Day 181

July 19th

Today was actually productive. Even though it was a weekend, the internet decided to work with me and I was able to work on my paper. The research is going slow, mostly because of slow internet also because finding facts is infuriating difficult. I hope to get through it all, and it might just take a few all nighters. Oh well, I can manage that. I found out that Emmett can't go with me on the roadtrip, which is kind of disappointing. It might still be a fun trip, but it will be a solo trip, which means I will cruise through it as fast as I can. After finding that out, I decided to go to the gym to work off some pressure and that helped me deal with the disappointment of the loss of my triumphant return to America. Oh well. Probably will have to take the car now. Oh well. That means I can go to Chicago more easily or visit Michigan or roadtrip to an away game or something.

Day 180

July 18th, 2008

Well its Friday, which means its the weekend. However, with Megan and Chris down in Luxor there really isn't that much to do around here. I thought about getting some work done, but the internet wasn't really cooperating with me. Oh well, I am in the middle of a rather interesting book, so I crashed on the couch and began tearing through Kite Runner. It was well written but I really just didn't like the protagonist in the story. I found his lack of well-power disturbing and infuriating. I might have had such a visceral reaction to the character, because sometimes I question my own moral backbone in tough questions. However, I hope in situations like this I wouldn't back down. It also took me awhile to realize that the author wasn't the main character. The way he set it up made me think this was an autobiography. However, by the end of it, with the different names and children, I wasn't sure. Anyways, a good book nonetheless. It was all I really did Friday. Good day.

Day 179

So my hopes of finally getting back into a sleep pattern failed again. I couldn't get to sleep until like 3 even though I went to bed at around one. But I slept well, except for the fact that I slept way to long and woke up much later than I was planning. This is a rather frustrating experience when it happens all the time, and I better get better because this half-ass nature to getting up and getting sleep in general isn't going to cut it at Notre Dame. Oh well, I guess necessity will force me to adapt at Notre Dame. Despite getting out a little later, today was normally productive. I got through a tedious part of my paper, where I am just listing agricultural and water resource statistics. This section took a long time and wasn't really all that interesting too me, but its important information in order to set up a scarcity argument. I ended right before getting to the section where I get to talk about the countries future plans to build dam's and irrigation systems. This means I will be able to look at websites other than the FAO. Finally. I understand that this probably doesn't seem like a big deal to most people, but for a security studies paper I have spent way too much time immersed in the the nuances of argricultural production.
I finished my book: Imperial Grunts, yesterday and today started working on my next one Kite Runner. It's fun to finish books that aren't assigned for class. Rory would be proud too.

Day 178

July 16th

Today was just kind of crappy day. I didn't get to sleep until late, didn't sleep well, and then ended up waking up much later than I wanted too. So I went down to work and found myself just getting frustrated by A. not finding the information that I needed. B. finding too much information and not being to understand it all. C, having difficulty putting all the information into a coherent paper. However, no one ever said that writing was easy. It was rather a frustrating day and I could never really get into a rhythm for writing. Not even coffee helped me. I think I was just in a bad mood from not getting enough sleep or whatever.
Anyways, I went home around 6 again and got it out of my system by working out a lot. And it helped, as I got all the bad feelings/thoughts out my head.
After refueling with food, I watched The Departed. I really enjoyed the writing of the movie, the dialog was quick and well-delivered. Plus dropping Notre Dame references always makes me like a movie.
I went to bed hoping to get a good night sleep.

Day 177

July 15th

I woke up today with the gameplan of spending a lot of time at the DDC. The project is starting to materialize, although the more it does, the more complex it gets, and now it is becoming a question of hours. So with this goal in mind and with no distractions at work, I tried to plow through some research. It turns out that Realclearpolitics is always a distraction, but even then, I spent less time on that than I do normally. However, my plans to stay late were cut short when I got an email from Robin inviting me and Megan over to the house to play wii games. I can't refuse wii games, especially guitar hero, the most friendly people you will ever meet, and a little slice of America. So at 5, I headed back to the penthouse and packed up some stuff to be sent back to America. After getting the boxes we got a taxi and hoped that we could find their apartment from the street. Normally we take the subway. I didn't know the address so we got dropped off somewhere marginally close, ended up going the wrong way, and then getting another taxi. Oh well, we made it there, which was all that mattered. Guitar Hero is a lot of fun, and go figure, practice makes you better.

Day 176

July 14^th

Today with Chris down south, I returned to my normal routine. I got up went to work, and got some actual good work done. If I continue at this pace, getting a good research paper done shouldn’t be a problem. I did however still leave room for improvement as I looked into graduate scholarships, mainly the Marshall Scholarship. I like the idea of studying in London for free, maybe at the London School of Economics. However, I believe the main driving force for me wanting to do this would be simply because I can, it would look sweet on a resume, and the fact that people I know would be like “wow, look at Glen, he’s a Marshall scholar.” I checked out the profiles of those who won this year, and although they were quite amazing and it looked like these kids had real ambition and talent. However, I don’t think my resume was all that different from theirs, once I add research on Solar Power and Resource Wars. Well that made me happy that I had decided to stay around this summer, even though it might look better than it really is. However, I thought about it on my drive home (as I had forgotten my book) and realized that it was a real piss poor reason to apply for these scholarships simply so people will be like “wow.” Personally I don’t really give a shit if people think I am doing amazing stuff. As long as I am challenged myself and doing the best that I possibly can, whether or not Joe Schmoe from back home gives a hoot, doesn’t concern me in the least. I know what I want to do and unless something changes in the next few months, I am going to do it. Forget about fame and fortune. I know what matters.

Day 175

July 13^th

Today started off with getting Chris a taxi so he could go see the pyramids of dashour and Sakkara. These are places I really didn’t want to see and I wanted some time to work on my research. Chris ended up paying a bit more than I would have settled for, but got a taxi driver who could speak English and knew the way around. So I felt that he would be safe. After seeing Chris off, I headed back to the gym as it had been a few days since I had seen it. It was a happy reunion.

After the gym and as I was waiting for the bus, I realized that Chris didn’t have any keys so he couldn’t get back in the apartment. This means I had to wait around to make sure he got in. Unfortunately, the internet wasn’t working in the apartment. Go figure, it never does, so I tried to do some Arabic. I quickly grew tired of this and resorted to simply reading. This turned into a nap, and I awoke a few hours later wondering where Chris had been. It was about 6 hours after he took off, so I started to wonder what he was up too. I went to the door to look out, and right at that time Chris came out of the elevator. Good timing.

We hung around a bit and got Pizza as I waited for Obama’s interview on CNN and Chris waited for the appropriate time to leave. He had to meet the agency at 8:30 for a ride over to the train station.

It turns out Barack’s interview wasn’t until about 10. Don’t really know why they said it was at 8, but whatever. The interview was very good, as Fareed didn’t care about any of the nit-picking that normal interviews do and simply wanted to understand his world view. He asked good questions and cut him off when he started to go to stump answers that avoided the topic. Obama did explain his “undivided capital of Israel” line as it meant not that Palestine couldn’t be in Jerusalem, but that there shouldn’t be a wall. I don’t know if he was bullshiting or not, as why would he say this to the AIPAC, but if this was the case it was some pretty smart political wording as the way it was originally interpreted came off as extremely pro-Israel, but it gave him the ability to back-track if it didn’t get the right response, which it didn’t Very savy.

Day 174

July 12th

Today I woke up still kind of queasy from the amount of food consumed the night before so I kind of lounged around for the morning. Eventually, I got the energy to head out with Chris to Khan as I had to do some shopping including buying galabayyas and kuffaya’s for the Father Paul Six Man. I went to the section of Khan where they don’t speak English and got a good deal. I was quite thrilled with myself, the Kuffaya’s were not as much a good deal but they were cheap enough. We wandered around through the market and checked out a few of the Mosques too. Eventually we got warn out and headed home after another long day in the sun. I felt happy to finally be done with the majority of my shopping.

Day 173

July 11th

So at 6:30 we woke up again and got a taxi to the bus station in Imbadaa or some Podunk part of Giza. It was a shit-hole, with trash everywhere and a complete lack of infrastructure or suitable housing. However, after searching for awhile we found the bus to Birqesh, which cost 2 pounds for the 18 mile trip. I was pretty pumped about that. The ride up was pretty awful as we rode by an irrigation ditch that was used as a garbage dump and just smelled awful. We also got a flat tire, and everbody else other than a Sudanese man who told us to stay and an old man who couldn’t exactly leave jumped into passing trucks. It was kind of disconcerting experience, but the driver eventually fixed the problem and we were on our way to the market.

