Re-entry

I feel as if I start many posts with "Yes, I am still here," but I am still in Cairo. I wake up many days and have no idea how two years (more really) went past.  The fact that I have been here for two years was made more apparent and also less obvious when I went home.

Home, Seattle, was an occasion filled event.

Occasion number one, Burning Man. There are many things to be said, I don't think there are any pictures of me so I can't post them and this experience has no doubt changed my life for the better. Absolute inspiration and creativity does not even begin to give justice to what people (horribly normal people and amazingly freaky people) create for this extravaganza. I am still in awe. Ayman and Chrissie could not have been better first time Burn Buddies and if I did not love them for any other reason (which of course I love them for many reasons) those days in the desert would be reason enough to love them forever. Yes, Burning man inspires that sort of love. It is worth it, everyone needs another reason to love something, someplace or something.

I "borrowed" the pictures below from a facebook album Ayman made of various people's photos. I can take no credit.

 The actual layout of the Playa.

I don't know her name, but she was a few stories tall, lit up at night and made me happy to be human.

Occasion number two, Maya's wedding. The first of my best buddies from high school and life in general to get married and she did it right. The ceremony and wedding were filled with tradition, friends, family and crazy Jewish folk dancing. Maya altered her grandmother's wedding dress into something timeless and perfectly Maya (somehow delicate, unique and yet strikingly traditional). I met the groom, Ben, for the first time and was impressed in many ways. All of the ladies showed up, traveling from Paris, SF and Portland.

 Quill, me, Becca and Caitlin.

 Nan, Becca, Besty, me, Caitlin, Sarah and Emily waiting for the ceremony to start outside the newly remodeled Husky boat house.

Occasion number three, Ana was in town. Sister time is always a good time. Family times are also good times.

Occasions four and five, September family birthdays. I was not around for the actual date of my dad's b-day but close as I could get. For mom's actual date I was there and she hosted a wonderful ladies only brunch with lots new friends from the new neighborhood (finally got to put some faces to the names) and old friends from all around town. A delicious way to spend what turned out to be a sunny day. Also, later at a Georgetown bar I figured out spicy chai tea tastes amazing when steamed with a little bit of soy milk and enhanced with a generous shot of dark rum. If it was ever winter in Cairo it would be my drink of choice.

The trip home was also incredibly stressful. Lots of travel time in planes and airports, I got sick and I realized just how absent I have been from America. Expired driver's license, not able to get a doctors appointment, dentist check ins, forgotten street names and  lots of new buildings. I have also grown used to how hard simple things are to get done (for me) in Cairo and this attitude transferred to America. Where, things can be hard to get done but ultimately I know how to do them in my native country and I should have calmed down and relaxed. Lesson learned.

The return to Cairo was rough. I got a bad head cold and had I hoped my time in Seattle would shed light on where I really want to be at this moment, it did not shed much light at all.  I did find out Seattle can still be a new city for me. My friends there have managed to discover  unknown aspects of the city and get involved in different things. Their actions have assuaged my fear about going back to Seattle and finding it to be the same as it was for the first 22 years of my life or not as exciting.

A couple weeks after landing life is smoothing out and Cairo, as ever, is proving to be an amazing host. Just when you think the whole country is silly a tiny phone call proves you wrong, you meet someone who blows all expectations out of the water or a good conversation reminds you are really just having a bad day and your mood has very little to do with Egypt.

The best news is that Anastasia is coming to visit. More words of excitement to come about this later, Boom! Wham! Whoo Hoo! Awesome! Those are all I got for now.

Trip to Alexandria with the pros

Katie and Paul's friend Nate came to visit this past month and we all used him as an excuse to visit Alexandria one more time. Katie and Paul are Alex pros, having gone by themselves and with Katie's parents. We did not even need a guide book. The four of us found a pretty nice hotel room, tall ceilings and pink walls, at a very decent price. We also found the Mermaid bar with cheap Stellas. The Mermaid gave us a blackout for a little less than an hour and we got to drink our beers by candle light overlooking the Med Sea while Nate played a guitar that our waiter brought out for no reason. Mainly we walked around and just gazed at the sea and the general craziness of a different Egyptian town. We were there for a weekend and had a wonderful time, yeah Alex.

