Hiatus

It never gets old

The end of a great trip always makes me think about my own mortality. Before starting the two week trip to Egypt it seemed like a long time and then before I knew it, it was over. It just reaffirms to me that I am doing the right thing, living my life the way that I want and doing the things that are most important to me.

I recently read a related short article on a Travel Blog of one of the few people who can support his travel by blogging. The article is called “Beware of Life” which acknowledges that there are risks in life but if you don’t take them what is the point of living anyway. Here is the link if you are interested:

http://chrisguillebeau.com/3x5/beware-of-life/

Since coming back from Egypt I spent two days in California with friends and family and then drove back to Saint Louis. I still have my condo and I have been trying and hoping ever so much that I can sell it and not have that financial burden over my head. I have been looking for jobs anywhere that I can find them but as of yet have been unable to find anything that pays inversely to my level of desperation. However currently my desperation point is increasing making the amount of money I would be willing to accept decrease. I would love to be able to get a job in Europe somewhere to earn the Euro instead of the Dollar so I could save up money faster and travel while working on weekends but I have had no luck with anyone wanting to sponsor me for a visa. I have also applied for my Canadian citizenship because that makes it easier to get a work visa in some places but that process is taking forever. I spent the past week in New York which was lots of fun, but I won’t be blogging about that.

I’ve been spending my time looking for work, trying to sell my condo and catching up with friends that I haven’t seen since I first left last April. That’s all for now, I’ll post more as I know more.

Leaving Cairo (only a month and a half late)

Good Hair Day

I’m leaving Cairo tonight (Jan 5th) and I went to the reception of my hotel to ask about the best way to get to the airport. They told me they have a shuttle that would take me for 75 Egyptian Pounds and I told them my flight was at 10:15 pm and they told me to be in reception by 7:15pm.

I headed out for another day of exploring and came upon a street shoe market. It seems like it is maybe a monthly or quarterly thing because all of the businesses along the sides were hardware stores and there were impromptu street vendors on the street selling shoes on top of cardboard boxes. It was another good day of exploring similar to yesterday yet unique and still very interesting.

I arrived back at the hostel with my bags ready to go by 7pm and went to the front desk of the hostel to head for the airport. The guys I had talked to in the morning were gone and the new receptionist didn’t know anything about a shuttle to the airport. The receptionist tried calling a couple drivers but none could make it to the hostel in time to take me to the airport for my flight. I asked the receptionist what was the best way to get to the airport and he told me to take a white cab with a black stripe. Since I was expecting the shuttle for 75 I only had 85 Egyptian Pounds. I asked the receptionist how much a cab would cost expecting it to be more than 75 and to need to go to the ATM. “It shouldn’t cost any more than 50 Egyptian Pounds” he told me. It took me a while to find a metered cab but then I hopped in and headed off to the airport. As the driver drove I kept looking at street signs to make sure he was taking me the right way and he was always in the lanes going towards the airport. Despite his direct route I watched the meter climb to 50 then 60 and up to 70 Egyptian pounds and we weren’t even to the airport yet. I started to panic in my head. What was I going to do if the cab arrived and the fare was more than I had? Finally we pulled onto the airport property and the cab was up to 75. By the time we got to my terminal the total came to 85 Egyptian Pounds, all of my cash. I showed the driver that I had nothing left and tried to explain that I was sorry I couldn’t tip him.

Once in the airport there was security to go through before I could even get to the ticket counter to check my bag and the line was enormous with hundreds of people in front of me. I lined up behind two men in suits and one of them signaled to a security guard and the men were then waived around to the front of the line. The men in the suits asked me where I was going and I told them Jordan and then New York and finally to San Francisco. The men in the suits asked me to join them and we walked around the 100’s of people waiting to the get to the front and got right through security. The men in suits slipped the security guards some money and I pretended like I was going to pay (I had no Egyptian Pounds left) but the men in suits told me to put my money away, they had paid enough for me also. Once through security I thanked the men for their kindness and we parted ways as we had different destinations.

After I checked in I needed to go through regular security and when I went through the metal detector it beeped. The security guard asked me if I had any metal on me and I searched my pockets and discovered I had left my camera in my pocket. “Yes sir, I have my camera here.” I turned to go back through the metal detector but the security guard motioned me forward and allowed me through without further inspection.

Once I landed in Jordan I had a 10 hour overnight layover and the airline checked me into their nearby hotel. I had to wait for everyone on my flight to get their luggage and then a later flight before the bus arrived to take us to the hotel. I gave the front desk of the hotel my boarding pass and passport and they had a room already reserved for me and I went straight to it. The room only had 1 light bulb, none in the bathroom and there weren’t any towels. The front desk told me I would have a wakeup call 3 hours before my flight and that I should be down in the lobby 30 minutes later to catch the shuttle back to the airport. I set the alarm on my watch just in case and it is a good thing that I did because I never got a wakeup call. I checked the phone to make sure it was working and discovered that it didn’t work either. I made the shuttle bus back to the airport and checked back in for my flight. This time through security to New York they had all of the same security signs as in America like that all fluids must be less than 3 ounces and must be in a clear plastic bag together. I didn’t have my fluids together and in the main part of my bag I had two large bottles of water for the plane. Security didn’t mention a thing and I was allowed through security and on to the plane with these. It’s a good thing that in American I have to take off my shoes when planes that fly into America from other places only pretend to care.