It turned out we did have to pay the 20 pounds, not the 5 pounds that Lonely Planet had said. The market was not as bad as the book says. There were a lot of camels and the owners did beat the crap out of them, but I didn’t see any throat slitting and I was never bitten. So that’s all good. It didn’t even smell all that bad. We got a mini-bus back after a couple of hours and headed back to Zamalek. We didn’t get lunch and instead just relaxed around the apartment for the next few hours as we waited for Beer and Wings night and once there engorged ourselves in a feast.

We got a cab back and called it a good night overall, although we were quite stuffed.

Day 172

July 10^th

Today, Chris and I went to the Pyramids. The guidebook said it opened at 7 and when we showed up at 7:30 we were disappointed to find that we couldn’t get in. The taxi-driver tried the same kind of scam where he took us to his friend next to the gate who wanted to hook us up with horses and show us everything we were going to see. I simply leaned back let him give me his spiel and then declined saying that I want to walk and that I know the pyramids as I live in Cairo. Swindlers 0, Me and Chris 1.

Next after we found the pyramid still closed some guy insisted on showing us around the town around the pyramids. He would pick up rubbish off the ground and then give it to us for “free.” He gave me a broken head of Cleopatra and gave Chris a piece of alabaster. It was kind of hilarious, considering we had nothing better to do. They changed the ticket booth at the entrance since the last time I had been there so I was kind of suspicious of whether or not it was legitimate. But it was and after getting through security we wandered off to the Pyramids, thinking that we had lost the guy as he didn’t go through security. I felt pretty victorious as we didn’t have to pay him. Swindlers 0, Me and Chris 2.

However, I might have counted my points too soon as when we were half way up the hill to the Pyramids, he came running after us asking for us to wait. You see, before the gate he had learned that we had interest in climbing the pyramids, and had apparently made some calls. So we went with him and he would pay guards money as we walked towards the third pyramid. I was willing to see what would become of it. On the way we got stopped by a guy who wanted to have us take a picture of him, and he insisted it was for free. So I said go ahead to Chris, and then went to listen to the guy talk to a police officer. When I turned back, Chris had a kuffiya on his head and was up on the Camel, I was like whoa-whoa, but Chris said he was willing to pay a little. So we wandered along towards the third pyramid as the “guy” took pictures of Chris up on the Camel. Eventually we had enough and it took some coaxing to let him let Chris down. He then insisted on us paying him 100 pounds. I was offended at this, as the distance was worth 20 only. We got into an argument, rather heated I might add in a mix of Arabic and English, as there was no way I was paying 100. Eventually we gave him 40, which I was still kind of upset about, but just to get him to leave. He was pissed and rode off in a huff. Oh well, who the hell did he think we were? I would count that as a neutral point, as neither of us really won that one.

Next our guy continued to show us stuff on the way to the third pyramid, and eventually I got fed up of this and said we want to climb only. He finally ceased with the time-wasting and took us to the pyramid. Here we meet the guy that would take us up, who originally was going to charge us 200 dollars, which we refused, and since I lived in Zamalek, and was like an Egyptian, they were going to give us it for 120 dollars each I believe. I feigned not hearing on this and argeed on 120 dollars for the two of us, which they accepted. I had heard the going rate to climb the third pyramid was 100 dollars so 60 each seemed more than fair for us. So the man, who was like 50 took us up the third great pyramid, and he sure could climb. He would hop up the blocks like it was nothing. It wasn’t a tricky climb but it was on of endurance and eventually we made it too the top, which was really sweet. We had to stay on the south side as we didn’t want too many cops to see or too many people to see. Still it was fun, and we gave the man 20 dollars in tip. Considering several police officers came over during the time we were climbing it seemed legitimately illegal and we bribed the right people. I felt good about the price and once we were far enough away the “guy” continued to try and show us stuff. At this point I had enough of him and told him that we wanted to walk by ourselves. I thought 100 pounds was more than enough for what he did, but he was absolutely would not it. We gave him 200 and he still insisted we needed to give him 100 more. This I thought was bullshit, and started to argue with him a lot. He wouldn’t budge and neither would I and I was willing to just walk away or tell him to get lost as he really couldn’t do anything, but we instead we gave him 60 pounds more. I wasn’t happy about this, but he was gone and all in all it only cost us 90 dollars to climb the pyramid each, which is still 10 dollars less than the going rate. So I was pretty happy with this.

Afterwards we headed off to the second pyramid, ate a little bit, and then Chris headed down into it. I had already been and had no desire to go again so I waited outside with the Camera. Chris came back up and said that I didn’t miss anything, so we headed to the Sphinx and then around the largest Pyramid. Finally, we headed out and found the bus back to the Midan Tahrir. Not knowing when to get off we rather awkwardly had to get called out by girls in the front of the bus and got off closer to the museum then anything else. Oh well, we headed off to K-tah and then got some Mango juice, which apparently Chris didn’t think was the safest thing or the tastiest. However, these to me were all things Chris needed to experience in order to get the whole Egypt experience. After this we headed to Safir and got his travel arrangements for Upper Egypt all squared away. Finally, after a long day we collapsed on the couches for a few hour nap.

For dinner we went off to Pub 28, a place where I had never been before where I got some okay food and an interesting atmosphere. Not much to report on that front. We ended the night with Chris trying to get me to go to the Birqesh Camel Market, which just sounded awful. In the end, I decided for the adventure rather than letting Chris get lost in the Delta

Day 171

July 9^th

In order to pick up Chris I decided to take a cheaper route and took the city bus out to the airport. This cost me just 2 pounds, much better than the 50 than I had paid the taxi to go pick up Megan. It was surprisingly nice too, as it wasn’t too crowded and it had air-conditioning. There were a few moments when I thought that it might not be the right bus but I ended up at the airport and wandered over to the terminal. I had some time, and after learning from last time, I brought a book. So in typical, Rory fashion, as soon as I found that the plane was on time, I picked a spot outside in the sun and read for about 30 minutes. After getting too hot, I headed in and continued reading. A family who was also waiting for someone sat down in front of me. There were the two cutest daughters ever and the dad had more hair than I thought possible was on a body. The hair literally overflowed from his t-shirt around his neck. It was kind of gross, okay really gross. Chris got through customs really quick, much quicker than Megan, and so we headed back to Zamalek. I got a cab for 60 pounds, including 5 pounds extra because I thought the traffic was terrible. We got back to the dorms, got him settled and then got some euro-deli. I really love the fries there. We then mulled around for a little bit and went to Ultimate in Maadi. The metro there was packed, a great welcome to Egypt for Chris. We got another ride back to Zamalek and this time it didn’t take 2 hours. However, I did learn some more interesting things, like the really tall building next to the Fish gardens is actually unoccupied as the owner of it didn’t plan for a garage, and since the owners of the land next to the tower didn’t sell him the room to build a garage no one wants to live in the building. We got back and went to Felfela for dinner, after having a miscommunication issue with Megan as she thought we were going to meet her there. Oh well.

Day 170

July 8th

Today was a momentous day. I beat minesweeper on expert. It was taken many months of off-and-on efforts, but at last I have beaten that dastardly game. I will probably now waste many more hours trying to make my time somewhat respectable. Nevertheless, mark this day as a day of victory. In other news, I was mistaken for an Egyptian again today. He came up and asked me where some place was, and I A. didn’t quite understand him, and B. had no idea where it was. Then he realized I was a foreigner, and said ahh, enta hawagga, which translates to ahhh, you are a foreigner. I said “right.” Work is progressing slowly because its difficult research stuff. Chris shows up tomorrow and that will be fun, I wonder if he will want to go to Ultimate that night. We will see. I am going to try and take the local bus out there. It should be an adventure.
So today I spent most of my time in the DDC working on my project. I don’t know how much time I will have in the future to work on it, so I tried to get a fair bit done today. However, I still went through the same basic routine. I worked until 6 pm, worked out, and then got some Pizza Hut. I was debating whether or not to eat really cheap or stuff that Chris probably wouldn’t want. I went with the later and got the Pizza Hut. It should be fun to have Chris around if simply to break up the monotony, as monotony and being comfortable in a routine leads to a boring life. I like challenges and different experiences, they keep me growing and as soon as I stop growing, it means I start dying.