Big girls need love too, so do Panda Big Girls

If I ever have kids they will never be allowed to go to this amusement part because they will die. Either from the goats everywhere or from the crapptastic rides. Or maybe they will get shot by other kids playing shooting games. I do love Egypt though, do love it.

What Disney princesses are really like

The bay

Alexandria is home to a legitimate wooden ship yard, a very lost art. These small boats are everywhere in the bay and used for fishing, but they also make huge yacht. I did not think people made yacht likes the one below out of wood, figured they were all fiberglass. Who needs modern technology though when you have epic craftsmanship.

Just a small part of the fish market we walked past. Fish basket market really.

The bay again

We of course had to check out the library. These are some shots from the inside, I should have outside shots in an older post from my first trip to Alexandria.



Fabulous books being sold outside of the library. These two were right next to several translations of Mein Kampf, by Hitler. Ironic?

HAHAHAHAHA

Nuweiba

Nuweiba, Kum Kum (pronounced koom koom), and Sinai are all words that should arouse various images of paradise and feelings of contentment in the reader.

In the Sinai there is a small town called Nuweiba, about 10 minutes north of this town is a small beach camp named Kum Kum 3. I think this translates into roughly three pots of tea, something Hebrew in origin I am told. Either way the tea is delicious, the food was fresh, the huts have sea views, the sun was bright and I did not get burned, and I read two books.

The camp at dawn when we arrived

The Boys

Shahira, outside of my hut.

Camel eating trash out of the dumpster in the actual town of Nuweiba.

The main eating/seating area.

The Kum Kum at sunset

Shahira, Nigel, Rames and I arrived early, like 4am early, on Thursday. I stayed until Monday night, getting back to Cairo technically Tuesday morning.

I wish there were lots of stories to tell, but the beauty of the vacation really is the lack of crazy stories. I laid out in the sun, read the fourth Twilight book (awesome!), started reading “In the Name of the Rose,” and the Hemingway novel about bullfights in Spain, chatted with other visitors, ate salad and rice, drank sweet tea, got in the water, got out of the water, showered, slept under a mosquito net (after I got eaten alive the first night), went on a short jaunt to town where Ibought some mad comfy pants which I wore all weekend, said goodbye to other visitors, said hello to new ones, and napped.

Perfect.

Now I am back in Cairo. It really is spring and getting hot. The seniors have senioritis, it a global affliction, and I have six more weeks of class, one week of revision, and then exams. Looking forward to a short trip to Siwai and maybe some weekend beaches. Otherwise I have spent my vacation budget for April, maybe my food budget too. You know, if I can’t afford to eat I will at least look better in a swimsuit, hahaha.

Underwater fun!

Spring break has arrived! Praise the high heavens, whoever is up there knows I was sick of teaching. The best thing about Egypt is the Red Sea, where there are hundreds of glorious dive sites for underwater friends to play in. I headed up to Dahab again and this time got in the water long enough to get my advanced diver certification. Woot woot, now I can go deep!

Dancing with my instructor Mahsen at the end of my last dive in the Blue Hole.

I believe this is Els Bells, the three sided tunnel. You descend 26 meters in order get to the around 250 meter coral wall, which stays on your right side until it leads you to the Blue Hole's entrance at 7 meters. The Blue Holes goes down over 100 meters and the only sea entrances are at 7 meters and I think 80 meters. Dangerous dive because people go down to far to the bottom entrance, where you have to travel through a 20 meter tunnel to get out to sea. Many things can go wrong on the tunnel. Nothing went wrong when I was there and it is pretty awesome to look down and see nothing but an aptly named blue hole. There were even people practicing free diving while we were there, that is some crazy stuff.

Paul, Kaite and Sarah. Epic snorkelers at the Blue Hole, Dahab.

My favorite giant clams, they remind me of the Little Mermaid. Underwater really does look just like Little Mermaid illustrations.

Underwater awesomeness.

First dive of the advanced course, out of five required.

