Looking Back: Sense of the Moment September 23, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, post-trip
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(First of all, I realize I’ve managed to go two months since my trip ended without blogging about some of the ancient sites we saw. That’s going to change in the next few weeks. Good times!)
This is probably the most difficult entry to write since I came home. It’s not an especially emotional entry or anything like that; instead, it’s actually the most difficult subject to articulate. It’s all about the sense of the moment.
What is the sense of the moment? I cribbed the phrase from one of my favorite sports writers, Bill Simmons. If I remember right, he never explicitly defines it. But one’s “sense of the moment” is their awareness of what’s happening around them and the ability to rise to the occasion. In the context of basketball, having a sense of the moment happens when a really good player realizes what’s at stake and takes the game over, leading his team to victory. Or it’s a baseball player who comes up huge in the big game.
When hanging out with groups in Egypt, I sought out the folks who had a “sense of the moment.” In this context, those were the people who realized, “Hey, we’re on an all-expense-paid trip to Egypt! What do I have to complain about? Let’s have fun.” They were also the most fun to talk to, swap stories with and listen to. They were there for the experience and didn’t let much get in their way. They weren’t obsessed with themselves. They were generally the most easy-going of the bunch.
For instance, the heat was a big one. Some people complained about the heat and were incredibly self-conscious that they were sweating (as if everyone else wasn’t). There were others, like Anthony, who would say something like, “That’s part of the experience! You don’t go to Egypt in March, when it’s 70 degrees! This is the desert!”
I think a lot of that was embodied by the guy who organized our trip and led the tour through its first few days. Sameh would say “No worries” a lot, and that attitude rubbed off on a lot of us. By the end of the trip, I was annoying the other students with my constant mantra of “No worries.” And since I’ve been back, I’ve tried to embody that ideal a little bit more. Instead of worrying about every little detail, I’ll just shrug, say “No worries” and enjoy myself. It works. Most of the time, anyway.
Another example of having a sense of the moment is when we asked what the day’s itinerary was. A lot of people wanted to know where we would be, when and for how long. It was almost as if they needed to be back at the hotel by a certain time. And that’s cool, that’s how they keep their day in order. But for me and some of the others on the trip, it was more like, “Well … whatever. We’ll get to all that other stuff when we get to it.”
I think my favorite example was in Alexandria. Kevin and Anthony were on their balcony shortly before we had to be downstairs at the van to depart for Cairo. I joined them, and we chatted about everything we had seen and done to that point (it had been about a week or so at this point). The whole time, the Mediterranean Sea served as the perfect backdrop. We talked about how you would need to make expensive reservations months in advance for similar views in the states. (I know I’m repeating myself here. Sorry about that.)
We were all a little shell-shocked about everything that had happened to that point: There were all the monuments and ruins. There was the amazing falafel. There was the best seafood dinner I’ve ever had. The pyramids. All of it was amazing, and at that point, it had only been one week! So we just sat back, all agreed that it was an insane week and went from there. It was great.
They had a sense of the moment, and when you’re halfway around the world, those are the people you want to surround yourself with. Shoot, even back home, those are the people I enjoy hanging out with the most. They don’t get caught up in what I refer to as Stupid Shit. That’s a rare quality sometimes.
That’s why you won’t hear me tell very many negative stories about the trip. I made a conscious effort to hang out with people who were having fun. That way, my stories are more along the lines of, “Oh man, this was so awesome!” instead of “I would have changed this or that, or I wouldn’t have done this.” I didn’t buy many souvenirs for myself, so in 5 or 10 years, all I’m really going to have are my photographs and stories. And I’d much rather have fun, kick ass stories than sad tales of what went wrong. Bad shit passes. The good times stick with you.
(By the way, I hope I don’t come off like I’m putting anyone down. That’s not it at all. I’m just saying that there were others who really seemed to relax and enjoy the once-in-a-lifetime trip and all the speed bumps that came with it. Those were the people I enjoyed hanging out with the most.)
