Well, based on the information we received about baggage restrictions, we have changed our travel plans.
We have requested that AUC fly us to Cairo without a layover in Europe, which is kind of a bummer.
Hopefully we will get a chance to spend some time in Europe after we arrive, either for Christmas break, spring break or summer.
On the bright side, this change in plans gives us slightly more time to pack and get organized, and more time to say goodbye to our friends here in Seattle.
Kaddee and I were married on Friday, June 9th. It was a small celebration with family and close friends.
The larger celebration was on Saturday at our local, The Beveridge Place Pub. Big thanks to the proprietors, Gary and Terri, and our Beertendresses, Jennifer and Lorraine. They did a great job of making it seem effortless, though I know it was not.
People have been asking for photos and the links have been spread out amongst the evite and various emails, so I figured it would be easier to put all the links here:
The professional photographer’s photos of the wedding are here. Use “Lawrence” as the password.
They have “proof” across them and are unedited and uncorrected. If you order any from there (hi sara!) they will be corrected for lighting etc and will, of course, not have the proof watermark.
Our friend Phil took these photos at the reception. We tried to convince him to do our wedding, but he is too modest.
Gary Wasserperson took these photos at the reception.
Lee Hart took these photos.
Thanks so much to all the photographers.
The above is a quote from Tim Cahill, a traveler and author.
If it is true, then based on the friends that surrounded us this weekend while we celebrated our wedding, the journey here in Seattle has been wildly successful.
We can only hope that our next journey can replicate even a fraction of that success.
Thank you.
I forgot that I had turned off email notifications when there were comments waiting for moderation.
So, I did not realize I had a bunch of comments waiting to be approved before they showed up.
I just figured I was so boring and inane that nobody bothered to comment on my posts.
I will attempt to be more prompt in approving comments.
Thanks to all who have read and commented thus far.
Our lives have been “full” for some time now, between preparing for the move and preparing for the wedding, we haven’t had much time to stop and smell the roses.
We have both been rather focused.
Last night was the rehearsal for the wedding ceremony. It was Kaddee and I and the minister. We went through the outline of the ceremony. Who stood where and did what.
Then we stood in the front of the room and we each did our readings, and recited our vows.
It was a very emotional few moments which caught both of us a little by surprise.
It changed our focus away from the caterer, shuttle trips to the airport, music lists,
pub party planning, and the packing, storing and selling our of “stuff”.
Back to what is important. Us.
It was a much needed and much welcomed reminder.
As part of “the cleansing” for the cairo
relocation, I sold a spare laptop that was lying
around.
Yesterday, the old laptop that I had been nursing
along for the last year or 2 decided that it was
lonely and didn’t want to play anymore.
The video is getting worse and worse. It is currently
unusable. Lots of ghosts and then it totally loses
sync and you can’t read the screen and, it appears,
the entire laptop locks up.
I have stripped it to the bare chassis, blown out all
the dust and reseated all the connectors, but no joy.
Oh well, I guess I can live with out a laptop for a
couple of months. (Good lord: I have to GO DOWNSTAIRS
TO USE THE DESKTOP TO READ MY EMAIL. The humanity)
AUC buys our tickets to Cairo. They say that we can make a stop over where ever
we want, and we just pay the difference between the direct fare and the fare for
our itinerary. Fair enough.
We notified them that we wanted to stop over in Europe for 2 weeks.
It is meant to be our sanity break. 2 weeks with nothing left to
pack, no deadlines. Just hanging out. Ahhh, pure bliss.
The plan is to fly into Paris or Amsterdam. Those 2 were chosen
because the goal of this trip is to go to Belgium and tour
a few of the monastery breweries and in general drink some
of the best beer in the world, near or at where it is produced.
Flying into Brussels is prohibitive in both price and scheduling.
For instance, it would add approx $1k to EACH ticket AND require
a flight from Brussels to somewhere else, with a 6 hour layover
and then a flight into Cairo that arrives around 3am. Blech.
But flying into Amsterdam or Paris is cheap, they have decent
connections to Cairo, and are a relatively quick train ride
to Brussels.
Anyway, we have been communicating with the nice folks at AUC
and they told us we could do this if we want, but that luggage
rules will work against us.
If we fly “direct” from the US to Cairo, we fly under international
rules for luggage and weight restrictions.
That means that we are each allowed 2 bags with at 50lbs (each) for a
total of 200lbs. [Note, that sounds like a lot, but we have to
live out of those suitcases for up to a month until our shipment
arrives from Seattle.]
If we do a layover in Europe, we have to fly from our European
airport to Cairo under “European” rules. Which limit us to
1 bag of checked luggage and 40 lbs, for a total of 80lbs.
If they allow us to check 2 bags each, there is an additional
bag fee (not sure what that is) and a ~$4/lb fee.
So that is potentially 112lb * $4 = $448.
On top of the extra cost of the ticket, train fares, car rental,
hotels, food, beer (mmmm beer).
It is starting to get expensive.
Then there is the recommendation of the nice man from AUC that
said “You might want to consider going to Europe from Cairo
during one of your many AUC holidays….”
Which is fine if I can get the time off my job. (Assuming
I have a job).
Many decisions to make, too many unknowns.