Liefke and Alex visit... Dahab

In an effort to show Liefke and Alex a non-polluted side of Egypt my two favorites joined diving buddy Hesham, Christina and I for a three night jaunt to Dahab. Located on the Eastern coast of the Sinai Peninsula Dahab is a diving and hippy haven. The beach town also offers easy access to Mt. Sinai, St. Catherine's Monastery and other Sinai desert activities.

No diving took place but Liefke did snorkel for the first time! I was a total weenie and did not even get in the water because I was cold. I am always cold in Egypt, how weird is that? Mainly we woke up late, strolled along the boardwalk and ate at the most amazing rotisserie chicken place ever, King Chicken!

The largest activity was a midnight hike up Mt. Sinai to watch the sunrise. We left the hotel at 11pm, drove about two hours to the mountain. Started hiking in the pitch black, walked for about three hours, stopped about every fifteen minutes at a tea/coffee/cookie shack, did not eat or drink any tea/coffee/cookies, avoided lines of camels coming down the mountain, avoided people who really wanted to rent you camels, got to the top around 4am, froze until the sun started to rise around 6:30am and finally watched an epic sunrise wrapped in a mountain smelling blanket at a very special outcropping a 10 year-old Bedouin boy showed us. If you had to ask I feel more spiritual in the morning, even when I am that cold.

Hesham, at a road side stop on the way to Dahab.

Normally the cats in Cairo are flea ridden, covered in poo and I am convinced they carry herpes. All the little kitties in Dahab were relatively clean, liked people and there was only one kitten covered in poo, not this one.

Sarah Liefke soaking up the beach rays.

Part of the sitting area at the Funny Mummy, the restaurant attached to our hotel. Yes the water you see there is the Red Sea and yes Saudia Arabia is just across the pond.

Christina, another AIESEC intern and fellow traveler. You may remember her from such adventures as "Faye Goes to Alexandria for the First Time" and "Faye Caravans in the White Dessert." Now she is back in Long Island, so sad.

Alex, who only took really serious photos the whole time. He is a rather serious person.

The Dahab boardwalk/coastline. Pretty much the whole town is stretched out along the water. Tourist shops, cafes and small beaches line either side of a boardwalk. From where this picture was taken there is excellent diving and snorkeling.

Same view, different time.

I decided to tell the servers that it was Liefke's birthday. They made her dance and eat weird chocolate bread, good times.

The hike up to Mt Sinai was dark so my only pictures are from the way down. This is a small house/shed we passed after walking down 3,000 stone stairs. My calves killed me for about three days.

View from the top of Mt. Sinai. So good to see some mountains.

Going down 3,000 stone stairs.

More stone stairs.

Apparently when there was a real life clergy at St. Catherine's Monastery (home of the ever so famous burning bush) they grew all their food in this terrace.

The super rad hikers who braved cold weather, late nights, early mornings, vicious camels and even more vicious camel dealers who really wanted you to rent a camel.

Vicious camels.

The North Coast

The North Coast of Egypt shares the Mediterranean Sea with Europe and the rest of North Africa, but many of you know that. A few days into my trip and I pack into a car with Ezz, Nour, Emily (another Canadian who met all these guys somehow) and Moussad (a fellow AIESEC guy and super nice). We actually leave the house before ten am, first time for me, pick up Emily and then Moussad and hit the road north.

We head to PORTO MARINA.
(About three hours north and then 40 or so miles west of Alexandria)


PORTO MARINA

All along the coast line large private condo/villa units have sprung up. Egypt's rich go there to be rich and put gates around the shoreline. Inside the gated areas known as Marina 1, 2, 3 etc there are houses, condos, flowers, not very many Europeans, and a shocking number of fast food restaurants. So much KFC! The largest of all of them is PORTO MARINA, shopping, strolling, shishsha'ing and yachting. A tad bit ostentatious if you ask me.

The Beach
We sat somewhere off to the right

Emily, Mousaad and Faye

Not really my scene. People drive everywhere, kids out to show other kids how hip they are, but the water was gorgeous. We stayed for most of the day and night and then drove back to Cairo, salty, tired and sort of tan.

All in all a more than worthy day trip.