Friday, Last Day...

In Cairo, and Egypt all together. We have plans to hopefully catch a film at the Cairo International Film Festival though it's hard to figure out which films have translations and where they are all across the city. We might go to Coptic Cairo, hang out with Annika later and just take it easy before we head out of the city at 4 a.m. (kid you not.)

Our night train from Luxor, having decided that the sleeping car wasn't worth it, was a second class Egyptian train... noisy, cold (our door was broken) and smoky, we got just about as much sleep as could be expected. Yesterday we went to the modern Egyptian art museums (great!) and a gallery that had been closed the last time we were there.

Tired of falafal, kushari, mezza, and other Egyptian food and went to a fancy pants restaurant and had things like pasta, burgers and salads. Without a kitchen - it's hard to diversify your menu. How spoiled we are, in so many ways, to have so much access to so many varieties of foo at home...

Off to spend just a little more time with Egypt...

Surprisingly few women, an amazing amount of salt...

There is a small school by our hostel with early morning screaming and excited children's voices filling the air. They are quieted every morning with the Egyptian national anthem and jingle bells - I kid you not - Jingle Bells. It's a beautiful sunny, dusty day in Luxor. Our only real "plans" are to take a felucca ride on the Nile later this afternoon... we leave tonight for Cairo - on the night train - 2nd class. I have a feeling it will be so much better (and cheaper) than the touted Sleeper Train where you really don't sleep one bit.

Last night, before we went to bed, we were chatting about some of the things we found amazing about Egypt both likes and dislikes. One of our observations was there were just an amazing shortage of women - anywhere. We know they're out there. This isn't like Asia where there are fewer women because baby boys are valued so much more. There just aren't that many women in the streets, at the markets, banks, restaurants, etc. They're not in the public workforce. In Western Africa, women ARE the market, restaurants, shops, banks, etc. They're everywhere and so are all of their children. Their men drink tea and chat while they work the farms, schools, everything. The men still partake in plenty of idle chat, smoking shesha and drinking tea but really, really, where are all of the women....

One thing there is plenty of though, is SALT. I had a great dinner last night and went to scoop some vegetables in my mouth - and they were so salty. With each meal, we have at least one thing that we call the "salt lick" - it might be the fried eggs, the tahina salad, shoot the regular salad will have salt on it. So much salt. And for someone who doesn't like salt, it's quite a jarring experience...

Too few women. Too much salt.

This place is full of shit....

is what Kelly Rae said upon entering Temple Karnak yesterday - and truly it's full - of temples, monuments, blocks, pharaohs, statues of all kinds - and tourists. Tons of tourists. Luxor, famous for all things old, dead and amazing in Egypt, is full of tourists - like any town anywhere and you'll get hassled for any and everything.

Today we took a guide to the West Bank to visit tombs of kings and queens. I had been to the Valley of the Kings and Queens before but I had been a recent Peace Corps volunteer and couldn't afford a guide. This time around, we went with a group from our hostel. It's amazing to relearn some of this history about Ramses, Hatsheput and others. (So far it has been the highlight of our trip to Luxor- this tour.)

Of course I have a million other things to write about like the view of the Nile from our rooftop balcony of our hostel, the less than comfortable ride on the "sleeping car" from Cairo, our near death experience taxi ride complete with the worst music in the work (a very remorseful readings of the Koran - oh Allah - it was painful), smoking shesha (hooka) and drinking Turkish coffee, haggling for every single thing (I was so much better at it years ago), eating our way thru Alexandra (which is where we were for the weekend), walking along the Mediterranean, blue skis, rivers, and oceans, dust, dust and more dust- sunrises on the Nile and being awoken at 5 a.m. to the Call to Prayer.

A late night train tomorrow takes us back to Cairo...and if I'm lucky I'll find my misplaced glasses and write more from Luxor before I go...

Relaxing...

So yesterday, Thanksgiving, turned out to be a very typical Thanksgiving Day in that we relaxed all morning (went to art galleries, had Egyptian pizza for lunch) and then headed over to Annika's friend's fabulous apartment (by all standards) for Thanksgiving dinner where we baked pies, made gravey and waited for guests to arrive.... of course like most of my Thanksgivings, dinner was 2 hours late and I am not sure I've ever seen a mad frenzy take to the turkey like I did yesterday. It was crazy - but delicious. We had a hard time finding the ticket station for the trains last night (because nothing is ever easy in Africa and Annika doesn't always explain things completely - as being local you forget that your guests are local too.) Lara and I, who shared a lunch pizza ended up with the same bug and we were just glad to get to bed.

