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.