Day 169

July 7^th

Today was a much more low-key than Sunday as I feel into the same routine. I went into work got some good work done and procrastinated a lot. Really need to stop that as time is starting to run low. Afterwards, I worked out, got some food, and then had a similar experience with the elevator as a few days ago. This time I waiting by myself, then a Egyptian man came over and was waiting too. The elevator was not coming so the doorman came over and fixed the problem. Next, a Egyptian lady came over, who was pretty dolled up, and either not Muslim, or not orthodox as she was wearing make-up, no hijab, capri’s, and high-heels. The doorman, Hossan, was standing next to me, and indicated to go over to the elevator, which wasn’t there yet. I looked at him questioningly. However, he gave me a reassuring look and sure enough the elevator came. So I got in, and held the door open for the other two, but instead of climbing in, they just stared at the other elevator. I wasn’t sure if they were giving me a special privilege of riding my own elevator or if they simply refused to ride with a foreigner. Either way I didn’t like it.

Also, to anyone who actually reads this blog, let me again apologize for the grammar, spelling and complete lack of proofreading. As you can probably tell, I don't even try.

Day 168

July 6^th

Waking up a bit later than I wanted to, I again started my day with a trip to the gym. It is really nice and quiet in the morning, reminiscent of Giorgio’s, but not. Mainly because it isn’t a front for a mafia organization and huge. I then headed off to work where I got some stuff done, but probably could have done better. But really I was just so excited to go over to the Beatty’s that night that I really never got focused. The Beatty’s was once again amazing. They are some amazing people and very happy with life in general. I like that. We had some interesting conversations and some awesome food. Then we played on the Wii. I sucked at bowling, but I was just preparing for the real fun, Guitar Hero. Although I really suck at it, I think its so much fun to play.

Day 167

July 5^th

Today started off with a trip to the gym. Nothing really special there except for that it is really quite in the morning. I went out to outside basketball courts in order to do some pull-ups and ab workouts and was followed out by this six year old girl. I don’t know what it is with kids, but they just don’t seem to understand that I don’t really speak their language. My Arabic is able to get me around and make basic small talk. When it comes to a subject other than that, I get confused especially when its in little kid language. However, she just kept talking to me as if I knew exactly what she was saying. I eventually picked something about a ball and maybe she wanted to play, but I couldn’t tell. Since she didn’t ever use body language it was pretty difficult to pick up what she wanted. Anyways, after going back to the gym, since I was the only one in there, I would help Hossan, the gym manager with pronouncing English words or definitions as he was working on his English.

After finishing my workout I had a strange encounter as I waited for the elevator. I waiting in the lobby, albeit kind of sweaty, but not that bad, and finally the elevator came. The doorman was waiting next to me, and as I was about to get in, I heard a group of people coming who asked the doorman to hold the elevator. So he did, and it turned out it was a family from the Arabian peninsula somewhere and the mom had the nigab. Now as soon as they saw I was in the elevator they decided they didn’t want it anymore. However, since they made me wait, I knew that if I wasn’t a white foreigner they would have loaded in with me. It didn’t really bother me that much, as they were clearly a conservative family and maybe it is just unorthodox to ride with someone like me. I don’t really know.

Anyways, after getting cleaned up, I mulled around the apartment a bit, doing some laundry and some reading. Finally the time came for ultimate, so I walked down to the metro station at Sadat. Here I ran into two of my ultimate friends who were also taking the metro down to Maadi. This was mighty convenient as I didn’t know exactly how to get to Victoria College once I got to Maadi.

Ultimate itself was fun, although I didn’t play very well. My throws were way off, and I dropped some easy passes. Oh well, I am still getting used to the game anyways. Andy, my potential roommate that didn’t work out, showed up this time and we caught up on how our summer’s had been going. Afterwards a bunch of us went to Lucille’s for dinner and that was awesome, because Lucille’s is like a little America. I rode the metro back and then took a cab to Zamalak. Normally I don’t take them, but since I was so tired. He tried to charge me double, jerk. Didn’t let me get away with it though.

Day 166

July 4^th

Today is America’s Birthday. Yay for America. Sadly I am not in America to celebrate with it. One thing that I have learned here is simply how much I love America. Seeing everything that most of the world’s population does not have, makes me even more appreciative of what we do have back in America. I do not want to wash over the problems that America still suffers from, but in America I feel these problems are tractable rather than impossible.

For some reason I am really tired today. Perhaps it’s the lack of proper nutrtition, perhaps it’s the really long days I have had these last few days, or perhaps it has to do something with my illness and high-intensity workouts might have taken it all out of me. So I slept in pretty late today, woke up didn’t do much of anything and then took a rather long nap. I think I will go to bed early tonight too. I miss America, but in less than a month I will be reunited with my beloved homeland.

Day 165

July 3^rd

Today was one of my longest days of work yet. It started off at 7:30, when I caught a bus out to Sadat City. Sadat City is where one of the two farms that the DDC owns is located. It is about midway in-between Cairo and Alexandria, still in the Nile Delta but on the border of the desert. I was heading out here to check out the condition of the photovoltaic cells to see if the DDC could use them in the future in developing communities. This looked highly unlikely due to the state of these cells. They were all past the warranty of 20 years, and had just been left to deteriorate for the last decade. The batteries were missing and the DC/AC inverter was broken. I think these things are unusable. However, the trip was not a lose, because I did get to talk to a soil scientist who knew all about the crop water requirements. So I spent a good hour or so interviewing him about how much water was required for agriculture. The information I got from him was invaluable and probably would have taken many hours of research to find the same data.

However, when I was finished with my work at Sadat I had to wait around for a good 2 hours before the bus came to pick me up. I had been told only one hour, but you know how it goes in Egypt. We then took the absolute longest route back to Zamalek, as we dropped the person who lived all the way out in Heliopolis off first which is on the opposite side of the city. So we had to travel around half the ring road to get there. This took us right through the slums of the city and we got to see how most of Cairo lives. Heliopolis on the other end is the newest and nicest part of town. It is where all the rich people are moving and it had some things that absolutely blew our minds, including actual city-planning of streets and businesses and lawns. The lawns were incredible. They must also take a ton of water to maintain as they were really green. I didn’t get back to the apartment until 7:30 in the evening and promptly went to chilis as I was starving and craved American food, because the greatest holiday was coming up tomorrow. I think I will have to try and spend a ton of unnecessary time in a car tomorrow in order to make it three days in a row.

Day 164

4July 2nd

Started I woke up with my throat feeling a bit starchy. I quickly deduced that the reason for this was a lack of vitamin C. Something that rarely happens back in the states, but with my rather poor eating habits here, something that can easily happen. So I slept in rather than going to go work out and then went to Metro to buy some Orange Juice, or what I thought was orange juice. In reality, I had purchased a 1iter of orange nectar, which is what we normally purchase. However checking the milligrams of Vitamin C on this side to the wikipedia article on vitamin C, made me realize that only by drinking the entire liter could I get just 100% of my daily requirement. After finishing up my research for the day I headed back to the Metro and bought the slightly more expensive however twice vitamin C content, natural orange juice. Also when I got home, we had two people come over and look at the apartment. They spent about 5 minutes total looking at the apartment. They probably were not that interested in it. Oh well, no problem to me. After that I went to ultimate Frisbee and played around there. Although I am not that good, I did get better the more I played, and I ended up doing “the greatest,” which I was pretty proud of. I got a ride home and got stuck in awful traffic. It took over 2 hours to get back to Zamalek, as there apparently was some party at the British Embassy. However, I found these two hours extremely enjoyable as I got to talk with these people, who were either Egyptian or had spent 3 years working in Egypt and really knew the details of the country. So I found out the story behind the unfinished buildings which comprise the slums of the city as they have no government regulation whatsoever, as so people will just build haphazardly and will leave room for future expansion. I also learned that all the new development is going on in Heliopolis and Sixth of October city as rich Egyptians and foreigners move out there. This is basically the same idea as the “white flight” and soon real-estate experts say Zamalek and the entire downtown area will turn into the slums, just like what happened in American cities. I also learned that one man controls 65% of all the steel in the country, creating a quasi-monopoly, and he has forced up the price of steel required for building in order to improve his profit margins. Crazy country I live in.

