Egypt life - no foreigners can drive in Egypt unless they are missing some brain cells. Road signs barely exist and when they do, they are in Arabic. Driving guidelines are in place but it's an odd free for all. If you get in an accident, it's your fault because you are the foreigner. When we go out for work, our local co-worker has to come and pick us up from the hotel. Same as LA. You might only need to go 10 miles but allow one hour for the drive (including time to find the non-existant parking space.) You pay the street workers to watch your car (hence not destroy it) and you pay them again to help you leave when you are boxed in and traffic is coming fast. Then to get anywhere you have to cross the street with non-stop traffic and play Frogger as you do so. Always a challenge!
My hotel is not a big tourist hotel. It's mainly for business with a lot of Arabs & Egyptians and a few European men. I've seen a few Japanese, some British ladies and me. The hotel is empty and I stand out like a flashing ambulance light at a traffic accident. You cannot even imagine how hard it is to eat breakfast when everyone is carefully not looking at you while they are looking at you. This morning the waitress set me in the non-smoking section (only a guideline of course) and then surprising told the men at the table next to me that they couldn't smoke. Everyone looked at me and I felt even more obvious and then the waitress made them move to the smoking section. Wow. That rarely happens.
Today is the kind of day that I don't look forward to. It's a day of meetings in an office where I'll sit around and either freeze due to high a/c or sweat due to lack of a/c. Endless tea that you can only hope was boiled and conversations that go nowhere. Actually I'm cracking up as I write this because I often forget how silly this sounds when I'm trying to explain what is normal operating procedures for me. I have toilet paper and handi-wipes in my purse because being Egypt, sanitation is a matter of perception.
My biggest challenge for this day is to figure out how to book an upcoming Mexico trip for less than $800 since the airfare has jumped from $698 to $860 in the last two weeks and I want to stay as close to my original travel approval as possible. That may be harder than driving and crossing streets in Cairo!
My hotel is not a big tourist hotel. It's mainly for business with a lot of Arabs & Egyptians and a few European men. I've seen a few Japanese, some British ladies and me. The hotel is empty and I stand out like a flashing ambulance light at a traffic accident. You cannot even imagine how hard it is to eat breakfast when everyone is carefully not looking at you while they are looking at you. This morning the waitress set me in the non-smoking section (only a guideline of course) and then surprising told the men at the table next to me that they couldn't smoke. Everyone looked at me and I felt even more obvious and then the waitress made them move to the smoking section. Wow. That rarely happens.
Today is the kind of day that I don't look forward to. It's a day of meetings in an office where I'll sit around and either freeze due to high a/c or sweat due to lack of a/c. Endless tea that you can only hope was boiled and conversations that go nowhere. Actually I'm cracking up as I write this because I often forget how silly this sounds when I'm trying to explain what is normal operating procedures for me. I have toilet paper and handi-wipes in my purse because being Egypt, sanitation is a matter of perception.
My biggest challenge for this day is to figure out how to book an upcoming Mexico trip for less than $800 since the airfare has jumped from $698 to $860 in the last two weeks and I want to stay as close to my original travel approval as possible. That may be harder than driving and crossing streets in Cairo!
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