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.