Looking Back: Summer School September 9, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: cairo, post-trip, St. John American School
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As a lot of you know, Clark College paid for my trip to Egypt. But the money came with the stipulation that we perform some kind of volunteer work while in Egypt.
The school’s service learning coordinator, who joined us on the trip, got us a gig working with students at St. John American School, a little less than an hour outside of Cairo. After the tour ended and we arrived back in Cairo, we spent about four hours over the span of three days working with students, ranging from first through ninth grades.
Now, I should preface all this by saying that, going into the experience, I wasn’t that excited. It wasn’t anything against the kids, but by the time we got back to Cairo, we had been on a whirlwind trip of the country, waking up early, going to bed late and traveling every couple of days.
We had literally gone from Egypt’s northern border to near its southern border and back, stopping at a ton of temples and monuments in between. So when we got back to Cairo for the volunteer work, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I was more interested in sleeping in and relaxing than chasing kids around school for four hours.
Oh, how I was wrong.
There were about 30 students, in all. It was a little chaotic, because putting that many young kids in one classroom after several weeks away from each other … yeah, that’s a recipe for the kids talking to each other non-stop throughout the whole three-day stretch. But that’s okay, it wasn’t that bad, especially since we broke up into smaller groups.
Another Clark student (Jeff) and I led a group of four students. From left to right, that would be Catherine, Rana, Mina and Nader. (That’s Jeff in the middle.) We dubbed ourselves the Superstars. There was another kid on the first day, but he was gone the next two days. Alas.
Throughout the three days, we played a lot of games (the kind we played at day camp as kids), played cards, chatted about each of our cultures and learned a lot about the school.
Some groups went outside and played basketball or soccer, but I stayed in with most of my group and played cards. I learned a few cool card games and had fun getting to know the other students who came in and played.
There were just so many memories …
One day in there, we wanted to teach the kids an American song, so the service learning coordinator chose “Country Roads” by John Denver. It was cool to sing with the kids and try to get them to sing along.
Of course, it was great to practice English with the students there and learn about life in Egypt. The kids who turned out for the three-day summer camp really had a lot to be proud of; they spoke English really well and definitely held their own in conversation – even the young pups.
Each day, they served us lunch. I don’t remember much of it, but I remember eating some delicious koshary and stuffing myself on falafel. I’m telling you, I miss the food like crazy over there.
I think it was the second day … the lunch time was just about ending, and a group of kids was dancing around. They said something in Arabic, and two of the students ran out of the room like they’d stolen something. They came back with a pair of wooden sticks a few minutes later. Another student hummed a song (I would recognize it if I heard it, but I couldn’t tell you the name), and the two students with sticks put on a mock sword fight, very very slowly.
Then the song ended, and the kid humming shifted into a much faster-paced song, and the two kids broke out of the sword fight and began dancing around. It was really energetic … the kind of thing where you’re in the middle of it, and you think, “Wow, if I was home right now, I’d be either asleep or at work. Instead, I’m watching these Egyptian students dance around and have a great time.” The joy was infectious.
At one point, we played Egyptian Spin the Bottle, which was a bit different than its American counterpart. In the Egyptian version, you spin the bottle and ask a question of whoever it lands on. Some questions asked if the other person had a boyfriend or girlfriend, but one of the students asked me what my favorite part of the trip was.
And I said it was working with the students at the school. Maybe it’s one of those “You had to be there” kind of things, but talking with those kids about their lives, talking about ours, playing with them and laughing with them … those are the things I’ll remember my whole life. Just getting to know other people, learn their stories and hear that they’re about … that’s what life is about.
If I had slept in at the hotel and not done any of the volunteer work, I would have missed out on three of the best days of the trip.
At the end of the three days, there were hugs to be had and E-mail addresses to be exchanged. In all, I became Facebook friends with 19 students and one teacher at the school. I still chat with them and miss them a lot.
