A Day of Traveling

Arriving at Logan...Joyce and I got there last, classic Dickerson Orsi fashion...Get through security and grab a slice from Sbarro, a great Italian Eatery...30 minutes later and we board the plane. 7 hours of card playing, movie watching and some interesting discussions (thanks to Ben's "Book of Questions") brings me 1 layover and 1 more flight closer to Cairo. The layover was quick and painless, and before I knew it I was on another plane heading for Cairo. Flying over the desert as we landed in Cairo was a trip in itself. From the plane The Sahara is a beautiful monster of neverending sand, and Cairo just pops right out of it...

We land, and the fun begins...Sean and I exit the plane together, the first thing we see is armed guards each holding either an MP5 or an AK47. We Then walk by the practically empty duty free store that looked it had just been bombed. The walkway to the luggage looked like it had just survived World War II, dirt was everywhere, and the walls were wicked sketchy. It felt like at any moment we were going to get robbed, swindled or held up. Sean and I look around, and then at each other and he said "head on a swivel", and I reply with "eyes up". We chuckled, and then continued taking our own advice...

In order to get to our baggage, we had to give up our passports to security...an awkward feeling watching your passport being taken into a back room not knowing when you're getting it back...The whole group gets their baggage and thankfully after some discussion between professor Sullivan and the authorities, we get our passports.

Last leg of the trip...the bus ride to the hotel. We leave the airport, and are driving through the desert...I guess I hadn't really thought much about the fact that Cairo is in the middle of the desert...from the plane, the desert looks beautiful, but when you are looking at a desert from ground level, it is an experience...Endless sand as far as the eye can see. A little further on the bus and were driving through the slums of Cairo. Endless highrise apartments with millions of satellite dishes on rooftops. Every building looked vacant, although each building showed a little bit of life, a clothesline here, and an open living room window there.

we arrive at our hotel and finally get to chill out for about an hour. Then profesor Sullivan took us on a walking tour. We grabbed dinner at a pizza place. I did my usual "this pizza's gona suck, it's gona be nothing like back home", but as usual, pizza is pizza and it was delicious. Back to the hotel, 1 episode of entourage later I passed out with dreams of riding a camel to the pyramids the following day...

peace

-Al