Day 163

July 1st

Today started off with getting up and going to get my visa. Technically, my visa expired yesterday so I was an illegal alien for a day. But there is a 15 day grace period where you can get your visa renewed so I had plenty of time. However, once I went down there to pick it up, they required my passport for another 2 hours. So who knows what they were doing for the 5 days that we waited, probably just moved it from one window to the next. Anyways, in the two hours, I went to McDonald’s and got an egg mcmuffin. It wasn’t worth the cost, so I won’t get it again. Then I went back to the apartment worked out a little, got my books and headed back to the passport office. By this time they had it ready and I got another residence visa. This filled up a whole page of my passport so know I have only three sheets left. This prompted me to send a little time on the internet looking around for places I could go. Nothing really appealed to both me and my wallet. My Egyptian-American coworker, Heba, is getting married next week, so that’s pretty special. She was trying to figure out where to go for her honeymoon. I suggested Morroco, and I think they are actually going to go there. I felt pretty darn important. The rest of the workday I spent researching the potential of implanting solar power into desert communities. What I came away with is that development is a very tough business. I’ll keep the research on this topic going tomorrow, as Thursday I head out to the Farm to look at the solar panels they got out there. Should be an adventure. After work, I went to the gym, got food and watched Good Will Hunting. I really enjoyed this movie, as I think it got at what really mattered in life, and how important experience is to life, rather than just book-learning. We’ll see if I can do anything with that lesson. Afterwards I played some minesweeper, and eliminated 99 mines before having to guess between two squares. I choose wrong. It sucked, but I got closer than ever before. Finally, it’s the first day of my last month in Cairo. I should really try and enjoy this month.

Day 162

Monday June 30th,

Today I finally finished updating the blog at work. Yes, I am very productive at work. It was about 12000 words altogether, so enjoy reading it. I heard from Megan that Chris was showing up on Tuesday, which kind of frightened me, as I didn't know when his plane was arriving and had no way of getting him to the apartment. However, I was finally able to make online contact with Chris and found out it was next Tuesday, which was a great relief. It should be a lot of fun to have Chris around. At work it was the last day for Scott, the presidential intern. He is going back to the states and then looking for gold in Alaska. No joke. I was helping him decide if after he gets done with the gold hunt if he should come back to Cairo or go to Abu Dhabi. I voted for Abu Dhabi. Because of Scott's departure the DDC bought cake and had a little party for him. I had Mountain Dew out of a glass bottle. It didn't taste like Mountain Dew. The cake was super-rich and I could only have one piece. That should be an indicator of how much Egyptians love their sugar. Also because of Scott's departure I get to move to his Desk and he gave me the keys to the office. Basically I got a promotion. Too bad it had to come at the expense of Scott leaving. A real stand-up guy, and I will miss shooting the shit with him. Hopefully I'll get to see him again in some manner or the other.

Day 161

Sunday June 29^th

I returned to work and worked on my blog all day, because I am so far behind. I spent all day writing and still wasn’t even close to be caught up. But at least I was writing and the internet was especially iffy today, meaning that research would have been nearly impossible. After working out again we went to Baracka’s for some of the best shawerrma on the island and then watched the Bourne Ultimatum. I love Jason Bourne, he is a badass.

Day 160

Saturday June 28^th

After waking up after 12, which was amazing, I went over the gym again and then played some more basketball. It was fun, rewarding, and hot as ever. I think the heat doesn’t effect you as much if you are playing with other people, because after 30 minutes or so it was almost tough to keep going. I was also supposed to play ultimate today, but instead I took a nap and slept through the phone call. Oh well. I was really quite bored once I woke up, so we went to Eurodeli, then stopped by and got some black market movies, fanta and chips from the store and watched I am Legend. A low-key day.

Day 159

Friday June 27^th

Friday means the weekend and since I have a normal work schedule that means I get the weekend off too. I spent the first day of the weekend not doing much of anything, it was kind of enjoyable. I thought about going to Khan, ended up not doing it, and ended up just relaxing in the apartment. Eventually, Gaytin a friend of Scotts and somebody I play ultimate with sent me a text and said they were going to mojito. It sounded like a change of pace, so I called up Scott who was also going, and leaving from Zamalek, and Megan S and I went over to his apartment to hang out for awhile. I met Scott’s really cool other friend from Stanford who is a Presidential Intern as well. It was a lot of fun and I got to see more high-brow Egyptians. There is definitely a steroid usage problem in Egypt among the upper-class. It’s kind of gross actually.

Day 158

Thursday June 26^th

Starting to get into a solid routine as I wake up go work-out then head off to the office. I am eating koshery at lunch and saving money that way. At dinner I’ll go for the Shaweerma simply because I need protein after breaking down my muscles all day. I will usually use groceries for breakfast or to supplement by dinner. I still am not getting enough vitamins and minerals in my diet and cannot wait to go back to Notre Dame where there is unlimited amounts of food and its free. Well not really, but at that point its sunk cost and not eating is like wasting money. I am really looking forward to being back in the States and kind of saddened that I won’t have more time in Spokane. It’s going to be tight as I intend on driving back to Notre Dame as having a truck would be absolutely amazing there. However, as gas prices continue to rise the dream of having the truck at ND is starting to look more and more unrealistic. Sadly the gas will not come down in price anytime soon, so I am either going to have to bite the bullet or come up with an alternative.

In other news, one of the satellite’s for our TV stopped working. This doesn’t really effect me too much, other than limiting my options for late night entertainment. However as I should be doing Arabic at that time, it isn’t that big of deal. Speaking of which, I need to go set up my classes for that soon.

Day 157

Wednesday June 25^th

I actually started doing my research today. I worked all day trying to find background information on the food shortage and water shortage facing the planet. Research is slow, because the internet here is god awful slow, plus the material is difficult and writing well about it takes a concentrated effort. All add up to a slow pace. But the research is rewarding and fascinating and I enjoy it, and let’s face it that’s the important thing. It turns out that Scott has to turn in the library books I checked out on his card, so that means I had to swap them over to Tina’s card, but since Tina is leaving I get to use her card until she comes back. A win-win for me and Scott. After work I headed back to the gym worked out, ate some food and then got ready for bed.

Day 156

Tuesday June 24^th

Today I got up went to the gym and then headed off to the office. I didn’t stay long as I just wanted to check in, but then I headed back to the dorm to do some laundry clean up the mess and buy some groceries. I have decided to stop worrying about money so much and just buy the food. I don’t like being hungry and with my lot-in-life I can afford not too. So why put suffering on myself. I try to keep the spending within reason, getting cheap food wherever possible, but I am not so super uptight about spending it now. Its still a hell of a lot cheaper than going to denny’s every night.

Day 155

Monday June 23^rd

So today was kind of a bummer day. I had to take Megan to the airport. Everything worked out fine and she got off safely, although I don’t think there was much food for her to eat at the terminal. Regardless, they security made me leave so I couldn’t watch her leave, so I went back found the cabbie that had taken us over and went back to Zamalek. The cab driver was very nice and I got a good deal out of the whole thing. Having Megan gave me new incentive to take care of myself and at least try and look my best. That was the first step I was going to take towards growing up, so I went and got a haircut. It wasn’t the same experience as I had last time (they didn’t offer any tea) but they did a stand up job, and I walked away looking sharp. It’s ironic that I waited for Megan to leave for me to get my haircut, as she would have preferred me to clean up before she was there. Too bad.

Day 154

Sunday June 22nd

Today we decided to do nothing. Megan was kind of exhausting of seeing things every day or spending massive amounts of time, traveling. So we woke up kind of late and then decided to go to Lucille’s for brunch. Lucille’s is in Maadi, or little America, as I like to call it, and it supposedly has the best burgers on the planet according to time magazine. So we took the metro, an experience that I felt Megan needed anyways, and luckily for her it wasn’t that crowded. So we got there and enjoyed nacho’s and the burger and bottomless ice tea as we reminisced about the memories of the trip so that she could write them down and remember them in the future. Afterwards we decided to go see a movie, and called up Megan S, to see what was available. I voted for The Happening, because it wasn’t a chick-flick with Ryan Reynolds (the one that Megan wanted to watch). It turned out we were the only people in the theatre and that the movie was awful. It wasn’t the worst movie ever, as Megan said, but the writing and acting definitely left something to be desired. An interesting premise nonetheless. After that we took a cab back to Zamalek, where we got dinner at some place that I cannot remember for the life of me, and then made sure Megan was all packed up and ready to go.