Looking Back: Alexandria September 2, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, hotel crillon, post-trip
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Again, my apologies for long delays between updates. I had a cold all weekend; before that, I was busy pretty much every night last week. But the schedule’s clearing up a little bit in the near future, and I’m feeling good. So hopefully this is the last long wait between posts.
In the Ancient Egypt class I took this spring, I learned just a little bit about Alexandria. I knew that Alexander the Great established it the first time around. I knew there was a pretty famous library there, but it had burned down. And that’s about all I knew. With regards to today’s Alexandria, I knew even less.
It turned out to be one of my favorite stops on the trip.
(Again, another apology is due here. The photos here are huge, I know. But in case you wanted to click them for a bigger shot, I uploaded the photos without resizing. If that’s causing headaches or too-slow load times, let me know, and I will upload smaller photos.)
Arrival
After arriving in Cairo and spending 3-4 days there, we took a van north to Alexandria. We were told the trip would take 2-3 hours, when it wound up taking 5 (including a stop at a Coptic Christian montastary, which I will cover in a later post).
No worries, though. We arrived and, before seeing the hotel, grabbed lunch at Mohamed Ahmed Restaurant. Our tour guide told us that he and his friend would drive 2-3 hours to Alexandria just for the falafel. I’m no falafel connoisseur, but I scooped up nearly every piece of available falafel in eyesight. It was a bit of a mish-mash of different foods for lunch, including foul (beans), French fries, falafel, pita bread and scrambled eggs.
(I suppose the American equivalent would be going to T.G.I.Friday’s with friends, ordering one of everything on the appetizer menu and sharing with everyone at the table. But the food at Mohamed Ahmed was way better.)
Bibliotheca Alexandria
Then we went to the Bibliotheca Alexandria. Now, back in its earliest days, Alexandria had the largest library in the world. Every ship captain who came to Alexandria had to turn over his manuscripts so scribes could copy them for the library. Unfortunately, the library burned to the ground, and everything inside was lost forever.
Today, the Bibliotecha Alexandria stands in its place and has room for up to 8 million books. Some of us started out on a tour of the library but, taken aback by the interior architecture, we wandered on our own for awhile. A lot of the architecutre is pretty amazing, too; the holes along the walls are meant to mimic the holes into which the rolled-up manuscripts were placed in the ancient Library of Alexandria.
The hotel
My room wasn’t the best. But other rooms offered picture-perfect views of the Mediterranean Sea, with balconies and wide doors that allowed the wind to cool off even the warmest room. Our final morning in Alexandria, three of us chilled on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, talked about the trip and took in the view that would have cost hundreds of dollars in an equivalent American hotel. Here are photos looking to the left and the to the right from one of the nicer rooms:
and
Back to the first night. I sweated through the night while cars honked non-stop until 5 a.m. – one of our tour guides told us that Alexandria’s “busy time” each day lasted from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., thus ensuring that we woke up every hour or two to honking car horns or the train passing by (there were train tracks less than 500 feet from our room).
And there were shared bathrooms/showers, forcing everyone on the floor to fight over two bathrooms. It was a little weird to sit on the toilet and look straight at the shower, three feet in front of me. But whatever.
But that’s the only bad thing you’ll catch me saying about Alexandria.
Because honestly, the balcony outside my room allowed me to read and take in the sounds of Alexandria. And if I got bored with that, I could always stand up and take in a partially-obscured view of the Mediterranean Sea. So, all things considered, it could have been worse.
(That night, we ate at that seafood restaurant referenced in an earlier post. It was easily the best seafood I’ve had in my life. Good times.)
History
The next day, we took a tour around the city while our guide told us about its history. Basically, the city has been destroyed and built up again three times throughout its history. Ancient Alexandria lies buried under the modern city and in its harbor.
