Pomp and Osiris

I ate kosharee for the first time ever today -- twice. Kosharee is a tasty Egyptian dish that's a mixture of macaroni noodles, rice, lentils, tomatoes, onions, chick peas and olive oil with lots of spices. My parent's cleaning lady (it seems all the expats in Egypt have them) Azza came to work today with the kosharee she had promised to make for me the last time she came and it was delicious. Absolutely yummy breakfast. It was also my dinner.

My mother hosted a going away party for her friend Cheril, a Reading Pennsylvania native that's lived in Cairo for seventeen years. It seems that people come and go a lot in the expat community. Seventeen years is unheard of. I'm not sure about the specific details, but Cheril's husband was transfered back to Reading and they have a month to pack everything up, buy all the things you can only get in Egypt and say goodbye. Anyway, the ladies that work at CSA, (which stands for Community Service Association) a non-profit organization that provides resources for expats in Cairo, threw her the party and for food, they ordered kosharee and falafel and eggplant and once again, yum!

I like Cheril a lot and I'm sad to see her go, as she seemed like a good person and a good friend for my mother. Fortunately, before she goes, we've made plans to go to the Marriott Nile River Cruise (or whatever it's called) with food, bellydancers and all! And better still, her daughter graduates from High School tomorrow and the ceremony will be at the Giza pyramids. I can't wait! It's at 8 in the morning and I'm not a morning person, but this I have got to see. My first trip to the pyramids will be for high school graduation. It's going to be the most surreal thing I've ever seen. These people are so lucky and they don't even know it! Stay tuned for pictures!

No Use Crying Over Missed Connections

So, my mom's birthday (a big one that she'd kill me if I disclosed) is on July 13 and to celebrate, my sister Tara and her fiance Justin are coming to Cairo. They were booking their flight this morning (Cairo time) and this reminded me of one more thing that I should have done, but didn't. I should have made sure that I had more than 50 minutes between connections. The plane that was supposed to be my connecting flight from Minneapolis to Amsterdam left at exactly the time when the flight I took from Austin finally landed late in Minneapolis. The exact same time. I realize that a few hundred other people missed their connections due to forces out of all of our control, but still, if I'd had more than 50 minutes, I would have made it. And the thing is, after I realized that I had such a short layover (which was a few weeks before my flight), I knew this might happen.

I mean, this particular missed flight was caused by a storm, but really, flights run late pretty damn often enough. It's not uncommon for a flight to take off 30 minutes late. Sometimes they make up the time in the air, but if there are delays at the airport they're flying into, it really doesn't matter. And 50 minutes is nothing anyway. Once you land, taxi through the runway, get to the arrival gate and actually get out of the plane, you've got 35 minutes max. If you're on time in the first place. And what if you forgot to get something. Like, say, gum...

So, anyway, I have decided to file this away in the airplane tab hanging in the travel planning filing cabinet in my head (yeah, I said it...): An hour and a half to two hours minimum for all flight connections. And that's it. Otherwise, sooner or later, I'll end up back at the Ramada Inn Mall of America in Minneapolis for the so-called "reduced rate" of $69 ($80 with tax) with nothing but a Sky Team T-shirt to sleep in, a travel toothbrush and some weird travel deodorant that came in the overnight kit I had to charm a Northwest Airlines employee into giving me. And as much of an adventure as it was; I'm good with the one experience I had. So there it is, nothing really big to bitch about, just something else one would think that my travel agent should have thought about. Maybe he did and that was the best option there was. But, oh well, I got here. Only an entire day late without one of my suitcases. But that's another story...

Travel Agents and Aisle Seats

I made it to Cairo a few days ago and despite jet lag and a cold I'm fighting (which may account for this not being too pretty) here are some things I've managed to learn about flying: Travel agents are great; they can help you find tickets in the confusion of all the ticket craziness and can also answer general questions about travel insurance ( which i opted not to get) and help you with layovers (I chose to stay over in amsterdam -- where I needed to change planes anyway -- for 5 days on my way back.). Still, if you're going to book a ticket with a travel agent, you might not actually get the best fare. (They've got to make their money somehow, I guess. ) Also, you should make sure they let you select your seats while they're booking your flight. I did not insist on this, actually forgot all about it, and by the time I remembered to go online to reserve a seat, most of the good ones were taken. Of course, if you book your ticket well in advance, you might not be able to pick your seat anyway because you can only do it 90 days in advance (I'm pretty sure and I'll check on this to make sure later).

Given all of the questions and requests I had: I wanted to stop over somewhere on my way back from Cairo for a while, I wanted to find out about Travel Insurance (I'll get back to you about that later), I had a limited budget, and I was running out of time -- I would use the travel agent again. Now that I know a little bit more about what I'm doing, though, I would go to kayak.com. Now, I don't think the travel agent was a bad thing. I liked mine. (Tim Goddard from FlightcentreUSA in Redondo Beach, California...) It's always good to have a person you can call and arrange things for you that speaks your language and might have access to more resources than you do. I'm aways a fan of making relationships with people in this way (as anti-social as i can be sometimes) because in a jam it's the person and not the internet that'll help you out. But I would at least check out kayak.com to see their prices and then call the travel agent and compare, even see if you can talk them down.

I also learned that while the window seat is great for leaning on when trying to sleep, that the aisle is actually a better choice. Now, I'm 5 foot nothing and generally, a pretty small girl, but even I was cramped in the window seat on the plane to minneapolis. I'm a constant fidgeter, so my theory has always been to lean into the window to give me more fidget room, but on a 7 hour flight, no amount of fidgeting will help. What does help is frequent trips to the bathroom and not feeling stuck because you can't move for fear of elbowing your neighbor. Anti-perspirant and chewing gum help even more ( I forgot the gum).

Originally, I had selected window seats across the board for my entire trip, but as the gods would have it, I missed my connection in minneapolis/st. paul due to tornado weather (with 100's of others) and was forced to take an aisle seat when my flight was rebooked. Honestly, guys, I'm never going window again!