Made it to the USA Thursday

After over 24 hours of travel, I finally made it to the states yesterday evening. I'd been awake all day in Cairo, then up all night to catch my flight at 3am, then flying all day on three different flights to make it to Washington DC. The flight from Abu Dhabi to New York was 14 hours long, and I was really dreading it, but it turned out to not be so bad. The plane was over half empty, so I got three seats to myself. I shared them with an older Indian guy, but was able to lay down to sleep for a couple of long stretches. It really helped the flight go quicker, and I wasn't as exhausted as I could have been.

When I got to JFK airport in New York, I had to go through customs and all that jazz, then recheck in to catch my domestic flight. Made it through customs and immigration just fine, but the security stuff here is intense! I almost go turned away from a security check because my boarding pass only included my first initial and not my full name, but they let me through. Then I had to take off anything I was wearing that was metal and go through an xray machine! Yeah, they actually xray every single passenger. I was getting pretty fed up withthe airport by this time, so I was happy when I made it to my gate and could just wait for my connection. The flight from New York to Baltimore was well under an hour long, and the plane was tiny! The whatever you call an air hostesses it's a man only just had time to give everyone a drink before we were already landing.

At the airport I got my bag, got picked up, and here I am! I spent the day napping, reading, and exploring the area of the city I'm in. I was out walking for a while, and despite getting lost, must have looked like I knew where I was going because two people asked me for directions. Obviously, I couldn't help them. It's quite cold outside, but there isn't any snow. I was walking quite quickly, so stayed fairly warm, though. There wasn't anything really hugely different that I could see about America, other than its heaps more multicultural than NZ, both in terms of the people out on the street and the shops and restaurants. Might go try a restaurant tonight :)

Ok, that is all for today. I've been very tired and sore from all the flying yesterday. Hopefully I can get a good nights sleep tonight and do some proper sight seeing tomorrow.

Oh! And I nearly forgot! Suwon university offered me the job! I have over the weekend to get back to them. Awesome!

Job interview Tuesday

I just had an hour long job interview with Suwon University. I have no idea how well it went. I had prepared a full sheet of answers to common interview questions, but they asked me some really bizarre stuff. Well, the first guy did, and then the senior lady asked me regular stuff about my work history and teaching philosophy and whatnot. I think the first guy was trying to test my creative thinking and ability to deal with random stuff. His questions included things like "blue or red?"; "choose 5 CDs"; " are you a dandelion or an oak tree in terms of flexibility?"; and "would Ghandi make a good software engineer?". The last one was my favourite. It made for quite a fun interview. Interestingly, before we started, the guy was telling me not to worry and not to be nervous. I hadn't even thought to be nervous, he said it and I was thinking "oh yeah, some people do get nervous, don't they?". It hadn't even occurred to me.

Anyway, the job sounds really great, and I'll probably take it if they offer, but won't sweat it if they don't.

In other news, today is my last day in Egypt. I'm so excited! I've had enough of it now. Touring was fun, but I wouldn't want to live here. Today's plan includes sleeping, eating, and trying to find somewhere to print my boarding pass so I can check-in electronically for my flights and choose my seats early. Hopefully the hotel has a business center or something where I can print my forms.

That's all. Everything going to plan, my next post will be from America!

It's all over Sunday

The tour of Egypt finished last night and everyone left this morning. As usual, I was the only one not flying out directly after the end of the tour. The beauty of not having a job to go to, I guess. We had a farewell dinner last night, which was nice, and then hung out at the hotel bar until late. The trip was fantastic, but there's no one I'll really miss like on my contiki. 

Yesterday was a busy day, though. We were on the sleeper train in the morning and then went straight from there to the Egypt museum because if we went around lunch time like originally planned the protests might have interrupted our visit. The museum itself was intense. Without a guide you wouldn't know what just about anything was. Its simply packed full of artifacts and not even 10% of them have any information alongside. Our guide, Momo, came with us and talked us through the highlights of the museum. I enjoyed it, and so many of the artifacts are truly minblowing. However, museums are such dead places. Especially the Egyptian one, as most of the artifacts have to do with death, burial, and religion. I feel like I've been on a big tour of death related sites. I prefer living culture, although the old old stuff here in Egypt is amazing. I would have liked this tour, and my last one in Italy, to know more about who lives in the country now and how they live and whatnot. I'm hoping my time in America will change this pace a bit.

Speaking of the US, touch wood, everything is set for me to arrive there late on Wednesday. I've got flights, a visa, and Frank is coming to get me from the airport. I don't have any concrete plans of what to do once I'm there, I'll just see what I feel like.

Ok, that is all for today. Here's my top five things about Egypt:

1) the weather! I love sunshine, and that's pretty much what you get 24/7 here.

2) the food. While I haven't eaten anything truly amazing, it's all been very nice and I've tried a few different things.

3) sailing down the Nile in a felucca. It was a lot of fun and a really good experience.

4) riding in a hot air balloon! I didn't expect it to feel so safe.

5) getting to actually climb and sit on the great pyramid. I didn't think we'd even be allowed to touch them, but we had a lot of freedom to clamber all over. It was really special.

Back on the sleeper train Friday

Thursday was spent recovering from the felucca trip :) I got a room mate for one night in the hotel, but she was nice. We went to two temples in morning, freshened up at the hotel, and then went to see Luxor temple by night. It was very cool to see such a magnificent temple all lit up! It was very beautiful. Then we went for a group dinner at a Egyptian buffet, which was nice, but not amazing.

This morning I had to wake up at 4.30 to go on my hot air balloon ride! It was still dark and pretty cold. The hot air balloons bare so big! They lay them out on the group and slowly inflate them with hot air. Then you get into the basket and they fire up the gas frame thing and you lift off and float away. I was a little bit scared to begin with, and I wasn't sure how well I'd handle the hight and being suspended so high by just some hot air, a balloon, and a basket - but I was totally fine. It was a wonderful experience. The balloon was so stable and quiet, and watching the sun rise over the Nile and seeing all the other balloons in the sky was really awesome. I enjoyed hot air ballooning a lot!

When we landed, we met up with the rest of the group (not everyone went up) and travelled a little ways to the valley of the kings. It's where a whole lot of very intact tombs are, many of which still have all the original art and colours in them. The art is similar to all the rest of the ruins, but being able to see the colours was really special. We got access to three tombs, and all the ones I saw were gorgeous. I liked the paintings of birds the best.

After that we went to the temple of a the only female phaero. It was not very interesting. So, we left and had a yummy group lunch at a local Egyptian restaurant. After lunch it was time for the last temple of the tour. We were all kind of breathing a sigh of relief about that. We sure have seen a lotion temples. This one was pretty great, though. It's the biggest temple in the world, apparently. Covering 45 acres of land! We only saw part of it, but it was pretty intact and very interesting. I enjoyed that one.

Then it was time to go back to the hotel to freshen up for our overnight train trip. We ended up in our tour guides room eating McDonald's :) the group has really improved over the last couple Mondays, and is a lot of fun now. So, now I'm on the sleeper train, with a cabin oneself again. Time to go to bed and retreads forth last day of the tour tomorrow.

Two days on a felucca Wednesday

It's Wednesday night and I've spent the past day and a half on a boat on the river Nile! It's been mostly uneventful, not really much to report. It's been super relaxed and amazingly beautiful. The boat is basically one big bed with pillows mad blankets, and the roof is solid so you can go up there and sunbathe or whatever. I've had a lot of sun today! The crew has been cooking for us, and we've had some really nice food. I'll be glad to get off tomorrow and shower and use a toilet, but this has been really fun!

After I wrote the above paragraph, the felucca trip got even better! We docked for the night on a small beach and after dinner the Cree of our Noah made a small bonfire. Our whole group went and joined them and they played us some traditional songs using a couple of drums they'd brought with them. It was a lot of fun!

Now I'm off the felucca and in the hotel in Luxor. It's very nice! Tonight we've got a night tour of Luxor temple and dinner. Tomorrow is the hot airballoon, some sight seeing, and then sleeper train overnight to Cairo. I'm trying to book a hotel in Cairo for two extra nights, but the one I tried originally hasn't gotten back to me. I'll try them again in the morning.

Shisha Monday

Sleeping on the trains last night went really well. I did end up having the compartment to myself, so I got a pretty relaxed and uninterrupted sleep. We got into Aswan by around 12pm, so 15 hours on the train. We transferred to our hotel, freshener up, I used the internet briefly, and then it was off to see the Aswan dam mad the huge man made lake behind it. It's very big! It has enough water in it to supply 80 million people for 20 Yeats, apparently. It wasn't very exciting, though, just a dam and a lake. Dams kind of freak me out, so I was happy to leave. Then we caught a small boat to a tiny island with a temple on it. The temple used to be just off the island, but when they built the dam, it went underwater, so they relocated it after about 60 years. It was from the Greek and Roman times, and covered in carvings and hieroglyphs. We were there while the sun was setting, and it was beautiful!

Then we came back to the hotel quickly, and then went for a short walk around the spice market across the road. It had a lot of amazing smelling spices! But nothing I wanted to buy. Then we caught a boat to an island in the Nile... oh, I forgot to mention the hotel is right on the edge of the Nile, its gorgeous! Anyway, we went to an island with a Nubian restaurant on it. Nubians are the native people of the area. We had a selection of Egyptian salad type things, rice with cinnamon, and beef tagine for dinner. It was very nice!

Then we caught the boat back and our tour guide organised a van for some of us to go to a traditional coffee shop. Nearly everyone went, and the guide paid for the whole thing himself, even the coffee shop! At the coffee shop, which was an old Nubian house on top of a hill with sand floors, I had a mint tea and tried smoking the shisha. There were four flavours, but they all tasted the same to me, just sort of sweet. Having never smoked anything before in my life, I have nothing to compare it to. It wasn't horrible, but wasn't anything special. I certainly wouldn't rush to do it again. But, I'm glad I tried it :)

And that is all for today. I'm really tired now. In the morning most of the GroupWise doing a six hour round bus trip to a temple, but I'm staying behind. I'm going to sleep in, have a swim in the pool and organise my stuff for going on the sailing boat for two nights. Sounds much better than getting up at 3am to see ANOTHER temple and spend 6 more hours on a bus!

Pyramids on a Sunday

Well, I ended up having a whole room to myself last night, and it looks like I'm getting sleeper compartment to myself too. Old me would think that was great, but new me isn't so sure. You dent have anyone to talk to! But, on the other hand, there's no chance of crazies. Speaking of crazies, everyone in the tour seems nice. There's quite a mix kf younger and older people, but no older married couples. There's a few older ladies, one who's travelling alone and a couple who are traveling with their daughters. There're a few younger couples, and a couple of single traveller guys, making up a group of 16. Much smaller than contiki! We've had good fun today, and have just set of on the sleeper train for Aswan.

Today I woke up, had a pretty good breakfast at the hostel, met up with the whole group, and then went to see some pyramids! We first went to the great pyramid, which is the biggest pyramid in the world. We were actually able to climb on it! Because of the revolution and political unrest in Egypt, not to mention the bad rep Muslims get, tourism here is way down, so many of the sites were rather deserted. Awesome for us! So, we got to climb on the pyramid and take lots of photos. Then we went to a slightly smaller one and were able to climb down a very small tunnel into the heart of the pyramid. That was cool! Then we went to a plateau in the Sahara where we're could see all 3 pyramids in the Giza area, took lots of photos, plus a group pic. Then I rode a camel! It was amazing. Camels are actually very tall animals, who walk in a very jerky way. I'm glad I only had to ride it for 15 minutes, I'd be pretty sore otherwise! As it is, my camel decided it really like another camel and walked so close to it my foot got a bit squashed. Now I have a bruised ankle on the same leg as my sore knee :)

Then we went to a place and saw them make traditional papyrus. They had some amazing paintings on sale, painted on the papyrus, so I bought a couple. I'm not buying many souvenirs this trip, but what I am buying I think is really quality stuff that the places I'm going are famous for. My painting in Rome, my ring in Florence, my glass necklace in Venice, and now papyrus in Cairo. Very cool!

After that we drove 45 minutes to the step pyramid, which is the oldest pyramid in the world. It's nearly 5000 years old! In that area there was also and amazing tomb that still had really well preserved wall art carved in the stone walls. In some areas there was even some colour preserved, and the hieroglyphs were fascinating. That may have been my favourite thing in the whole day. Sometimes the huge magnificent things are almost too overwhelming, and it's the smaller details that make a more lasting impression. The pyramids were simply amazing, though.

It was about 3.30 by then, and we got taken to a restaurant for a Kate lunch. We had mixed grilled meats, Egyptian style, fresh Egyptian bread, babaghanoush, and fresh mango juice. It was all nice, but the mango juice was so so so good!

Then, it was back to the hotel to freshen up before riding to the train station, boarding the trains, and here I am. We got a train dinner, which was like the meals you get on an aeroplane. My little room on the train has a door and a little sink, and towels, and everything! For someone who's only experience of sleeper trains is China, this is luxury! I'm quite easily impressed, it seems :)

So, today has been a lovely day. I'm hoping to get an internet connection tomorrow morning at out next hotel. If not, I'll have to go and find a coffee shop with free WiFi in the afternoon.

That's all in terms of activities. Some of the group is going to hang out in the club adjust now, but it's nearly 11pm, so I'm going to try and sleep.

In terms of deep and meaningful thoughts, not much! I've been finally too busy to overanalyse :) it is getting a bit tricky to answer all those questions people ask when you just meet them, though. Where are you from is easy, but where do you live is hard. I don't live anywhere right now. What do you do is easy, where do you work, the answer is nowhere, which weird people out. Where are you going next is easy, how long, what will you do there and why is not! Um, dunno how long, no plans of what to do, and well, I meet this guy a week ago... so I have no home, no job, and am travelling to a country with no plan and no set duration to see a guy I met in Italy. It makes perfect sense to me, but I think it sounds kind of odd to others.

Ok, bed time!