When we leave the Hostel in the morning, this is the view I have.
It is the Maraashly Church. It is a fairly important (read: affluent) Coptic Church. Friday night is wedding night. Things usually get started around 9PM and go till the wee hours. Luckily our building is built so that all the windows face inward to a courtyard.
The original is here. I think the original looks very nice on my monitor as my background.
Today was Friday. It is the start of the weekend and our first “day off” in that we didn’t have anything scheduled.
We went for a walk.
We went to the Flamenco Hotel for an overpriced (by Egyptian standards) buffet breakfast. Properly sated on beef bacon (1/2 thumb up) we went for a stroll along the Nile.
It was cooler with a bit of breeze along the river.
We discovered an open air theater that I had heard/read about but had not seen yet, The Culture Wheel.
It is a short walk from our apartment. We will have to keep an eye on the schedule.
We then strolled “up river” which is south.
We stumbled upon “The Fish Garden“. This is a little green space with this odd man made collection of caves that hold aquaria.
Some fish from the Nile, some from the Mediterranean, some from Africa. A bunch of preserved specimens of crocodiles, and some live turtles.
Oh, and bats. Fruit bats living in the roof of the caves.
More about the caves:
They are above ground and consist of lots of arches and hidey holes and twisty little passages.
All those little hidey holes and passages are great places for teenagers to get “frisky”. In this part of the world getting “frisky” involves holding hands and maybe touching someone’s arm or back.
Every time we rounded a corner, our guide was shoo-ing off some couple, he in jeans and a long sleeve shirt, her in jeans, long sleeve shirt and a hajib, with some sharp sounding Arabic.
I found it amusing and somehow comforting that, at least on some level, teenagers everywhere will try to get away with something.
Anyway, some photos from our walk.
As soon as I can find the right person to talk to, we can get the roof top terrace unlocked and I hope to break out the “big” camera take some sunset photos of our part of the city.
Nothing spectacular, but here ya go
We have been in country now for about 48 hours.
Some random thoughts:
we picked a great neighborhood:
Weather: it is hot. It is humid in the morning and evening. Sort of a marine layer off the nile. If you are sitting or standing still in the shade, it isn’t that bad.
Apartment: our apartment is nice. Well furnished. need some art work for the walls but otherwise fine. It is odd living in an apartment again, hearing footsteps in the hall etc.
Social: everybody is very friendly, very helpful. The faculty and staff of the University and hostel have been great. They are almost too nice.
Everybody has a cell phone. sometimes 2.
the traffic and taxis take some getting used to.
Today we made our first solo taxi rides. we have been relying on our welcome buddy, Matt, to get us around. Matt is in the Arabic Studies faculty and speaks pretty good Egyptian Arabic (afaict). Today we struck out on our own to run some errands. Sounds silly, but it was an important milestone for us.
Tomorrow is Friday, which is the start of the weekend. gonna unpack and maybe do some more shopping for odds and ends.
Orientation starts sunday. Woot!
Departure:
We left house around 1 am to head to SeaTac.
We hung out there for 2 hours to wait for the counter to open, and then checked in.
We flew First Class (using upgrades to “Envoy” class which is USAir’s business class. However, they don’t have First Class in the states, so we got to ride in First)
We switched planes in Philly, this time in Envoy class which was nicer than the First class seat on the first leg! Big seats. So much leg room that if you wanted to put something in the seat pocket in front of you, you had to undo your seat belt and get out of your seat to do it!
Uneventful. Landed in Frankfurt.
Had 8 hours there to kill. Talked our way into Lufthansa’s Business class lounge.
Had coffee, food and a shower! Man did that shower feel good.
Then on to Cairo. Getting on the plane in Frankfurt we realized that we were not in Kansas anymore.
People getting on the plane were dressed very differently, and were mostly speaking Arabic. It was the beginning of the “holy crap, what the hell are we doing….” 🙂
Again, an uneventful flight.
We were met by Abdul at the airport holding a big AUC
sign.
(For a few photos, click here)
This was a huge relief. we had changed our travel plans
and our big fear was that we would show up and there would be
no one to meet us..