Day 153

Saturday June 20^th

Today we did everything in Cairo that we didn’t get around to the first time. When I say everything, I mean of the stuff that I considered important to see. First, we woke up around 10 and actually got Cinnabon. It was the first time in three tries that they actually had it. We then got a taxi and headed out to the Citadel. The Citadel, afterwards I realized is geared more towards the Egyptian enthusiast, not the average tourist. For although I found the walls of Saladin awesome, and going through the Egyptian Military Museum incredibly fascinating as there were artifacts from the Officers Revolt and Maps of the conquests of Muhammad Ali and artifacts and weapons that they used, Megan was not impressed. I guess you actually have to know about Egypt to really enjoy it, and considering the Museum was filled with Egyptians only, it probably is not all that interesting to tourists like Megan. I guess I will just have to go back on my own time.

Mohammad Ali’s Mosque was still as impressive as ever, and Megan enjoyed that for the main part. We also got some shots of overlooking the city. Next we got a cab and headed back to Khan to do some final gift purchasing for Megan’s family. This meant scarves and we did pretty good at finding what we were looking for and getting the price we wanted. I really enjoyed myself at Khan, more than I have ever before.

A quite memorable experience happened as we were walking down one of the main streets in Khan. There was a large pile of dirt just blocking the way, nothing too unusual for Egypt, nonetheless kind of annoying. As I stood in front of it, pondering why the heck it was in the street, one of the store keepers noticed that I was looking at it and shrugged his shoulders in the “what can you do about it” expression. I asked “lee” or why? Pointing to the dirt, he said that it was for the streets, because they are still under construction. I shrugged my shoulders too, and walked around it, and then he said something I won’t forget. “Don’t stop smiling, this is life, what can you do, but smile.” I thought this outlook on life was very profound, and simple. I loved it, because life does give throw a lot of shit at you, a lot of which you can’t control or can’t do anything about it. Although, I don’t like the idea of just giving up and letting bad things happen in a fatalistic manner, when they can be prevented, sometimes you have done all that you can or there are things beyond your control that really suck. At that point, just smile. You can either enjoy the ups and downs as part of the experience that is life, or get mad about them and not enjoy life. Either way they are going to happen, so you might as well enjoy it. Besides, in Egypt and the rest of the world there are bigger problems that should cause you consternation, not little things like dirt in the road or noisy streets.

We went to dido’s for lunch at around 4 that day, and then napped/hung around in the apartment before going on a felucca ride at sunset. I didn’t want to pay for a cab, so we walked back to the apartment, a pleasant walk through the heart of Cairo I might add. We were on an Egyptian schedule for eating and thus went to Aubergine for dinner at around 11. The places were actually crowded at these times, as normally when we go, its empty. We got back from the food and went to bed. Tomorrow will be Megan’s last full day in Egypt. Bummer.

Day 152

Friday June 20^th

This was a day of traveling. We left at like 6 for the trek up to the bus-station but found that we weren’t moving fast enough to get there in time. So we hired a taxi to speed us up a bit. For breakfast there wasn’t any donuts. I was saddened and had to settle for a cinnamon roll. I also got some more Peach tea. I love peach tea. A lot. It’s really good.

So we loaded up on the bus, this time actually sitting next to each other and headed off for Eliat. We left at 7. We stopped at around 10 for a reststop and I found a 1.5 liter of Peach Tea for 10 NIS. I was so happy. Once again, I love Peach Tea.

We finally showed up in Eliat at around 12. The bus didn’t leave until 4, so we killed some time by heading off to the mall and getting some food there. Israel has super security and to get into the malls you have to pass through metal detectors and have people go through your bags. Since we had all our bags from the 2 weeks of traveling this would have sucked. But they pulled us aside, asked for our passports, saw that we were American, and let us go in. I love America.

Since we had a little time we also checked out my favorite store in Israel, the Celio. It has really good sales, and I was looking for more jeans and shirts. However I didn’t see anything that caught my eye. The girl working there did remember me from the last time though, which is pretty impressive. But I guess I am pretty memorable.

After catching a cab to the border, we got stuck behind a huge tour group going to Egypt. Luckily we still had like 3 hours before our bus left, so we got used to waiting. However, once through the passport control on the Israeli side we were able to cut ahead of them. Getting into Egypt was awesome. I gave the guy a big hug and told him how happy I was to be back in the states. After returning my happy greeting he looked at me, and said “I have one question for you.” Obama, good?” I responded enthusiastically, that Obama was good, and insha allah would be the next president. He was very happy to hear this.

Actually getting into Egypt was a bigger problem. The guards for some reason took our passports and held them forever, as the entire Israeli tour group passed through. I had no idea why they took so long, but they had us sit down and told us to wait. I felt as if they were just pulling our legs, but it seemed kind of weird. Eventually they gave to us and we were on our way.

We walked past all the mini-bus drivers pleading with us to have them take us. After my experiences on mini-bus’s I feel lucky to be alive, and I am not tempting fate again. We walked all the way to the bus station and bought tickets for the big safe bus. Although it was slower I felt a lot better about it. It turns out it was cheaper too as we paid the driver the entry fee of 30 each, which was down from the 55 I was expecting. I was expecting to have to pay the rest when we stopped at the checkpoint, but we just blew right by. So that worked out well.

The bus station was a really enjoyable experience. The bus station manager was really nice and funny and we had a good time with each other. I told him that Megan was the “weather that belongs to me,” the Arabic slang term for your girlfriend, and he really enjoyed that I knew the phrase. Megan still doesn’t like me using that phrase as she doesn’t like the idea of belonging to anybody, even after I explained that it translates to the idea “that she means the world, or everything to me.”

During the whole trip I learned a lot. In that way it was a very rewarding vacation. I really enjoyed being around Megan, as she really tells it you straight and although we had some, okay lots, of communication issues, she was able to teach me a lot about myself. Megan has grown up a lot sense I last hung out with her, she’s a much more independent and competent on her feet. She really feels like she has a handle on the world and how to interact with it. She is confident about herself and it shows in a good way. Having her around was refreshing. First, of all she didn’t put up with all my childish or stupid antics like everyone else did. When I did something stupid she let me know that it was stupid. She criticizes me, and I really love that. I like it when people criticize me, because then I take their criticism and make myself better. If people just let me slide by doing the same stuff, I’ll never get any better and I would hate that. She also made me realize how much I still have to grow up. She made me realize that I need to be observant and not make assumptions about situations or what people are thinking or planning on saying. I thought that I had grown up a lot in Cairo or that I would grow up a lot, but having her around made me realize that I hadn’t really changed that much. I still act childish in a lot of ways and don’t take responsibility for a lot things. I let things slide that aren’t academics. I realize that the only real growing up I have done is in academics. However, because of this trip I have taken an important step forward. I have realized that I am not observant and that I need to grow up, and because of this realization I can start to improve it. Also I figured out what I want to do after I graduate. I had been mulling over it a lot, but now I am sure in my desires. It’s something that should be talked about in person though.

Finally getting back into Cairo, we went and got McDonalds because Megan was really craving it. It’s also quick, fairly cheap, and something that you should try while you are in Egypt. After eating, we collapsed in the room.

Day 151

Thursday June 19^th,

After realizing just how much stuff we did yesterday, we decided to take today much slower. I tried to sleep in as much as I could, but sleeping on the roof means it gets hot and noisy and you can’t really sleep past 8. So we got ourselves ready and headed out for another exciting day. Since both of us had already seen the Dead Sea Scrolls, we opted on not going all the way out to the Museum, so instead we headed to the Tower of David where we spent the morning looking at the History of the Jerusalem. They even had this little movie with terrible animation that Megan feel asleep in. The Tower of David refers to a whole fort complex that was used to defend Jerusalem. Now apparently it is used for parties and weddings as when we were walking around they were decorating for what looked like a wedding. For lunch we strolled over to the park beneath the old city found some benches and enjoyed more thai food. It was peaceful and relaxing and I kind of wanted to just take a nap there. But there was still more to do and see, so we headed back to the Old City and checked out the Western Wall. I got hassled three times here for money, which I thought outrageous and kind of disrespectful and the holiest site in Judaism. There was another party going on, and we used the opportunity to take lots of pictures of people, including the orthodox jews, the 18 year old soldiers with guns, and the citizen militia with their WWII era rifles. Didn’t quite understand their story for being there. I did use the opportunity to write another note and stick it in the wall. I wrote it in English, and realizing I knew all the words in Arabic also wrote it in Arabic, thinking well maybe it will have a better chance of being heard if its got more languages. The irony of putting a prayer in Arabic into the holiest spot in Judaism only dawned on me after the fact. Oh well, I don’t think God will care what language it’s in.

