I know, I promised to write more regularly, but internet access is not that easy to come by. First, the journey. It was actually relatively painless. Bart to the airport is in San Francisco is amazingly painless, as was security. (I didn't even have to take off my hearing aids!) The Lufthansa folks made me check my luggage though - after all that trouble to fit everything in the 22 inch roll-around, it turned out to be too heavy for them. I knew I should have kept it under my feet in the waiting room! Oh, well, it is Lufthansa - I'm fairly confident it will arrive!
The flight was 11 hours and something to Frankfurt. I didn't sleep much, of course, but at least they kept us reasonably fed and watered, including unlimited free wine and liquor. (I haven't seen that for a while!) Changing planes in Frankfurt was a bit chaotic - it isn't that everything wasn't well marked, its that it was miles and miles and miles between the landing gate and the departure gate, with only an hour to do it in. I did make it. though (with enough time to change a $100 US into Egyptian pounds (for those of you keeping track, it is about 6.7 to the US $) and stop at the duty free, for the 4 hour trip - also on Lufthansa - to Cairo. So, between the 9 hour time difference and the 16 hour flight..... you do the math.
I have to tell you that my first thought as we were landing was:Palm Springs is not the desert, this is the desert. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. Even the buildings looked like they had been sculpted out of sand, There was no colour anywhere.
Actually, I was beyond tired when I finaly landed in Cairo. As some of you know, I was a bit anxious about the trip, not so much about the physical situation but more about just where I was going and how I was going to get there and what I was going to do. Ted, my friend in Cairo, assured me that he would have a "facilitator" and a car and driver at the airport, but, well, it is not exactly like landing in Europe - anywhere in Europe, really - where, if push came to shove you could manage without a car or driver, and didn't need a facilitator at all!
Needless to say, I was thrilled to see that blessed sign with my name on it (among the hundreds of others), held high by Ahmed, the aforementioned facilitator. He steered me to the bank counter where one picks up the Egyptian visitor's visa, while he held my spot in the customs and immigration line. He whipped me through it all, picked up my luggage (yes it arrived, quickly and without incident), out of the airport, and into the hands of the driver in mere minutes!
It took a lot longer than that to get to Ted's place! The traffic was unbelievable. Admittedly, there were no cows in the road, as there had been in India, but there was everything but, from tuk-tuks, to donkey carts piled high with burlap bags or straw, to lorries to cars, a lot of them. I am not so sure all of them had brakes, but I can personally testify that they all had horns! And for sure they only considered the lane markings as suggestions, not mandatory!
Since the driver and I couldn't communicate (my only word of the language - they call it Egyptian, not Arabic - is "thank you" - I had a lot ot time to look at my surroundings. Some observations. I saw no women drivers at all, or, as best I could see in the dark, no women passengers. (Ted explained later that the women do drive in Egypt, but generally not at night). It was very dark on the streets - it seemed like the streets were lit with 60 watt bulbs, and most of the apartment buildings were almost completely dark. (Nothing makes you realize how profliga we in North America are with light is travelling.) There were huge lineups - I mean blocks long - of trucks at filling stations (again, I found out from Ted later that there is a shortage of diesel here!)
Eventually, we did arrive at Ted's lovely apartment in Maadi, a district in - as best as I could figure out, in Southern Cairo. He was waiting with open arms, and a glass of bourbon, neat, just the way I like it, and we sat out on the balcony, enjoying the balmy air and the smell of the jakaranda (and the beaugainville, but, of course, I get plenty of that at home in Palm Springs). It was too hazy to see the Pyramids, which are apparantly usually visible; that will have to wait for another day, although the call to Muslim prayer - quite beautiful, really, came through loud and clear. I did ultimately crash, of course - even I can't last on 4 hours of sleep in, with the time change, 2 days, and managed to sleep through Ted's shower, dressing, making a pot of coffee, and leaving for work the next morning.
I couldn't begin to explain what Ted does here in Egypt, but I do now that the building where his apartment is is where, on a lower floor, his office is, and my the time he got back up to the apartment at about 10:30 A.M., I was showered and dressed and coffeed up. (You know you're in the Middle East when you reach into the cubbord for a mug and come out with one that has a painting of Hezbollah's Nassar Allah something on it!)
....and then went off on what Ted called "a windshield tour" of Cairo.
(looks like a normal street, until you notice how the Volkswagen is parked...)
In addition to the leafy green streets of Maadi, above, we also saw the Citadel, the Al Ahazar University, started in 1050. and purportedly the longest continuously running university in the world, the cities of the dead lining the road, and more (all of which will be explored when I get back to Cairo for the last week of the trip).
I was feeling pretty chipper, but Ted had fearlessly predicted that I would crash by 2:30 P.M., and he was right. We picked up Trish, a colleague of Ted's who will play a larger role in this narrative, had lunch at Julia's (best described as an American style diner, not memorable but for the mutes on the street whose job it is to find people parking spaces), and when Ted and Trish went back to work, I went home and crashed.
And a good sleep it was too! Later Trish, Ted's daughter Clair (who is also working in Egypt) and her friend brought Egyptian takeout for dinner. Ted got to use the antique wine opener he had bought on our outing...
....and I experienced my first Egyptian power outage...