Anyway, Abdul met us and one other faculty member and
~16 students that all were on the same flight.
He collected our passports and said “wait here”.
He disappeared for a few minutes and when he
returned he said
“Follow me and stay together”
and we went _around_ the passport control area
into the baggage claim area.
He then instructed us to collect our luggage and then
congregate at point X and he disappeared again
(with our passports)
Kaddee and I got our luggage pretty quickly
and a quick examination indicated that nothing had been
opened by the helpful folks at TSA.
The students took quite a while to get their lugggage.
Meanwhile Abdul returned with passports stamped with visa’s
and handed them out.
One of the students lost a bag somewhere in the travels,
so we waited a bit for him to file a report and
then we were ready to exit.
Abdul said “follow me”.
Kaddee and I each had a luggage cart. We had 5 checked
bags, 2 rolling carry-on bags, a laptop briefcase and a large
purse.
We followed, we were waived through a check point by a gentleman
in plain clothes (though nicely dressed) through a gate.
He was not at a table or desk or booth. He was just standing
there at a gate.
After the checkpoint we walked out into the arrival area.
I looked around and realized “the gentleman” that just waived
us through WAS customs!
Now I realize we kind of get some special handling because
Abdul was there and AUC has an “arrangement” with the government,
but I saw no one else having their baggage searched and there did not
appear to be anywhere to do that thta I could see. Maybe if one was
unlucky enough to get the treatment, they took you to a room?
Anyway, we then went outside. The heat hit us fairly hard. I would
guess it was in the low 90’s. It wasn’t intolerable by any means,
but we had been in over-refridgerated planes for 2 days.
We met our driver who had to go fetch his car.
While he was gone, I wondered off to duty free.
I was very disappointed because they had nothing that I was
interested in.
We waited some more. I went for a walk to find some bottled waters.
While looking for that (unsuccessfully) I found (what I have since
deduced) is a competing duty free shop.
*This* one was verra nice. I grabbed 2 bottles of scotch (glenmorangie
sherry wood finish, one of kaddee’s favorites, and glenfiddich 15yo
Solara reserve), a bottle of vodka and a bottle
of tequila, thus filling my 4 bottle limit.
(We have 48 hours upon arrival to buy our booze. We will be
toodling off to the local branch of the duty free to get Kaddee’s
alotment)
When I returned to our waiting area, Kaddee was gone. !Gulp!
The driver had arrived and loaded up all our luggage.
Kaddee had a minor panic attack cause I was still missing
and went in search of me.
Abdul found me and hussled me into the car and he then went
looking for Kaddee. She showed up and was only slightly pissed
off that I had disappeared. I promised that when we got to the
apartment, what I had in the bag would make up for it.
We were then off to our new home.
What to say about the traffic. It was densely packed and there
_were_ lanes painted on the roadway. Not sure why they are there
because no one was using them.
We were on a four lane road, and there were never any less than
5 lanes of traffic.
6 lanes of cars was not uncommon.
At one point there were 7. I closed my eyes and braced for impact.
But we arrived with no drama.
We got hussled upstairs. We hooked up the computer, called Kaddee’s
mom using skype to say we were otay!
We were settling down with a dram
and our “welcome buddy” showed up.
Nice guy named Matt who is the Arabic Studies department.
We chatted for a bit and headed out for a quick recon around
the neighborhood and a snack.
There is a good size grocery store about 2 blocks from the house,
open 24 hours. I think one could do very well buying
almost everything you need there except meat.
Then back to the aparment and collapse.
more later
Well, we will powering down the WAP and tucking it into a suitcase
and heading out for dinner.
After dinner, we drop off the rental car and camp out at the airport
for an OH:Dark:30 flight.
We go to Philly for 90 minutes and a quick plane change, then off
to Frankfurt (for an 8 hour layover) and then Cairo.
We scored “Envoy” class (USCAIR business class) upgrades
(THANK YOU SARA!!) for the Sea->Philly->Frankfurt parts of the trip,
so that will be verra nice.
The last few weeks have been a blurr. It has been exhausting
saying good bye to people several times/day. Sometimes the same
people 🙂
We look forward to our adventures and we look forward to a time
when we can share them with you in person.