After that, or before, the timeline isn’t quite clear to me, we did a lot of shopping. Not for me this time, I had bought enough stuff in Jerusalem before. So this time it was much more relaxing as I didn’t actually have to spend any money. So we picked up a bunch of stuff for Megan’s family and generally had a good time shopping. I really enjoy shopping with Price, not quite sure why, but she’s got a good head on her shoulders, is money-savy in that she spends it, but not too excessively, unlike me which generally errors on spending too little. Then again, I have made some pretty extravagant purchases on this trip. For dinner we looked around for the pizza place that I had last time, found that it was closed, and so went to the pizza place that Lonely Planet recommends. It was really good food and we ate outside right next to the 3^rd station of the cross. Jerusalem is nutty. By this time it was getting late, and knowing that we had to wake up early, we turned in for the night.

Day 150

Wednesday June 18^th

Once again, I forced Megan to wake up early so that we could get ready and head off to the Dome of Rock. We showed up there at about 7:30, 30 minutes before it opened. This was a good sign, as before they would always say it was closed. When 8:00 rolled around, they opened the gates and after walking through a small room with about 8 guys with M-4’s and body armor, we went up through the tunnel and into the Noble Sanctuary. This was amazing for me, as I had been learning about this place since Freshmen year in college and had at least 3 classes spend serious amounts of time on this spot alone. It was gorgeous and all that it was cracked up to be. The Dome of Rock is a gorgeous building and just like everyone said they wouldn’t let us enter for even look into it. They also wouldn’t let look into the Al-Aqsa Mosque which also disappointed me. How would they even know, without asking me that I wasn’t Muslim. Granted the camera and the guidebook might have given it away, but I still feel slightly shafted. After that we headed back to the David Street and started looking at hostels. We finally settled on the Citadel Hostel, where we could sleep on the roof for 30 NIS and had a breathtaking view of Dome of the Rock and Church of the Holy Sepulchre. We wandered back to the Golden Gate, got our stuff, checked out and got set up at our new digs. Afterwards we embarked on the walking tours of walking tours, starting with the Room of the Last Supper and David’s Tomb. These I had seen before, and found a little bit easier the second time. Afterwards we checked out the highly depressing Chamber of the Holocaust Museum, where we saw man’s inhumanity to man. I think the most interesting thing I saw in the museum was a letter that accompanied some gruesome photo’s taken by a US army solider who believed that without photo evidence people would never believe that this could have happened. It was simply too grotesque. The letter said that we should never forget that the people who were responsible for these acts were put to stop by men of higher morals. It reminded me of the line, that the greatest evil is for good men to stand by as evil is committed. It spoke to me, called to me, to be man of higher moral and give truth to the claim that this shall never happen again, through more than just words and thoughts but by action.

After this saddening visit, we wandered over to the Church of All Nations and the Garden of Gethsemane. This was Megan’s favorite site in Jerusalem and you could tell from the way she talked about it and recreated the scene for me from the Bible. We then checked out the Tomb of the Virgin Mary and then headed up the Mount of Olives, seeing the thousands of tombs that cover the mountain. We ended up looking for the Church of Ascension, but only found the Russian and Muslim version. These either were closed or cost money. We did find a group of Mormon’s who were extremely nice and I think wanted to convert us. If I had picked up on that earlier I would have told them that I am Muslim, just for experimental purposes. I feel like I could have pulled it off.

Wandering back down the Mount of Olives we stopped for a water break and enjoyed just overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem, chatting about our experiences and life in general. Finally we got up the energy and headed down the Mountain, got another picture of Church of All Nations, had a downright awful encounter with a bathroom attendant, and then headed back to the Old City.

Here we ended up coming right upon the first station of the cross. So we decided to follow the stations, and I wiped out the book and relayed to Megan what happened at each spot. We made our way much easier than before and even found the hidden 9^th station. At the 9^th station we also found something else we were not expecting.

This Arab man came up to us and asked us if we were Christian. Rather than answer that I was in the somewhere in the Middle, I just answered I was Christian as did Megan, because you know she is. This made the man extremely happy, and then he told us that he was from Egypt. When I told him that I too lived in Egypt, he became very very happy and gave me a big-hug. He then insisted on showing us around for no money. Being a little bit skeptical of such situations, we agreed hesitantly. He took us over and showed us from the roof into a church below, which I didn’t really understand what we were looking at. Then he showed insisted on showing us what he called the Jordan River. Now I wasn’t too sure if it was the Jordan river, but rolled up our pant legs and took us down these creepy looking stairs to what opened up into a large underground cave filled with water. There appeared to be a church underneath the water or some time or ruins, there also appeared to be a body, but no closer inspection turned out to be a statue of some kind. The water wasn’t exactly clear and there wasn’t a lot of light to really make it out. Anyways, our friend who took Megan’s hand to help her down, after earnestly asking me if it was okay, took us down to the banks and washed our arms and feet in the water. It was weird and hilarious. He then took us up and got pictures with us, which are no prominently displayed, on Picasa. He wanted to give us bottles of water, but Megan thinking that he wanted us to drink the water, and not wanting to get left down here while he went in search of water decided it was time to go so he told him we had to meet our friends at the Church and that we had to go. He took us up, and it turns out his other buddies made us pay a total of 2 NIS each because we took photos. Not that much, and the guy apologized for it. When we were leaving he was still trying to get us to get Tea or Coffee. I couldn’t tell if he really was just friendly or maybe a little bit off. I feel most Egyptians are a little bit off, maybe because they don’t get enough sleep or just aren’t well educated. Then again, I wouldn’t like them as much if they were so cut-and-dry like Westerners. I think their eccentric nature is what makes them so fun.

Anyways, the guy also kept saying that he loves us, and giving us hugs. At the end he said it one more time, and looked at us expectantly. Megan, in an almost motherly manner, responded with the “we love you too” and he got really happy again and gave us more hugs. We would later see this guy around through our stay in Jerusalem and we would have to change routes or walk slowly as to not actually meet up with him again. Although he was really friendly, we told him we were leaving that day so it would have just been awkward.

Finally making it to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we finished the stations of the cross by climbing Golgotha and then heading over to Jesus’ tomb. We got in line and waited our turn to go in. I don’t think we were in the right mood for a proper religious experience because of A. the entire incident that happened at the 9^th station, and B. we were standing beside these guys who were also just up on Golgotha and were having a good time, but didn’t really know what they were doing. So when it was our turn, we were allowed into the antechamber, where the guy’s camera died. I told him how much that sucked, and then the usher told us to be quite. As we were chilling in the antechamber waiting for the people to clear our of the tomb room, Megan almost caught on fire as she got too close to the candles. It was pretty funny, and definitely threw off and religious vibes we were going for. So the people before us, finally came out, continuing with their prayers and prostrations and we entered in. The other guys and Megan (who had my camera) all started taking pictures with their phones or with their cameras. After about 20 seconds, the guy who just broke his camera, looked around, and simply said “huh,” and kind of nodded his head in that semi-interested, not quite sure what to think of it way. It summed up the entire experience perfectly. After leaving the tomb, all I could do was laugh about the whole ordeal.

For dinner we wandered out of the old city looking for something interesting and found thai food. So we got that and headed back to the Square at the corner of Jaffa Road and the Old City and ate our thai food in Jerusalem. I love globalization. Also at the Thai place, we meet David, my friend from AUC who was the Palestine expert and was actually staying at the same hostel on the roof just like us. Small world.

Day 149

Tuesday June 17^th

Today was a day of traveling. I knew there was a 9:00 bus to the border crossing of Taba. I knew that it was about 25 pounds. Taxi drivers were offering to take us there for 300 pounds each. This would have been way to expensive, albeit much faster. I had not become a fan of buses in my two days of rest, and if the price had been a bit lower I might just have taken it. However, we didn’t, so we showed up there at about 7:45 and bought tickets to Taba. We meet our nameless fellow American traveler there who knew much about Jerusalem, as he spends ever summer in Israel and recommended a few places for us. The Bus didn’t get into Taba until about 1:30. Which means we would have to take the last bus out of Eliat to Jerusalem at 5. After crossing through border control and getting asked a few more questions, because I had come back so recently since my last visit, we got a taxi and headed off to the bus station. Here we got our bus tickets and waited around. During this time, I learned that our friend had a friend who was related to the Debartolo Family, who basically owned one of the major quads at Notre Dame, and also that being a guy is awesome.