We took a tour of the Catacombs of Kom Al-Shuqafa and the Roman Amphitheater, which was discovered while breaking ground on a government building. It was cool to see these extremely old monuments amidst a much more modern city today.
(It’s especially insane to think about how old Alexandria is, considering that Vancouver just celebrated its 150th anniversary)
The Corniche
Then we took a drive along the Corniche – the road running parallel to the Mediterranean Sea. It was an especially lively section of town, with shops, public beaches and a nice barrier that people sat and relaxed on. After the sun went down, it was almost impossible to find somewhere to sit on this barrier. Whole families relaxed on the barrier together, having a good ol’ time. You definitely don’t see public gatherings like that in Vancouver.
If we had more time, I would have taken a walk along the Corniche; after all, it was easily the coolest area of Alexandria – both in terms of stuff to do and temperature. Along the Mediterranean Sea, a nice breeze keeps things relatively cool and pleasant. But once you’re a few blocks inward, the buildings stop a lot of the wind, and it gets extremely humid. We’re not used to the humidity in the Pacific Northwest, so it was a bit startling.
At the end of the Corniche is the one of the Egyptian Presidential Palaces. On this day, the Egyptian president was actually in Alexandria, so security was tight. We took a back route in, checked it out a bit and found a private beach for swimming (which I mentioned earlier).
Tangent
Here’s where I need to mention how friendly people were to us. After swimming, we went back to the hotel and split up into groups to find food. My group asked a local for a recommendation, and he actually walked us there. Turns out it was the place with good falafel from the day before, but we didn’t mind. But the walk was not just one or two blocks; it was a solid 5-10-minute walk. This wasn’t atypical at all, either. People did this kind of thing for us all the time.
Later that night, I waited for some friends outside the Internet cafe, and a man came up to me, offering all kinds of food recommendations – completely unsolicited. I think that’s awesome. Everywhere we went, I can think of a time when people went out of their way to help us find where we were going or help us with something.
/Tangent
That third day, we chilled a bit and hopped on the van around noon for the trip to Cairo. That night, we would board the overnight train to Aswan.
Looking Back: Amsterdam August 24, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: amsterdam, post-trip
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I have been a bad blogger lately. It’s been more than a week since my last post; for that, I apologize. It’s been a busy week; I’ve been hanging out with friends most nights, and somewhere in there, I found the time to see Radiohead in concert. Hopefully I’ll be a bit more regular about updating this for the foreseeable future.
Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I’m taking a break from Egypt for this post. Instead, I’ll talk about the city where we spent most of our first day: Amsterdam.
We left Portland at 4:10 p.m. Monday and arrived in Amsterdam at 10:30 a.m. (local time) Tuesday. I had slept a little bit on the plane but was ready to go. We had about seven hours to explore Amsterdam before the final leg of the trip to Cairo.
As we began our descent, I looked out the window and saw wind farms out at sea. About that time, I had my first Samwise Gamgee moment: “This is the furthest from home I’ve ever been.” That’s when it hit me that I was in Amsterdam.
(Truth is, from above, it looked a lot like Oregon – lots of greenery, waterways and a few roads. It reminded me of the I-5 corridor in central Oregon, oddly enough. I remember thinking, “Am I really in Amsterdam, or did we turn around while I had dozed off?”)
After getting our passport stamped, we caught the train to Amsterdam Central Station. Right away, the cultural differences smacked me in the face: We took a freaking train into town. The train itself was two stories, with pretty spacious seats and tables for commuters. In Vancouver and even Portland, we just don’t have commuter trains. So there was the first big difference.
We got off the train and hopped on a streetcar en route to the Rijksmuseum. (I should add that the weather was superb. It was maybe 75-80 degrees and clear, much like most July days in Vancouver.) Interestingly enough, I’ve ridden the MAX light rail line but never the actual streetcar in Portland, so this was a new experience, too.