Remember: If you want to come visit, let us know. But book early,
we already have 2 sets of ticketed visitors and _we_ want to travel
some too while we are there 🙂
Henry David Thoreau was jailed for refusing to pay taxes.
He felt that taxes supported an unjust war (The Mexican-American War) and a government that, at the time, allowed slavery.
While he was in jail, he was visited by a friend who asked:
“Why are you in there?”
Thoreau’s reply was
“Why are you out there?”
With the current situation in this country and the travel restrictions on carry on luggage, and the ban on liquids….
Will people ever say enough is enough?
I wish I had the strength to “be Thoreau” and stop being his friend.
But I don’t. And I am not happy about it.
Everything is packed (and re-packed). Tomorrow we get up, do one last load of laundry so that the sheets will be clean when we return and walk out the door.
With nothing to-do lists to focus on, the reality of this whole adventure is finally sinking in: tomorrow we will be on our way to Egypt.
Anxiety dreams have started. Thank god for Ambien.
Usually, one hears that from a toddler. It is usually met with great fanfare on behalf of the parents.
In this case, it is an occasion for some angst.
For the last 9 years, we have had a cat. Roscoe P. Coltrain is his name. He had many quirks. So many that we used to say “He’s retarded, but he is ours…”
One quirk was he likes to drag socks, sweaters, t-shirts, uhh, unmentionables, out of the laundry basket. He liked to drag them into various parts of the house and curl up in them, purrrring loudly.
Another quirk:
When we first got him, his food and water lived in the bathroom. Whenever someone went into the bathroom, he would run in and eat and PURRRRR really loudly.
Houses change, things get moved. His food and water are now in the downstairs bathroom, that doesn’t get a lot of use. At least not by humans.
But he still always followed people into the bathroom. It didn’t matter where he was in the house. He would hear you and come trotting in.
He would do it in the middle of the night, middle of the day. It didn’t matter.
When he had been outside, and we let him back in, I would swear he would look at me as if to say “I hope you didn’t go to the bathroom without me…”
He liked to roll around on the rug and have his head rubbed. His purrring was audible in the bedroom next door on a quiet night.
He and our other cat, Maia, went to a new home yesterday. (It would have been impractical to take them to Cairo).
While we know that they are going to a good home, and we know that they may not have even survived the quarantine and travel stress and we know that this is for the best….
Still.
This morning I went to the bathroom all by myself….
We have in our front yard these two, rather entwined, plum trees.
We planted them as itty bitty little sticks 6 years ago when we bought the house. They were a gift from one of Kaddee’s co-workers.
Last year, much to our surprise we got many beautiful plums. They are small “italian plums”. Two bite, free-stone. Very juicy.
I say “to our surprise” because we didn’t really pay any attention to the tree, because we weren’t expecting fruit.
This fall, we pruned it back.
This spring, we noticed that we had HUNDREDS of plums, not counting the dozens that have fallen before they were ripe, or those countless that were eaten by the birds and squirrels.
As I look out at the tree, the plums are almost ripe. They are very very close. We can almost taste them. They are almost the right shade of purple. They are almost soft enough to eat.
They sit on the tree, tantalizingly close. They are a light shade of purple. They smell wonderful. They are perfiectly shaped. The skins are unbruised. They taunt me.
I see them every morning on my way to work. I examine the tree to see if any are ready. I talk to the tree and the fruit, offering encouragement. “Time to rise and shine! Grow strong. We want just one plum each before we go.”
Every night when I come home, I examine the tree and the fruit. I whisper to it “time to rest for the night so that you can grow strong tomorrow. Sleep well.”
I refer to this as “the race for the plums.” We hope to win the race, insh’allah.
If not, the tree will be standing 2 years hence.
If we time our return just right, I hope to open the gate and pluck a plum from the tree, close my eyes and taste the flavors of home.
Now, if you will excuse me, I must go whisper to my tree..
Update: We have plums. Dozens! They drop from the tree, ripe and delicious.
We have eaten our fill. Feel free to come by and take a handful and taste what we call home.
