Goodbye

Tomorrow I fly to Paris where I will meet up with Sarah for a day or so and wait for Ana to get off the plane. Then we are off to the SW of France, maybe a stop in Spain, then to Corsica, maybe Italy, back to France (this time Provence), then up to Paris again, and I am 99 percent sure I am heading over to London for a few days. WHOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO

I don't know if I could be more excited. This trip is meshing together family, friends I have not see for years, food, wine, the ability to wear short dresses and not get called a hooker, and hopefully trash free streets.

I am really trying not to be negative in this post, but I am beyond happy to be done and done with Kenana. I am pretty upset about the way they handled leaving the apartment, my final paycheck, and the end of the year in general. Lucky roommates who left before me and did not have to deal with any of it.

But, happier times are ahead! I return to Cairo in August to look for a new job somewhere in the world.

Leaving

I am done with school. About damn time too.

I leave Cairo on the 22nd. About damn time too.

I need a change.

Obama

If young Egyptians did not like America they might after Obama's recent speech got just about every school shut down for the day. Three day weekend! I stayed home from school and watched the speech in real time at a friend's house.

I won't say to much about the speech, read it, but people here in general were really happy about him and are happier about America now. When your pharmacists interrupts your facewash purchase to let you know you have a pretty great president things could be worse.
I also heard comments during the English news broadcast about how Clinton was dressed far better than Condi. Now we have Clinton was walking around Hussein Mosque nicely veiled and actually looking really intersted. Bravo!

For those of you who have not been to Cairo the shots you might have seen of green traffic free streets and calm city life are so far from reality it makes me laugh. Mubarek put the whole city on lockdown and Obama and Clinton were able to drive from one end of the city and back, seeing ever site you could imagine in about a third of the time it usually takes to get downtown.

The use of Arabic and quotes from the Koran were genius and went a long way to delete the stupidity of the last eight years. As for the rest of it I get the sense the tone and messages were well recieved. I thought it sounded stern, yet understanding. I am sure people wanted to hear more about Israel/Palestine and I hope they will.

In closing never underestimate how much the rest of the world hated and still hates Bush. They do here, but are ready to maybe start American presidents again thanks to Obama.