Today starts the weekend (Sabbath) and we're heading up to the very historic Alexandria for seafood, more relaxing and some history. It should be a very nice weekend indeed.

Two Egypts

So far our trip as been divided up into two Egypts - like the money here where one side has a pharaohnic scene and the other side a mosque - our trip has been divided into touristic Egypt and local Egypt. Yesterday we had an incredible trip to various pyramids scatter outside of Cairo. We left the hostel around 9 a.m. to find the driver we hired yesterday evening to take us around all of the pyramids all day for about $5 an hour. (Though I thought he didn't quite look like the guy we had hired...) We headed to the Step Pyramid first. It was the first one every built - the museum attached to it was incredible and sure enough there were 10 different people trying to sell us a tour, take us around for extra money and they all claimed to be working for the government. We then headed off to the Red Pyramid which was not nearly as large at the Great Pyramids but it was spectular - and there were about 5 people there when we showed up. We climbed down into the pyramid - something like 125 stairs with a few people coming up and not light. I made mention to Kelly, "are you closterphobic?" In which case she remembered that she was and decided to stop her descend - which was wise, because though I am not, I was feeling a bit crowded heading down the narrow ladder/stairwell that lead to the antechamber - which opened up to 20 feet ceilings - and the smell of pnoemunia. It was rather amazing and the climb out into fresh air, rather welcoming.

We looked at the Bent Pyramid (named because the designer had to change it's structure half way up because it became unstable.) We couldn't visit it though it was still incredible too see these two pyramids from the Old Kingdom (5,000 years old). We headed to Giza and the great pyramids - where my language failed me and we didn't end up getting lunch. The Great Pyramids are AMAZING, huge, fascinating and crammed packed with tourists, people trying to sell you camel rides, postcards and other tchotchkes, camel and horse shit and garbage. It's still incredible to look at but I felt this need to clean up the garbage, rope off the pyramids, keep people on paths and quit distroying the land and scereny around them. But they've last 4,000 or so years, I'm sure they've got a few more years left.

It was on our way back to our hostel that it was reveiled that this was not the guy we had hired the night before (I had already figured that out with a few other clues, he wasn't chain smoking, he said his name was something else, eventhough I kept asking him if is name was Ibrahime, and a text from Annika.) I didn't know quite how it was going to turn out since we hadn't negotiated a price before hand (because we had done it last night). In the end I ended up explaining, rather poorly, that he was not the man we had hired and we ended up paying 40 pounds (egyptian) extra for our trip. It was a fantastic day.

Food, naps, Lara getting harassed by one of the local boys who agreed to help her, we headed off to McDonalds (yes, another meeting place) to head way out of town to see "The Axis of Evil Comedy tour". And though the headline comedian is escaping me, it was Amhed Amhed, Eric Kader and a very hilarious and famous comedian who had the entire audience in stitches, making fun the of the "Middle East", Americans and George Bush. I feel like everyone needs a copy of it for Christmas. Another mixed up taxi ride home (we picked up the wrong cab again) we headed out to late night falafel at the local Egyptian fast food joint... phew.

The day before we had done all thing touristic, as 4 with a retired teacher/Peace Corps volunteer who we met in the hostel (love hostel traveling) joined us. The day had been spent going to the famous Egyptian Museum to see more mummified pharaohs and their pets (as well as offerings), jewelry, furniture, foods, and the millions of other things you need in the afterlife. Pharaoh-ed out, we headed to local lunch and off to Islamic Cairo (yes there is a neighborhood called just that) where we got lost (as mentioned) and wore ourselves out looking for the City of the Dead. Annika found us and took us around - touring the neighborhood, drinking tea and smoking shesha (hooka) in a world famous cafe (though it was cheap) where the Hemingway of Egypt had spent many hours writing about this cafe and his beloved city....