Although I had a 10 hour layover and a room to sleep in by the time I got to the hotel and before I had to catch the shuttle was only about 4 hours and I was feeling pretty tired. Unfortunately this was a morning flight full of well rested people from Yemen flying to New York who had no intention of sleeping. I somehow managed to get myself a seat in the child section. I was in the middle section of the plane with an aisle seat. In front of me were two women each with a toddler. Across the aisle to my left was a man with a toddler. Behind me was a woman with a toddler and an infant and in the seat next to me was a toddler and next to her was her mother who had a baby on her lap. Shortly after the plane took off the toddler next to me somehow managed to remove the arm rest cover and threw it somewhere that I couldn’t locate, so I couldn’t put my arm on that arm rest. I put in my ear plugs and reclined my seat as much as I could and tried to sleep. I think the babies around me were all competing to see who could scream the loudest. After I got used to the sound of the crying children I started to drift off to sleep and the little girl to my right started to jump in her seat and then kept touching me. I removed my sleep mask and gave both the little girl and her oblivious mother evil stares but to no avail. If this scene would have been in a movie, I would have been laughing hilariously but unfortunately it was happening to me in real life and I was less than pleased.

My tray table was also broken and when I put my fresh hot coffee on the table it slid backwards and onto my lap soaking and burning me at the same time.

Once in New York I had a short two hour layover and then made it quickly to San Francisco where my checked luggage was lost. It was a long and frustrating 36 hours of travel.

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Wandering Around Cairo

Ice Delivery

January 4th I slept in a little since I had been so exhausted from all of the constant travel of the tour group. Would I do a tour again? Maybe as half of my trip and spend the other half of my time both before and after the tour just relaxing. The tour definitely enabled me to experience many things that I would never have had if I were on my own. I’m also still sick and all of the treatments I am taking aren’t really working I need to go and look for some antibiotics to get rid of the cause instead of treating the symptoms.

I love to just walk the streets with no destination in mind and to get away from all of the tourist places. It makes me feel like an explorer when I walk down back streets and see the life people really live instead of the lives they try to portray in the tourist areas. In the tourist areas if a stranger talks to you they want to try and sell you something. In the places I walked today people that talk to you want to try out their English and learn about you. I met a young man who was with two of his friends and was very nervous to try and speak English to me but I think he was trying to impress his friends. He asked me where I was from and I told him I was an American. In Every country that I have been to when I tell people I am an American, they are always excited. All of the people that I have met love America, or at least pretend to. The little girls wear Miley Cyrus tee shirts and the boys wear WWE (formerly WWF) ones. I know a couple of words in Arabic such as “hello”, “thank you”, “no thank you” and “goodbye” and I try to use them whenever I can. I had this really cute little girl come up to me and say “hello” in Arabic and I said “hello” in Arabic back to her and then she said something I didn’t know and I told her I didn’t speak Arabic and she just smiled at me and waved goodbye.

As I walked through the streets I saw people working at their crafts, repairing cars, building chairs, repairing glasses, making leather belts and woodworking. All of this is done in streets and alleyways during the day because it doesn’t rain here very often this time of year and the light from the sun is free and the space in the alleys is also free, so it dramatically reduces the expense needed to own a business. At least that is my thinking, maybe they just like to be social.

I came across a vegetable market with fresh delicious looking vegetables. Potatoes had just been dug out of the ground and were still covered with dirt. There were cages of animals available to take home to slaughter, chickens, ducks and even bunnies. There was a small Egyptian girl that followed me around the market as intrigued with me as I was with her and the market.

I saw men sitting outside smoking sheesha in shops similar to the men in Morocco drinking mint tea. There were lots of small mosques all over in unmarked buildings without tall spires and with no speaker for a call to prayer. It was a really great day, with nice weather and friendly people.
As the sun started to set I decided that it was time to head back to my hostel but I literally had no idea where I was since I had just been wandering around and at every intersection I would look for what I thought might be more interesting and headed that way. As usual I had a terrible map that only had major streets on it and was only for the tourist areas. I was starting to worry that I would have to spend money and hire a cab to get me back to my hostel when I had a great idea. If I could find the Nile, I could find the Egyptian Museum and then in turn my hostel. I started looking for major roads and looking down them for the river. Finally I saw a road sign indicating which direction the Nile was and was able to follow that road back to the Nile and find my hostel.

For dinner I had a feast of kebab meat, rice, bread and vegetables from the same place I ate at last night. There is a primary cashier that you pay at and then you are given a ticket for every item that you buy and then you have to take the tickets to the appropriate counter to pick up your dinner. There is a counter for meat, one for fried foods, another for cold foods and a couple others. It makes it really easy because I can order at the picture board in the front and then I just take the tickets to a window and they take the one they need and then point to the next window I need to go to get the rest of my food. The meal was amazing, I love kebab meat! Tomorrow will be more wandering and then back to the airport for lots of long flights.

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