We spent a few minutes in the museum and walked to the Anne Frank Museum. Along the way, we got to see a good slice of Amsterdam. There were canals every which way you look, in addition to a ton of historic buildings bordering them. (I wish I could remember more at this point, and I wish I took more photos. I just remember the city being so much busier than Portland; I was amazed at it all.)
The density surprised me, too. Pretty much every building was at least three or four stories tall, and people were packed tight into the city and along the sidewalks. Then you had walkers, cars, bikers and streetcars sharing essentially the same space on the street. I guess it’s similar to what Portland does with the Pearl District, but this was on such a massive scale … you really had a hard time separating the sidewalk from the street.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the bikes here. They were everywhere. And, unlike Portland, most bike riders seemed to have a decent relationship with car drivers. I think that’s because there are just so many bike riders. It wasn’t three or four people here and there; it was dozens and dozens of people on every street. And it wasn’t unusual to see bike racks with 100+ bikes locked up.
So we walked to the Anne Frank Museum and checked that out. It was really depressing, but also really moving. The museum was well done, with good background information, videos, artifacts and quotes from Anne Frank’s diary on many of the walls. The museum explained why Frank was in hiding, how the Nazis were nearby and the great lengths Frank’s father went to in order to protect her. Then, knowing what happened in spite of his efforts, I was super depressed. But it was still worth my time.
From there, we walked … and walked … and walked to the Red Light District. (Okay, there are several Red Light Districts. We walked to the one people refer to when they talk about THE Red Light District.)
And, yes, it was, um, a titillating experience. (Pardon the word choice.) We walked by a few weed banks (I don’t even understand what a weed bank is) and past what seemed like dozens of nude theaters and adult shops. And of course, there were the prostitutes in the windows, dancing around. We even saw a few women negotiating with possible customers.
It was all very surreal to walk through the Red Light District. We were only there for about 20 minutes — don’t worry, we didn’t do anything bad — but it was enough to get a sense of what makes it such an interesting place for tourists. Name your vice, and it’s probably available somewhere in the Red Light District.
Here’s something I’m curious about: How did the Red Light District become the Red Light District? What I mean is, how did all those places come together in the same district? At some point, did the city’s government move all the sex shops and brothels to that particular section of the city? Did one or two sex shops open a few years ago and hit it big, paving the way for everything else? How did that section of the city become what it is today? I am legitimately curious about this.
At that point, it was back to the train station. We all nodded off on the train ride back, nearly missing our stop at the airport. But we woke up in time, met up with the rest of the group and promptly fell asleep in the airport. Most of us had slept a little bit on the plane, but a lack of sleep and the time change combined to catch up on us in a big way.
After an hour or so, it was off to Cairo.
Looking Back: Random Memories August 16, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: cairo, felucca, nile river, post-trip, train
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The temperature hit something like 105 degrees today, which made me extremely thankful that my new car has air conditioning. Not sure what I would have done if I was driving my old car around after work tonight.
Anyway, the heat got me thinking back to Egypt. A few random memories tonight.
-We spent two nights on a felucca – an Egyptian sailboat with enough room for about 10 people to sleep – on the Nile River. (I’ll blog about this in-depth later on.) On the second night, the boat’s crew took the cover off the boat so we could stargaze, and I don’t recall ever seeing anything like it. There were no homes, cars or Wal-Marts to light up the night sky. There were stars as far as the eye could see in every which direction.
I made out one of the dippers for the first time in my life. I saw a shooting star for maybe the second time in my life. That’s the kind of thing I’m never going to forget. Nor am I likely to see anything that clearly in Vancouver or Portland. I was in total awe of how clear, close, clustered, bright and beautiful the stars were. There were no trees to obscure the view (which happens when camping). Just stars, everywhere you looked.
-We spent another pair of nights on a night train. It wasn’t anything like “The Darjeeling Limited,” much to my surprise! The cabin was very nice, with two seats (which folded down into bunk beds), a sink and a coat rack. My only complaint was the bed! If I straightened my body out, my head touched one wall, and my feet touched the other. So that wasn’t really comfortable. Then, there were bumps in the night, waking me up and nearly throwing me off the bed.