And though there is so much more to write, I have to run to the train station to buy our tickets to Luxor tonight - on the midnight train... if we're lucky, we'll get some. We're heading out of Cairo tonight... after Thanksgiving. Two Egypts.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

The Duck is the Bucket, Welcome to Cairo

As we walked out of the Odeon tonight, a hip bar that one of Annika's showed her when she first came to Cairo, I wondered exactly where our hotel was in relation to it... i mumbled under my breath - it's probably right across the street. And sure enough, it was. That was probably the only "easy" part of a rather long but very fun day.

We got up, after waking up often thru the night as it was the first time we had had more than 3 hours of sleep consecutively.

Back tracking, we left Seattle at noon on Saturday after a long, dancing, costuming night at Rat City Rollergirls' Derby Prom. (I mean we were packed - ready to go - why not kick vacation off with a big costume party.) The end results were super fun though a slight bit exhausting and hangover. Our plane took off for a 9 hour flight to Amsterdam... and it went very smoothly at first, with individual movies at each chair, games to play and plenty to keep ourselves entertained. Then fatigue set in and my comment about "Oh gosh this is turbulent..." turned into very turbulent and we rode out 10 very bumpy minutes with white knuckles. We landed in Amsterdam and it was 7 a.m. Sunday morning (with time zone changes) and 32 degrees. Somehow we weren't quite prepared.

Amsterdam is based on a very strong Euro compared to our very weak dollar and we drop $40 in 20 minutes buy train tickets to downtown (we go on the wrong train) and breakfast - which should have been $8 but was more like $18 (making me sad.) Not entirely sure what to do in 32 degree weather in a city where we only had 10 hours, we ran into a sign for the Anne Frank House and got in line. I had forgotten that she was in Holland (via Germany) and it was a very real and humbling way to spend a few hours. We then headed to a pub and grabbed a beer talked about our trip with fatigue set in. We had been awake for a long time at this point. We left to get some fresh air and there were, I kid you not, thousands of people it the streets. It turns out some festival was just letting out - and i know there was something cultural going on that I just didn't get but there were all of these characters, somehow related to St. Nick, that were essentially jesters dressed in 'black face' - curly hair wigs, painted faces, gloves and these bright jester costumes. It was so weird and some of the kids who were watching and being carted around by their parents were dressed like them too... (but before i freak out on the Dutch, I need to look it up and try and figure out what the heck that was). We headed back to the airport too tired for words and slept on a some "comfy chairs" mean just for that. A passenger on our flight, actually in the seat in front of me, was injured when a man dropped a laptop on his head (!) sending him in to a seizure (!), then the door on the plane broke. We sat on the plane for two hours before we were unloaded and reloaded - 5 hours later than expected arriving in Egypt early Monday morning.

We made it to our hostel, called Annika and promptly went to sleep in our first attempt to get more than 3 hours of sleep in 48 hours! Annika met us a Hardee's (yes, you heard me right) by the American University in Cairo. We left there and ate some kushari (local dish) and headed to her neighborhood where she had Arabic classes. We sat at the Starbucks of Cairo and sipped a coffee (Annika sent us there to kill time) before we headed off to her apartment, for chatter and back out the door for fool - a local bean dish that I didn't like the first time I tried it but enjoyed it so much more this time. Back to the hostel and to bed before we tried to conquer the Egyptian Museum today.

Which we did. And there is so much to write about - more stories about getting lost, meeting young students who want to take your picture, going to the very top of a mosque and overlooking the city at night, drinking fresh pomegranate juice, smoking a hooka and drinking Turkish coffee, buying a camel snow globe for a friend at home (because it just cracks me up) and the beginnings of all of that and the million of things that make Cairo so interesting and fun.

But I've been walking all day and need to save these stories for tomorrow...

Photos from the wedding....

Click below... beautiful friends at their beautiful wedding

http://www.flickr.com/photos/67749380@N00/sets/72157603136676001

:)

Locals, Friends and the perfect vacation...

Friday, in Honolulu, started with coconut yogurt and an 8 mile hike to Diamond Head (in flip flops, an extremely bad idea), lunch at a local taco place (complete with macaroni salad and rice) and back to our hotel for a quick nap. We got ready for the wedding, showered up and slipped on nice but casual clothes. With the bride and her family, Shannon, Lyman and I headed off to the beach for the ceremony. The waves were magnificent and drowned out the vows, we snapped pictures of each other and the lovely couple (plus a mongoose) and headed to the oldest hotel in Honolulu for a beautiful sunset and reception. The night ended with a toast at midnight and a bunch of pumpkins happily turning in.