The bus finally came and we headed out to Jerusalem on a very crowded bus. It was so crowded that we couldn’t sit together and apparently Megan had to deal with some other goon trying to sleep on her. I just had to deal with bitchy Israeli teens that thought they were entitled to the world or something. This is one thing I love about Egypt. Most people have a humble sense about them, and don’t complain about the little things in life. There are no teens who are angry at the parents or people who get upset simply because they get stuck without a bus seat. This is life, and complaining about it doesn’t do any good. To the most part I agree with them, there are far too many big things to get bugged about than life’s little inconveniences.

We didn’t arrive in Jerusalem until about 9. After walking the 30-45 minutes to the Old City we finally just picked out the closet, cheap double so we could have a place to collaspe in relative comfort. The Golden Gate Inn was our choice, and they gave us a family size room with bathroom for 80 NIS each. Not that bad.

Day 148

Monday June 16^th

After a long night out, we slept late, giving ourselves just enough time to make the end of breakfast. We then got suited up for the day and headed down to the other beach where the reefs where. The Red Sea is cold when you first jump in, and then immediately warms up to you. It is still salty as ever, as if you swallow any it makes you feel as if you are about to throw up. We picked up some snorkel gear, but found on our first try the Red Sea to be surprisingly lacking in fish, especially when they said June and July are the times to for the fish. But we had the gear for the day, so we dried off in the sun and then headed back for lunch. We got back and hung out on the beach until about 3:00, when we tried again. This time there was a bunch of fish. Not the tons and tons that I expected but more than enough. There were some really pretty ones with many different colors around the sea. The whole thing made me reminiscent of the first time I was there and made me wonder about when the next time I might be there. I wonder with many of these places if I will ever get to see them again, or of the places I have been in the past, If I will ever get to see them. During this time I also finished the Alchemist. A very good book, that I would recommend to pretty much anybody looking for some guidance in life. Since I can never return to the same place again, just like how you can never step in the same river twice, the lesson is too enjoy each experience in the present. To not worry about the past for the future and what you were and what you will be. At the same time, I would say that living in the present, is just like the rest of life, about striking a balance. You can’t just hope the future will be okay, or not worry about it. Plans need to be made for the future and goals set, but don’t let worrying about who you will be and what might happen effect enjoying life for the moment. For you never know, when you might not have another moment to enjoy. At the same time, you must also not forget about the past, you must learn from your mistakes or your triumphs so that you can create a better present. But the key thing is to remain centered on the present to be observant of everything going around you, (signs of the past and signs of the future) in order to make the best out of today. I guess the life-lesson can be simplified to, be confident and smile.

Later that night, we didn’t really feel like doing much, so we just kind of hung around Sol Y Mar, soaked up the sun and enjoyed life. For next morning once again we were getting up awful early to go the bus station.

Day 147

Sunday June 15th

We finally made it to sharm at about 11 in the morning. We promptly got a taxi and headed to the hotel. Once there, they must have given our original room away, because I wasn’t sure if I was going to get a queen or two doubles, and it turned out we got both. A queen and two doubles. Megan naturally got the queen, and I got stuck on one of the doubles.

The Sol y Mar hotel was amazing. The only downside was that the drainage in the shower was awful, so lets just say we could tell from the water all the dirt that we were getting off our body. It was pretty gross.

Other than that it was amazing, probably more so because of the fact that anything was amazing after the bus ride from hell. Our first plan was going eating, which was delicious and then we headed to the free beach. Here we just lounged around and did absolutely nothing. I read a little, had a stella and generally believed that life could not get any better. When it got too hot we would go down and cool off in the red sea, and then come back and lounge around some more. We didn’t really go swimming, as we were much too tired for that. We ended up leaving the beach and spending more time hanging out in Sol y Mar hotel where we could continue to lounge around.

After dinner, we went down to Naama Bay, to check out the town and eventually head to a club or something. In Naama Bay, Megan turned the tables on the hagglers as the first one gave her a free necklace. I think he also offered me 3 million camels for her, and as we learned from our guides in Aswan that a camel is worth about $1900 dollars, I gladly accepted the 3 million. I was later disappointed when he actually did not have 3 million camels to offer me. 3 Million Camels would have helped my monetary situation out greatly. However, in the next few places whenever they wanted us to sign their guestbook or whatever, Megan would ask for something for her. We ended up walking away with a necklace and 2 free little perfume things. It was a pretty good outing. However, the last one, when we really had no interest in buying something, seemed to bug the guy, so we called it a victorious night, and started the search for a good place to hangout. Eventually we settled on the Pacha Bar, supposedly the best club in Egypt. We got in at cheaper then expected, and once inside we, or I at least, was amazed by how nice and big it was inside. It was very different than the Big Easy, and apparently it is considered the number 54 club in the entire world. Unfortunately, for us the music was funky house, which I consider some of the worst club music ever. I didn’t know what to do with it. They didn’t play a single song I knew, and the whole experience was kind of awkward. Oh well, it was nonetheless an experience.

Day 146

Saturday June 14^th

This was our big day to see the West Bank of Luxor, featuring the Valley of the Queens and the Valley of the Kings. We had some more amazing people in our tour group, including Sandar, who was really excited about seeing everything. He was just really happy to be alive in general, it seemed, and he was a riot to be around. He was very talkative and energetic and he made the experience much more enjoyable. We also met Andrew, a GWU student studying abroad in the Middle East who was taking vacation in Egypt. We met another student who traveling around the world for the summer. Pretty sweet people all-in-all. They had lots of interesting stories, and makes me wonder if I should be getting out more and seeing more. Probably.

The first place we visited, wasn’t memorable enough for me to remember the name. They were some ruined giant statues out in a field. It felt kind of random and underwhelming. Nevertheless, we did the typical tourist thing, jump out of the van, ignore the hagglers, take a bunch of pictures, look at it a little while, and then jump right back in the van. We then headed off to the Valley of Queens. Here we got to go down to tombs and they were alright, but really they were just a build-up for the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings is a huge complex with many different tombs. It would easily be a day just in itself, however with the ticket you only get to see 3 tombs. Luckily the three primary tombs, or maybe that’s just what the guide implied, are the tombs right by the entrance. So we got to wander into these muggy rooms and look at all the beautiful cravings and what not. Sandar knew a little bit about Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics and so he shared that information with us.

The main event of the day was the Temple of Hatshepsut, an absolutely amazing and huge temple to Queen Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who was one of the longest ruling women in Egyptian history. This was also the site of the first terrorist attack in Egypt, a sad event that scares the beauty of this massive temple. Adding to the imposing nature of the temple, are the canyon walls that surround the temple. These vertical cliffs climb 100’s of feet over the Temple, a clear reason why the Ancient Egyptians chose this spot. However, by this time, the summer heat was sweltering and after purchasing a delicious bottle of cold water we loaded back into the hot car and headed back to the hotel.

At the hotel we had a good couple hours before we had to catch the bus to sharm. So we followed some of our new friends to this supposed great and cheap place to eat around the corner. It turns out that it was more than just around the corner and it was a rather crowded, disorderly experience. However, it was fun getting some unknown but delicious black melon juice from the juicer across the street and then getting some authentic Egyptian food and authentic Egyptian prices. Always a plus. Rather waiting around for our food for awhile, another authentic Egyptian experience, we headed off to the hotel and hung out around the pool for a little bit before getting everything together and meeting Walid downstairs.

Now here is where the real fun began. Walid had been pulling my leg since the day we met him. Now he was telling us that there was no ferry and that it was a 16 hour bus ride to Sharm. This was basically my worst nightmare. I had repeatedly asked at Safir travel when I was setting this up about the 4 hour bus-ride to Sharm,that included the Ferry. I had no intention of taking a bus, as the one from Cairo to Sharm is awful enough and I knew one from Luxor would be unbearable. I even checked with Walid when we got down there just to make sure everything was good. Now he was telling me there we were stuck on it. I didn’t believe him. I still didn’t believe him when he gave us the tickets, and there was no ferry ticket and when the Bus station manager said we were supposed to arrive in Sharm, sometime around 11 the next day. When he was finally able to convince me I was livid. I hated bus-rides, and 16 hours would be more than awful. Not only did this mean we were paying for a night in sharm that we didn’t get to use, but it meant that people had lied or to me or where just dumbasses. Either way, we suffered for other people’s piss-poor performance. If I had known, I would have just paid the little bit more and flown to Sharm. This was outrageous.