Other than the bed, the train ride was seriously cool. It was definitely different than anything I’ve ever done before. But you could say that about a lot of things on the trip.
-I really miss walking around Cairo. It would be 9:30 or 10 p.m., and we’d be done with dinner, on the way back to our hotel. We would walk along 26th of July St., which is apparently one of Cairo’s biggest and busiest streets. And there would be stores along each side of the street, selling clothes, toys and all kinds of stuff.
Then there were street vendors, selling books, magazines, DVDs, cassettes and more. And in the middle of it, you’re surrounded by families and couples walking every which way. And of course, cars and cabs are competing for the same lanes in the street.
But you know what I loved about it? No one was rushing to get you out of the way. No one pushed us or made us feel unwelcome as we just kind of gawked at the scene. Merchants would even randomly say, “Welcome to Egypt!” as we walked along.
Just being in that mob, surrounded by all that energy, was amazing. In Vancouver, there’s never anything like that. Go to Vancouver’s busiest street, and it’s packed with cars, but there are no people walking along the sidewalks. If you’d like, you could pretty much have the sidewalk all to yourself. Convenient, sure. But where’s the fun in that?
Looking Back: Lessons Learned August 14, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: egyptian hustle bug, khan el-khalili, post-trip
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Egypt changed a lot of things for me. I’m more willing to go with the flow (owing to not knowing exactly what was on tap each day) and am open to trying new things (see my previous entry about the seafood dinner). I don’t know if others have noticed anything (if they have, they haven’t said anything), but I’m definitely feeling different than usual. I’m liking it, actually.
And there’s no better example of this than my recent car-buying experience.
Since I was dealing with a dealership, I knew what to expect: high-pressure salesmen, pushy dealers and a healthy dose of haggling.
Sound familiar? Like Khan el-khalili, maybe?
The similarities were too great to ignore. In Khan el-khalili, paying the vendor’s suggested price is ridiculous. At a car dealership, paying the sticker price is ridiculous. In both instances, you deal with a salesmen who’s in it for himself and wanting to get as much out of you as possible. The longer you’re in each place, the more likely the vendor/salesman wants to make a deal; after all, they don’t want to waste a half-hour or more haggling with you and not come to an agreement. And during both haggling processes, you have to drive a hard bargain, or else you’re going to get taken advantage of.
So all those valuable lessons I learned about negotiating in Cairo, I applied to car-buying in Vancouver.
I made an offer and was immediately laughed at. The salesman told me why my offer was silly and that he wouldn’t be able to budge much.
So I gave a little (offering what I was willing to spend, and not a penny more). After some more back-and-forth, we were $300 apart on the car, and the dealer said he couldn’t go any lower.
Just like most Khan- el-khalili merchants couldn’t go any lower on a scarf or other trinket. Yeah, right. I mean, sometimes the merchant CAN’T go any lower. And you use that information for the next vendor. But most of the time, “I can’t go any lower” is code for “I don’t want to go any lower.”
So, in the car dealer’s office, I did what I did in Khan el-khalili: I left. I thanked the man for his time, and he was a bit incredulous I was willing to walk away when we were only $300 apart. But I gave him my business card and said, “If you can do anything for me, give me a call. But thanks for your time.”
I knew something. See, in Khan el-khalili, when a merchant comes down to near your price but not quite there, he’ll wind up meeting your price. I figured the same basic principle would apply to the dealer. So when he told me he couldn’t budge from the price, I busted out the Egyptian Hustle Bug and said, “Well, I guess we don’t have a deal.”
I walked out to my (old) car and was totally ready to walk away. If nothing else, it would be a good experience to apply to the next car I looked at. The first salesmen I dealt with approached me about what went wrong. And I told him I wouldn’t spend another $300. Naturally, he was also a bit shocked I was willing to walk away from the car after test-driving it, getting it checked by my mechanic and coming so close on the price.