Saturday, Shannon and I headed to the beach and waited for the new couple to pick us up. We headed to a fish sanctuary, snorkeling and hanging outwith the sun. It was a wonderful excuse to be in Hawai'i with such good friends. An expensive dinner at one of the most famous restauarants on the island (the Michael Simon of Cleveland, the Tom Douglas of Seattle), more drinks, more good times.

Today, Sunday, my last day in paradise was hanging out at the beach in the morning, buying some tchotches and postcards for friends, then running to the "North Shore" (after we had just found the perfect beach spot) with a local guy (James, the groom) for some of the best shaved ice on the island, private beaches, roadside Thai, and back to the city to grab one more glimpse of the evening with Kermit, the green raft, that Shannon and I had bought at one of the 49 ABC stores on the island.

I head back to Seattle with as much vitamin D as I could possible get, having tasted everything coconut as possible. A red eye will have to carry me through the day and into practice in the evening having spent a few days on one of the best places on Earth for one of the best reasons.

ps - this was wedding 22nd... I forget Rebecca & Rich's wedding - which was small but fabulous.

Beautiful...

I few into to Hawaii and it was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful - clouds covering the mountains, sparkly blue water, green everywhere. I couldn't imagine why James, who had grown up here, would ever want to leave (found out why later.) They picked me up at the airport and off we went to a historic battle scene, over to the "punch bowl" and US Military cemetery, to one of the best shaved ice places in the city (that only a local would know) and then to the "city beach". I was exhausted, excited and couldn't believe I was in Hawaii! It was gorgeous, stunning, and simply beautiful.

I got a bit of a "no friend" burn (meaning I had "no friends" to make sure I was properly covered with sunscreen) in a matter of an hour, showered, had a few drinks by the ocean, walked around, ate sushi and hung out with my old Cleveland friends and read Dan Savage's book (Stranger editor) while sitting outside on the balcony. Tomorrow, a hike awaits early in the morning, a beautiful and intimate wedding in the afternoon and more adventures on Saturday.

Can I say beautiful and stunning... again?

Better footprints...

There are plenty of sites that tell you how your lifestyle impacts the planet and essentially what you "ecological footprint" is. I went to this website http://www.earthday.net/Footprint/index.asp and tried it out. It turns out that some things I scored really well on but others weren't as good. (My score meant that we needed two planets to sustain my lifestyle! And it was low!) So with that in mind, I rolled out of bed on Sunday, having caught up on some seriously needed sleep and headed to Sunday Ballard Farmers' Market to try and improve our apartment (household) score by buying more locally. We managed to purchase half of our groceries for the week from the farmers market (all local). I've also, proudly, been able to say I've taken the bus a heck of a lot more lately (can attribute some of that to gas and the fact that I need my brakes replaced.)

Better footprints... gotta keep working on that - we all have to keep working on it.

My favorite pasttime...

Actually isn't derby - it's weddings. Seriously. I probably go to more weddings than I ever imagined I would. I've thrown bachealor parties, hosted showers, held hands, helped pick registries, dried tears, cried some myself. I LOVE weddings. They're two of my favorite things -cake and dancing. They're love and idealism. They're promise and hope. They're good friend marrying their other good friends. (They're pretty damn expensive.) And I've been happy to play a role in so many of them!

This week I head off to James and Heather's wedding in Hawaii (where James grew up.) Tough I know. However, I think this like wedding #21 or something - seriously. So just for fun, I played a memoryl game and went thru them...


Deb & Mike - I was a guest and spent a lot of time comforting the bride who had planned a wedding on December 31st in Iowa. Can we all say blizzard.

Christophe & Michele - guest - in Dababakala, Cote d'Ivoire -the French guy married the Salad lady. It would happen again. She was beautiful - he was stubborn. They were a perfect couple and though the wedding was cursed with bad magic, they're still together almost 10 years later.

