nightmare of logistics to get a group of 120 cruise tourists out of the country Sunday. He put them onto a private charter flight out of Luxor, Egypt, to Tel Aviv, Israel, then on a flight to Athens, Greece, before they returned to the U.S. on Monday, avoiding Cairo entirely.
Joan Weber, owner of Journeys International in Ann Arbor, rerouted a group of Egypt-bound tourists straight to Morocco, while keeping tourists in Jordan away from Egypt over the weekend.
Zaki said most tour operators are refunding trips booked to Egypt if they are to begin in the next two weeks. Some travelers booked to Egypt in February are delaying trips to April or May. For those booked for March, "it's too early to tell" what will happen, he said.