But I knew something …
Sure enough, the dealer came out and told me to give him another 15 minutes – he would see what he could do. At that moment, I knew I would drive that new car home.
After a few minutes, he came back with an offer that was almost there, but not quite. In terms of money down, I didn’t want to put down what he was proposing. So I got my hustle on a bit more and pointed out that I would need some small work in the next year – a transmission flush and new timing belt, to be exact. So he could make those fixes, or I wasn’t going to put that much money down.
So he went back inside to run the new numbers by someone else, and when he came out, he said, “You’re a tough customer, you know that?”
Oh yeah, I know. That’s not an accident.
Honestly, if I hadn’t gone to Egypt, I would have paid through the nose for that car. I wouldn’t have blinked when he told me he couldn’t go any lower on the sticker price, since it was already on sale. Maybe I would have asked for $500 off … at the most. And when he would have inevitably said he couldn’t do it, I would have taken him at face value.
But after going through Khan el-khalili and bargaining for all kinds of stuff, I was going to get the best deal possible. I knew it was a risk to offer what I did, and I knew there was a chance I wouldn’t get the car, but I was okay with that.
Just like in Khan el-khalili, you can’t always get what you want at the price you want. But I was willing to take that risk. I’m just glad it paid off.
(And yes, I’m now driving around in a 2004 Honda Civic LX. It gets nearly double the gas mileage of my previous car and hopefully comes with fewer headaches. It’s spacious, quiet, comfortable and fun to drive. It doesn’t have as much get-up-and-go as my old car, but I didn’t need that. It will get me from Point A to Point B just fine.
I haven’t thought of a name for her yet, though. I’m thinking of something Egyptian, maybe.)
(Also, thinking of the good times I had in Khan el-khalili just makes me miss Egypt that much more. Those were good times.)
Looking Back: The Elevator Story August 10, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: aswan, post-trip
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(I’ve been meaning to post this for nearly a week now. Unfortunately, my computer’s RAM crapped out on me, so my computer was out of commission for a few days.)
I had forgotten about this story until Cindy reminded me about it on MySpace.
We were staying in Aswan and had to meet in the lobby at 3:30 a.m. for our trip south to Abu Simbel. (The temperatures at Abu Simbel, near Egypt’s southern border, get hellish by midday. So most tours are advised to get there early. We also had to meet up with a police escort for the ride there.)
I got onto the first floor elevator. For some reason, the “first floor” was actually two flights up – the actual first floor was the restaurant level. Go figure.
Anyway, it was me, Michelle, Summer and Pat. Each of us was overweight to some degree (I was definitely the heaviest person in the elevator.) Keep that in mind.
We get to the ground level, but instead of stopping gently and the door opening, the elevator falls to the floor with a loud “BANG!!!” And the lights went out. And the elevator stopped. And the door didn’t open. Our collective weight was too much for the elevator, so on our way down, the elevator cried “Uncle!” Great.
Immediately, Summer began worrying. “I hate closed spaces, I’m so claustrophobic, I can’t do this!” she said over and over. Normally, I would have freaked out, too. But this was one of those rare instances when the Matt I Want to Be collided with the Matt I Am.
Michelle was trying to help, but I stood next to the controls, trying to get us out of the elevator. Patiently. And calmly.
I repeated “No worries, no worries, no worries” while fiddling with the buttons. Hitting the “call” button didn’t do anything. Hitting the numbers for the other floors didn’t do anything. Nor did hitting the “Emergency” button. (What a joke!)
My mind immediately jumped to, “Okay, we’re fine. It’s not too warm in here, we all have water, and everyone else is just on the other side of this door. They had to have heard us out there, and they have probably already alerted the staff to a problem with the elevator. We’ll be fine.” I never panicked. Not once. Not for a second.