Salimata & Bakery - guest - in Kaffardougou, Cote d'Ivoire - they had been together for years, had two childen but didn't have the money until later for the wedding. I spent the night in a socery ridden village, where the bride might have possibly been cursed but it was a good time.

Jen & Joel - bridesmaid - I was back from the Peace Corps all of two weeks. Her original bridesmaid turned into bridesmaidzilla... I came to the rescue and drink way too much having been my first exposure to hard alcohol in 2 years. Opps.

Kathy & Don - maid of honor - my best childhood friend got married! I gave a speed (when I wasn't scheduled) that made people cry, including me. It was a great time, including dancing with red devil horns.

Denise & Tom - guest - my other childhood friend gets married. A very creative wedding and was a great time - in Chicago.


Mimi & ? - guest - honestly, all I can remember from this wedding is that the bestman's toast was all about himself. Oy.

Jeremie & Fatou - guest - I went back to Cote d'Ivoire with my site partner from the Peace Corps less than a year after having left. I played hostess to the groom's French family, chased fermes (fire ants) out of the house with soap (caustic), took care of my sitepartner who go malaria and got stuck in Morocco for a week becase of September 11th.

Mark & Margie - sister - I didn't play a role in this wedding. It was a nice wedding but my mother broke her hip at the reception. Oy. That was terrible.

Robin & Marc - guest - they had a cermony for their 30th year anniversary. Marc told the "clueless bus story" which I had told him on the stairs at Susan's party (basically talking about the level of cluessness of men from passangers on the bus who can hop on and off, to drivers who think they have a clue and drive with pride... up to CEOs of Cluelessness.) It was a wonderful cermony. They're a couple I aspire to be like.


Susan & Christian - jack of all trades - I ended up helping set up for the wedding having arrived early and found a friend completely overwhelmed. Great vows, beautiful music.

Stephanie & Jonah - guest, wedding savior - She was the daughter of my supervisor. They had forgotten the veil for the Jewish ceremony and me and the medical director (also a guest) drove like bats out of hell to the house and back in a blink of an eye. We made record time and no one noticed that the bride was ever without her veil. It was a very, very fun wedding.


Katie & Clark - guest - they had a private cermony and a very fun reception at one of my favorite bars. She was a former Peace Corps volunteer and a friend of a friend with who I never felt like I spend enough time.

Holly & Martin - guest - they got married in Florida and had a party back in Cleveland. Super fun - I made myself the tour guide on the bus that took all the guest to the side - holy crap -too much fun. Really. The party was a great time too!

Shannon & Lyman - bridesmaid - one of my favorite weedings. I had a reading I didn't know about until the rehearsal dinner. They were the most inlove couple ever. They were my roommaters, they are two of my favorite people.

Megan & Jarett - bridesmaid - my site partner in the Peace Corps. We had been through more than most sisters had and were like sisters (in all the positive and negative ways.) Their wedding was beautiful with many, many touches of West Africa where they had met each other - plus great contra dancing the night before. Wonderful.

Deb & Mike - guest, wedding savior - She's a wonderful artist friend whose "minister" had baled at the last minute. My friend Meredith hooked me up with another minister who could help them out as well as a musician. It was a super fun wedding with people I had met at other events. It felt like I was sewn into the Cleveland art scene fabric.

Heidi & John - maid of honor - truly my best friend. It was an honor to be a part of the ceremony and super fun. I was so happy for her, in all of this ornate India and American ceremonies, she managed to just shine.

Meredith and Scott - guest - Meredith was my early morning walker and art opening pal in Cleveland. (Her brother is Martin.) She is so creative and brilliant. Her wedding invitation requested that everyone where black or white to their wedding. Funny how I missed that part and showed up in brown. Lyman did too - but he did it on purpose.

Jenny & Ethan - guest - a BEAUTIFUL Christmas time wedding with a great band, theatre (and some) derby people. A great time dancing to the live band. A very wonderful couple.

Claudia & Justin - guest - took me to Mexico for the first time, this year. I was probably the most glamerous and beautiful wedding ever. It was magical and it was a great reason to travel to Mexico - to see two of my favorite people get married.

I'm sure there are a couple I have forgotten but I think I have most of them. And I'm sure they'll keep going... and I'll be glad to be a part of each and every one.