(That's Kate above, and Trish below, all lit by the kerosene lantern)
Apparently power outages are a frequent thing now - and it isn't even summer yet when the airconditioning is on everywhere. They are no longer generating enough electricity! Nonetheless, the power came on after a few hours, and a good time was had by all!
The next day, Friday, I was off to Aswan and Abu Simbel, and the cruise of the Nile, but my very expenxively bought 2 hours on the Internet is almost up, so the next installment will have to wait until tomorrow!
The flight was 11 hours and something to Frankfurt. I didn't sleep much, of course, but at least they kept us reasonably fed and watered, including unlimited free wine and liquor. (I haven't seen that for a while!) Changing planes in Frankfurt was a bit chaotic - it isn't that everything wasn't well marked, its that it was miles and miles and miles between the landing gate and the departure gate, with only an hour to do it in. I did make it. though (with enough time to change a $100 US into Egyptian pounds (for those of you keeping track, it is about 6.7 to the US $) and stop at the duty free, for the 4 hour trip - also on Lufthansa - to Cairo. So, between the 9 hour time difference and the 16 hour flight..... you do the math.
I have to tell you that my first thought as we were landing was:Palm Springs is not the desert, this is the desert. There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see. Even the buildings looked like they had been sculpted out of sand, There was no colour anywhere.
Actually, I was beyond tired when I finaly landed in Cairo. As some of you know, I was a bit anxious about the trip, not so much about the physical situation but more about just where I was going and how I was going to get there and what I was going to do. Ted, my friend in Cairo, assured me that he would have a "facilitator" and a car and driver at the airport, but, well, it is not exactly like landing in Europe - anywhere in Europe, really - where, if push came to shove you could manage without a car or driver, and didn't need a facilitator at all!
Needless to say, I was thrilled to see that blessed sign with my name on it (among the hundreds of others), held high by Ahmed, the aforementioned facilitator. He steered me to the bank counter where one picks up the Egyptian visitor's visa, while he held my spot in the customs and immigration line. He whipped me through it all, picked up my luggage (yes it arrived, quickly and without incident), out of the airport, and into the hands of the driver in mere minutes!
It took a lot longer than that to get to Ted's place! The traffic was unbelievable. Admittedly, there were no cows in the road, as there had been in India, but there was everything but, from tuk-tuks, to donkey carts piled high with burlap bags or straw, to lorries to cars, a lot of them. I am not so sure all of them had brakes, but I can personally testify that they all had horns! And for sure they only considered the lane markings as suggestions, not mandatory!
Since the driver and I couldn't communicate (my only word of the language - they call it Egyptian, not Arabic - is "thank you" - I had a lot ot time to look at my surroundings. Some observations. I saw no women drivers at all, or, as best I could see in the dark, no women passengers. (Ted explained later that the women do drive in Egypt, but generally not at night). It was very dark on the streets - it seemed like the streets were lit with 60 watt bulbs, and most of the apartment buildings were almost completely dark. (Nothing makes you realize how profliga we in North America are with light is travelling.) There were huge lineups - I mean blocks long - of trucks at filling stations (again, I found out from Ted later that there is a shortage of diesel here!)
Eventually, we did arrive at Ted's lovely apartment in Maadi, a district in - as best as I could figure out, in Southern Cairo. He was waiting with open arms, and a glass of bourbon, neat, just the way I like it, and we sat out on the balcony, enjoying the balmy air and the smell of the jakaranda (and the beaugainville, but, of course, I get plenty of that at home in Palm Springs). It was too hazy to see the Pyramids, which are apparantly usually visible; that will have to wait for another day, although the call to Muslim prayer - quite beautiful, really, came through loud and clear. I did ultimately crash, of course - even I can't last on 4 hours of sleep in, with the time change, 2 days, and managed to sleep through Ted's shower, dressing, making a pot of coffee, and leaving for work the next morning.
I couldn't begin to explain what Ted does here in Egypt, but I do now that the building where his apartment is is where, on a lower floor, his office is, and my the time he got back up to the apartment at about 10:30 A.M., I was showered and dressed and coffeed up. (You know you're in the Middle East when you reach into the cubbord for a mug and come out with one that has a painting of Hezbollah's Nassar Allah something on it!)
After leaving the apartment, we stopped downstairs so that I could see Ted's office (I am always curious about those things, aren't you?)....
....and then went off on what Ted called "a windshield tour" of Cairo.
(looks like a normal street, until you notice how the Volkswagen is parked...)
I was feeling pretty chipper, but Ted had fearlessly predicted that I would crash by 2:30 P.M., and he was right. We picked up Trish, a colleague of Ted's who will play a larger role in this narrative, had lunch at Julia's (best described as an American style diner, not memorable but for the mutes on the street whose job it is to find people parking spaces), and when Ted and Trish went back to work, I went home and crashed.
And a good sleep it was too! Later Trish, Ted's daughter Clair (who is also working in Egypt) and her friend brought Egyptian takeout for dinner. Ted got to use the antique wine opener he had bought on our outing...
....and I experienced my first Egyptian power outage...
Apparently power outages are a frequent thing now - and it isn't even summer yet when the airconditioning is on everywhere. They are no longer generating enough electricity! Nonetheless, the power came on after a few hours, and a good time was had by all!
The next day, Friday, I was off to Aswan and Abu Simbel, and the cruise of the Nile, but my very expenxively bought 2 hours on the Internet is almost up, so the next installment will have to wait until tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment