Stephen's Egypt Diary pt.1
Topic: Luxor 2007
[I'll be posting the diary in installments as I'm only starting to realize how damn much I wrote.]

[Please note that comments inside hard brackets reflect afterthoughts. Everything else is written pretty much as I wrote it at the time. And yes, it does get better as I get used to keeping a journal]

28/02/07:
Up at 6AM though I was tossing and turning since 5AM.

Fraught on the trains. Too many people and we’re looking forward to getting away from it all. At the airport we suddenly realize that the hotel will be populated by the British.

The flight is perfect – we see the channel, the Alps, Italy, Greek Islands perfectly from 37,000 feet. We were able to see the continent of Africa approach – beautiful sand dunes.

As we land, we see rust coloured desert and mountains backlit by the setting sun. as we land, everything is bathed in red.

Customs is easy and orderly though we probably got scammed with our visas. [Basically, we were about to line up at the official Government sponsored visa to enter Egypt line when these guys at a plywood table shouted out “Thomas Cook visa’s here” So we took the short line, I signed a piece of paper that had my name on it and a guy licked a stamp and popped it onto a page in my passport. Luckily this was, in fact a ‘visa’ and he wasn’t making arrangements to post my UK passport to God knows where.]

The hotel is filled with old British people and I don’t like how the staff is meek and bows all the time though E points out that’s probably what the old people like. We meet two of them and they’re like the elderly couple in Rosemary’s Baby. We escape them, stroll around the grounds and get pizzas and watch Circles the bat fly around.

We get an adaptor and lie in bed while I obsess over whether I should be tipping the waiter, guy who brought the adaptor up, etc., etc., etc. We end up watching TV in bed. No matter what language it is, 99% of TV is for idiots. So we settled on the most idiotic: MTV and had a hard time turning it off. Idiocy is addictive.

Interesting though, Al Arabia was reporting a big story from Jerusalem that was not getting any coverage on the BBC that featured Muslim people who were obviously very important as they had armed guards, were holding a press conference and were interviewed by the news anchor later, but I’d never seen them before in my life.

01/03/07:
Up at 7:30AM and oh my God we need a king sized bed in our flat. Or even just a bed.

Buffet breakfast, lots of fat white people feeding themselves. I spaz out over the need for coffee and get Elisabeth a cappuccino and overfill my mug of instant Americano, spill it on the way to the table and find that Elisabeth has already gotten us two nice filter coffees. I try new things: Doom juice is awful but I resolve to drink one cup of it a day. [I failed on this the last two days as I was just unable to handle the sickly sweet taste of doom.] There’s refreshing pink karkade that I enjoy more. I try to ignore the young man sitting next to us being alone, weird and creepy. I see the Rosemary’s Baby couple and don’t say hi to them and kind of feel kind of bad about it.

Elisabeth seems like she’s stunned.

After breakfast on the way to the room, I walk into the elevator doors. I accept that it’s impossible for me not to look like I’m totally pissed all the time.

We go for our Thomas Cook induction. Hassan, our rep, has arranged for everyone to have a glass of karkade. I sit down and spill mine all over the bleached white table cloths. I look like I’m pissed.

We book tours and pay for our visas – turns out we weren’t ripped off yesterday. A small, lucky miracle.

As I’m writing this entry, there is only one, miniscule cloud in the sky which has disappeared by the time I’ve finished this sentence.

*

We walk into town and are bombarded by hassle. Well practiced flogging of feluccas, caliches, scarves, taxis, gold, cloth, twigs, bookmarks. We become well versed in how to say no, though Elisabeth is a tease and chats to people. It’s a shame that everyone speaks English.

We head down side streets, away from touristy areas and no one hassles us. E points out how the children seem really happy here. More carefree.

It soon become clear that all the cars are honking their horns at E and that I’m the “lucky man.” [Actually, they weren’t honking at her, they honk at everyone whom they pass. And basically, every time we would pass a group of men, they would look at Elisabeth and tell me “lucky man.” E did point out, however that within minutes of talking with her, most Egyptian men would cease telling me how lucky I was and inform Elisabeth that I was a good man and she should stay with me.] There’s some kind of running joke about her being from Alaska. I kind of get it.

[There’s were lots of recurring refrains. This one was the most bewildering:
Egyptian: You English?
Us: No, Canadian.
Egyptian: Ah! Canada dry never die!]

Assad has been very polite about flogging us a ride in his felucca and if we take anyone up on their offer, it’ll probably be him.

Back at the hotel now and it’s just past 1PM. Meeting Hassan in 3 hours to finalize our tours and spend vast amounts of money. Probably.

It’s hard to believe we’re not leaving tomorrow evening. It’s also hard to believe I’ve initiated taking a balloon ride – I’m scared of that kind of thing.

For the record: Stella Egyptian lager beer (Since 1897) tastes nice with a fruity aftertaste. [Stella export is better though and became my drink of choice.]

*

Am sitting on the balcony listening to the dusk call to prayers from several mosques all in time with one another, all echoing through the city. Spent a quiet afternoon outside sitting. It’s amazing how, in hot, dry countries, sitting outside can be so fulfilling. We’ve also planned our holidays for the next 6 months so all is good and right now I’m starving and can’t wait for some dinner. Reservations at the Indian restaurant [Agra] at 7.

A thought: Islam is so fully integrated into a Muslim’s lifestyle because it has always been a religion accessible to the people. Whereas Christianity spent the dark/middle ages being only available (to be understood) for the upper class. Elisabeth points out that Christianity was so desperate to gain the will of the people that it had to incorporate Pagan (read: populist) beliefs. Thus: Easter celebrates the death and rebirth of Christ as well as the delivery of chocolate eggs by the Easter bunny, and Ramadan ‘only’ involves 30 days of fasting and reflection. (No mention of the magical Ramada beaver delivering candied dreidles to children under their mattresses.) And Lent, the Christian equivalent to Ramadan is something for the evangelicals to fret over.

Am not looking forward to waking up at 5:45AM tomorrow (a.k.a. 3:45AM GMT). I thought we were supposed to be on holiday.

We're back
Topic: Stephen Says
And I can't stress how fantastic our trip was. It's hard to believe that this morning we were drinking Egyptian tea in a shop with people we had met only a few days ago (And now, will sadly never see again). Will commence posting my travel diary tomorrow and E will do he bit too, I presume (hint, hint). We have taken hundreds of pictures and some videos so I've got to figure out what my youtube accunt is again.

It's taken us 4 years but we've finally had our damn honeymoon.

Please stay tuned:
Topic: Stephen Says
Since I doubt that there'll be any blogging before we take off at 6AM tomorrow morning, I thought that I'd stick The Bangles up to keep y'all occupied until we return:

Busy, busy, busy
Now Playing: Nick Cave - Henry's Dream
Topic: Stephen Says
It's been hectic today - I had my first sleep in in what feels like weeks and felt rejuvenated enough to tackle our heap of dirty dishes first thing while E went jogging and then biked 4 sacks of recycling to the depot.

Breakfast, etc. led to a jaunt into town where I made myself feel 'manly' by buying socks, underwear, some clothes for the trip and a pair of over-priced designer titanium re-enforced sun glasses. I'm a bit terrified now because the average life expectancy for my shades are about 2 months and I'm so picky that it takes about 4 months to find a pair of shades that I can tolerate and, based on what these damn things cost, they need to last me at least a year.

We popped over to the pub to read the paper and get refreshed before wrapping up our shop with the final bits & bobs for the trip. We're set now with the exception of money which, I hope, will be sorted tomorrow.

We finally got a memory card for our camera as well. It's unbelievable but we've been going around with a 32meg card in it for the last 4 years.

I also cut my hair a little too short and E is infuriated with me. But really, is that even news?

Yarp. Narp. Yarp.
Now Playing: Joanna Newsom - Ys
Topic: Stephen Says
Been a hectic week to say the least. The Trail of Dead concert was wonderful - 2+ hours of noise. I'm far too old to go into a mosh pit and made a relatively significant ass of myself in it for the whole damn concert. My neck and back feel better for it so go figure.

Spent the day in London - went to the Hogarth exhibition which was jaw droppingly awful. Not the art, that was fine. But the amount of pretentious old biddies who were queuing up, shoving, jumping the queue and being generally horrible patrons of the art while assuming they're the fricking bees knees of the arts world.

I will never again go willingly to the Tate Britain. It's just like the Barbican: A centrifugal force that draws the faux art pretentious crowd with their highbrow (read: simplistic) ideas at over inflated prices.

So later, on Uncle Chris' reccomendation, we went to Bermondsey (sp?) where we were too aggrivated to do anything other than have a swanky late lunch and then wander around London bloated and full of pee while losing our minds in the crowds and fleeing back to Woking which we've decided has deliberately decided to be crap just so that it doesn't draw the crowds like London does.

Congratulations Woking for your determination to be crap!

E is in bed already and I'm freaking out over the fact that we're leaving for Egypt on Wednesday and we're not prepared in any way, shape or form.

PS- Mom: The reason why we ain't blogging much is because we're either too boring or too busy to blog.

PPS- Sean: Hot Fuzz lives up to the hype and then some. I think overall it's better than Shaun of the Dead. Yarp!

Thursday already?
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

I actually have nothing to say. It feels strange to feel that nothing has happened over the course of a few days--even though I feel I've been busy. I've just been working, Stephen's been working, he went to see ...Trail of Dead on Tues. night, I dontated blood yesterday...and the list runs out there. The flat is pretty filthy and we have no plans for tonight.

Later..

*sigh*
Now Playing: The Streets - A Grand Don't Come For Free
Topic: Stephen Says
I was hoping that Elisabeth would do some blogging over the weekend - it's been a busy one for her - Off to the West End to a 'Big Play' that got her hackels up, etc, etc, etc. She's also been excessively (Not really excessively) celebratory and has been out drinking me which is good for her to be cutting loose but also kind of worrying as it probably means that I'm just not drinking enough.

We watched a great TV series State of Play that's a terse 6 hour political thriller. I reccomend y'all check it out, especially you folks in North America because it's being made into an Amurrikan moveee starring Bradley Pitt which means it's basically going to suck because it'll have at least 4 hours of drama removed from it, made stupid and the Bradley Pitt hasn't put out a decent film in at least 5 years.

We're off to see Hot Fuzz tonight and I can't freakin' wait!

Tomorrow: I'm seeing ...And You Will Know us by the Trail of Dead in London - A band that I've been waiting to see for at least five years and, while they're a little past their prime, should be very, very cool to see.

Yay, a busy week. And there's more to come...

Monday catch-up
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Since the last post, we have generally been eating and drinking and being lazy. Thurs. night we went to our favourite Italian restaurant, L'Aroma and had prosecco, wine, limoncello and delicious food. Then we went to the pub for more.

Needless to say I was quite hungover at work on Fri. and couldn't wait to go to bed. Saturday Stephen had to work, and I went to see David Hare's "Amy's View" at the Garrick theatre in London.

I really enjoyed the play, and the lead actress was wonderful. However, seeing a play on the westend is god awful. People going in and out of the theatre, mobile phones going off, opening cans of soda, coughing, unwrapping plastic foil, whispering... all throughout the show and it just drove me crazy. People weren't there to learn, just to be entertained...but perhaps it had something to do with the fact I was sitting in the "gods" which was far enough away from the stage that binoculars were available for rent for 50p.

Anyway, Sunday we just chilled out, ended up at the pub, and then drinking at home (what's going on?!) and then watched State of Play, an excellent BBC 6 part TV series.

I've gotta go to work now...

She's Gotta Ticket to Ride
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Passed. I passed. Whhoooopppeee! Within 4 weeks I'll have a driver's license! A full license! Wheee!! I'm a freak with joy!

Only 3 minors...and I knew I did them all...

Zing zang ...I've gotta go drink...

Kinda makes me homesick
Topic: Stephen Says
Linkitty.