The bus ride was all that it was cracked up to be. Walid called us about three hours in, and we found out we were moving at a snail’s pace. He had been in the same town 30 minutes after he left. (He was going to Cairo too, but on his motorbike). Shortly thereafter they started playing the Quran. Playing the Quran means listening to somebody chant the Quran on high volume, in a way that seems beautiful at first, but after hour 2 you can’t take it anymore. By hour 8, I wanted to stab by ears out. The earplugs didn’t work well enough to block out the sound, and it was starting to get cold and the cramped conditions didn’t allow for very good sleep. Luckily, I was tired enough that my body overcame my ears and mind and forced by body to sleep. Part of that sleep was on Megan, and apparently I am not too comfortable, as everytime the bounce would bounce, (like every 10 seconds) my head would bounce on her shoulder. I gave that up after awhile.

Day 145

Friday June 13^th

Today started off way too early. We woke up at 3:00 in order to catch the convoy heading down to Abu Simbel. Ever since the terrorist attacks in Luxor, the Egyptian government has increased the security of their precious tourist sites. So with Abu-Simbel being so close, 60 km, from the war-zone of Sudan, they make sure all the busses leave together in a convoy. After dragging ourselves downstairs and into the bus, we got good seats in the front with lots of leg-room, and settled down to have a good 3 hour nap. However, after we arrived at the convoy, we were interrupted by another tour-guide who needed a group of two in his bus. Since we were the only group of two, we had to give up our perfect seats and sprint, literally sprint, over to another bus, where we were forced to sit in the Middle fold-down chairs, where the back rest only went to your middle back, and there wasn’t any foot-room or place to rest your head. Basically there was no way were going to be comfortable much less sleep. However, we did get to eavesdrop on a conversation held by two knowledgeable people of Egypt, and although I didn’t learn any actionable information I was able get an idea of how the smart tourist travels in Egypt.

The convoy was the biggest joke ever. I never saw a police presence, and we were spread out and passing other busses. It didn’t make me feel secure at all. In fact, I feel like it would help the terrorists, because they know that every day busses will be passing on this road at 4:00 AM. What better place to camp out? I never thought much of Egyptian security though.

Abu Simbel itself was kind of disappointing. Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe because we no longer had a tour group, it made it less informative. Maybe because we already saw the awe of Karnak temple that this seemed not as dramatic. I mean don’t get me wrong, these are some big impressive statues. But was it the best place in Egypt, hardly. After walking around with our guide-book, Megan and I found our Australian friends who had just shown up and were also without a tour-group. However, not wanting to through it all again, we just picked out a bench that overlooked Lake Nasser and hung out and waited. We made sure we were the first people back to the bus, so that we wouldn’t get stuck with the crappy middle-seats. This was a successful endeavor, although sleeping on the way back did not prove so successful. It was bouncy, loud, warm, and I think my shoulder is too small of a pillow for Megan’s head.

After getting back to Aswan, we were taken around to the same sites as before. First, the tour-group that we were stuck with went to the High Dam. Not wanting to spend the six pounds to see it again, we got dropped off and bought some cold water instead. We hung around for awhile, and then the bus came back, picked us up, and then we headed off to Philae Temple. Luckily we didn’t have to wait around for the couple hours that the Temple takes, and the bus took us back to the hotel. We got dropped off around 1, walked down past the biggest Mcdonalds I had ever seen and were once again the only people eating lunch at this really nice restaurant along the Nile. We started the walk back, avoiding people who wanted to take us on a Felluca ride or carriage ride. We saw the street cleaners, which consisted of a 30 year old dude who would drive the car, get out and smoke, while the 10 year old kid would actually do the work. Kind of pisses me off.

We got back to the hotel and then headed off on the train to Luxor. This train was much faster, for some unknown reason and we slept or chatted all the way there. Arriving in Luxor, we were picked up again by Walid, who took us back to the hotel. After the enjoyable pre-arranged experience of the Nubian village, we decided to take Walid up on his offer of a romantic dinner, much to the chagrin of Megan. More importantly though, he gave us the option of transportation, either get a cab, or we can get the special deal of the motor-bike. We opted for the motorbike as it was free, but the best part of it was definitely cruising through Luxor as Egyptians and Tourists alike turned their heads as we cruised by. Dinner was delicious, although slightly awkward. If we were trying to go for romantic, it would be have been thrown by the fact that since we were the only people there, we had 4 waiters around us all the time. One guy’s sole job was to replace the tiny candle they had on the table every 30 minutes when it was about to burn out. You would think they would just get a bigger candle, but no. Walid returned, and finally became aware that we were just friends, which clarified things for him a bit. After dinner we took a drive around town, which was incredible, and then headed off to the local bar/lounge thing, where we listened to an Egyptian women sing old-fashioned music. A cute elderly couple danced to it, and Walid asked Megan to dance. Apparently, Walid is not the best dancer, but I give him props for trying. It’s not music that I would ever want to dance to.

Walid would later show us the club which looked nice and fun, but we were simply to exhausted from traveling to want to stay up any later. So we hopped back on the bike and headed to the apartment, where we found another club, that was empty and had people desperately wanting us to stay. However, instead we called it a night and went to bed after a long day.

Day 144

Thursday, June 12^th

After waking up god-awful early, earlier for Megan as she had to change and shower and stuff, we headed down for the breakfast. It turned out this was free and there was much rejoicing. By 7, we were heading out to the train station, only to find out it was delayed and were stuck there for awhile. It ended up that were stuck there about 2 hours. For these two hours we just sat in the heat, thinking about how we could have gotten up later and watched as a guy cleaned the sidewalk with a giant palm branch. Walid and his friend showed up later and joked with me that we had missed our train. I fell for it and got defensive. They would continue to pull my leg for our entire trip.

The Train-ride itself wasn’t all that bad. We got to see a lot of poverty and farmland. It was kind of depressing. It was slow though, and we didn’t get down to Aswan for another 3 hours. We arrived unable to find the representative again. I believe the name we finally saw that was supposed to be me was Allan Walters, or Waters. It was pretty far off. Anyways, we walked over to our hotel got set up and then went to see the Philae Temple and the High Dam. The Aswan High Dam, was interesting for me, due to my research and the environmental effects it has reeked on Egypt. The Philae Temple was definitely the best part, as you have to take a boat to the Island Temple and wander about it for a long-time as a guide speaks in a heavy Arabic accent, which I could understand perfectly fine, but apparently other people had serious trouble with. I guess I can count that as one victory for me, being able to understand heavy Arabic accented English. Great.

However, the real fun in aswan came after the temple, as we went on a nile cruise to a Nubian Village for dinner. On the cruise, the guide picked us up some Stellas and we got to hang out with the Australian gang of tourists who were making their eventual way towards Ireland, where they were going to work for a year. Talk about a random life-plan, but one that I really liked. After having some adorable local river kids cling onto our boat and sing us songs, which we eventually gave small fakka too, we stopped in what kind of looked like a disgusting part of the nile, and jumped in. The Nile was really cold. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold. I mean it wasn’t all that bad, but in Southern Egypt I was expecting the water to be you know, warmer then the Lakes of Idaho. After quickly climbing out, the warm Egyptian wind felt amazing. We then crossed to the other side of the Nile and jumped in again. The Egyptian guides also jumped in with us, stripping down to their boxers and just jumping over board. It was a lot of fun.

We then continued our trek up the nile to the Nubian Village. Although, I question just how authentic the Nubian experience was, as it looked like it was geared for the stereotypical tourist experience, the food and the company was incredible. One of the main attractions was a tiny crocodile. Megan wanted a picture with it, but not to actually touch it, and when she got close, the Egyptian jerked it suddenly to her, making her scream and everyone else laugh. Awesome.

The ride back was relaxing, as it was nighttime and we hung out under the few stars, getting back to our hotel room at around 11, only to have to wake up in about 4 hours.