Going Home

Our (first) summer vacation was a mixture of work, errands and LOADS of Belgian beer (more about the beer in another post)! We departed Cairo, after a hectic and nerve-crushing couple of weeks, on June 21st. We left in the middle of the night, and arrived for a lay-over in Amsterdam mid-morning.

Nothing like a glass of decent red wine, some dutyfree salami and cheese at 10am (local time – we’d left our house nearly 10 hours earlier!) to get your vacation off on the right foot!

AT LAST – we were away from Cairo, from school, from our computers (at least for a day or two)! We were both excited, tired and a bit apprehensive. We’d not planned to go back to the States this summer at all, but work required Jack to make an appearance, so I went too, to get the errands done and relax/catch up with friends. Having not anticipated this trip, I was unsure if going home was going to be a good thing.

Our first destination, once checked in at our hotel, was, of course, the Beveridge Place Pub. Our favorite pub, home-away-from-home, and adopted West Seattle family. Wild horses (and jet lag) could not keep us away. We did not last long, but we “reintroduced” our tastebuds to REAL beer, and hugged/kissed/socialized with long-unseen friends.

We were only in Seattle for 10 days. Our dance card was incredibly full! We spent the first weekend in Vancouver (Washington) for the Goat Roast. Martin and Carol blessed us with mounds of tahini, foul, baba ganough and tabouli! Just like home. Jack was relieved to discover the giant crock pot of pulled pork hiding under the table! 🙂

The rest of the week was work for Jack, with various lunch venues including 2 trips to Salumi!!! For me, it was running errands, meeting with friends (Thanks WendyR and Keri for the lovely evening in Everett!!), distributing small tchatchkis and trying to make sure that we accrued all the things we’d missed while in Cairo. HOW EXHAUSTING!

The finale of the visit was that our last evening was spent at the Seattle International Beerfest with friends, great beers and laughter. This particular festival was also one of our last hurrah’s last year before we left. How fitting!

To my great surprise, leaving Seattle THIS time was even harder than last time. I think it was because, in that short time, I’d realized the many wonderful things/people we are missing in Cairo. Egypt is a wonderful adventure, but my heart is still in Seattle.