(By the way, as loud as the elevator crashing was, no one heard it outside.)
But there I was, trying to reassure the others. “No worries,” I said. (Pat was silent during this whole ordeal.)
Then the lights come on, and we begin an ascent. My immediate thought is, “Alright, we’ll get to a floor, and we’ll get out! This is good!” But Michelle kind of pushed me out of the way and began messing with the controls. Later on, I found out it was because her mind turned to, “Oh no, this elevator’s going to the top of the hotel, and it’s going to free-fall, and we’re all going to die.”
But we got to the first (second) floor, and the doors opened. Disaster averted. Three of our group members were waiting outside the door for the elevator, and the four of us nearly pushed each other over to get back onto solid ground. I took the stairs down (surprise!) and had to sit down — by this point, my leg was shaking violently. After the fact, I needed a few deep breaths and a few minutes to compose myself. “Did that really just happen?” I asked.
The whole thing took maybe 30 seconds. A minute, at the most. But here we were, at 3:30 in the morning, stuck in an elevator in a foreign country. It was really scary for a few seconds! And instead of panicking, which I’ve done so many times in my life at the slightest hint of stress, I manned up and kept my cool. It was a good feeling.
I told the hotel staff about the elevator struggles, and maybe they misunderstood me, but the clerk essentially said, “Oh, we’re aware.” Comforting and terrifying at the same time.
I joked with the others that, the further I got from the event, the more exaggerated the story was going to be – after all, it was my story now! In fact, by the trip’s end, I was describing our harrowing free-fall down 36 stories and how I pulled some “Die Hard”-type shit by climbing into the elevator shaft to anyone who would listen.
But the one thing I didn’t exaggerate was that it was one of the scariest moments I can ever recall.
(As for Abu Simbel, it was incredible. More on that in another post, though.)
Looking Back: The Heat August 5, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, aswan, cairo, heat, luxor, post-trip
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(I really need to get to bed, but considering that the weather is going to hit the upper 90s this week, I felt like this was an especially timely post.)
(Also, sorry for the lack of photos. This post came about on a whim, and I didn’t really feel like sifting through 980 photos for … umm … photos of heat. Maybe I’ll upload some another day.)
I can’t wait for the 90+ degree temperatures that are set to hit us tomorrow and continue through most of the week. That way, I can totally play the “snobbish world traveler” card when people go to complain about the heat. I mean, if anyone has first-hand experience with excruciating temperatures this summer, it’s me, right?
I can see it now …
“Oh man, this weather is SO hot today!”
To which I will respond, “Yeah, it’s warm, I guess. But Egypt was way hotter.”
I mean, come on … how does that really add anything to any conversation? It doesn’t. No one really gives a shit if Egypt is hotter than Vancouver – that’s to be expected! But I don’t get many chances to casually drop Egypt into conversation. (“Oh no! The printer is out of paper ….. by the way, did you know the Egyptians used papyrus for paper? And the papyrus plant grew in the Nile River, where I spent two days on a boat?”) So – totally jokingly, mind you – I’m looking forward to milking this.
Truth is, when I got back from Egypt, temperatures were in the mid 70s back home, and I hated it. I went to work the day after coming back, and I nearly froze in my office. I would have brought a jacket if I’d remembered to. Even outside, the temperatures felt cool.
I don’t want to say I got used to the heat, but I learned to tolerate it. I learned to roll with it when, two minutes after heading outside, I started sweating. That made the cold showers back at the hotel that much better. And there aren’t many better feelings than standing under a running showerhead after spending most of the day outside, in 90 degree heat, and suffering the consequences accordingly.
Heat was a weird thing in Egypt, too. A few random observations.
1. I remember the flight into Cairo. There was a monitor attached to the seat in front of me, displaying our flight path, the outside temperature and other information. I remember thinking I was in for a surprise when the “outside temperature” reading didn’t drop below 78 degrees for the final five minutes of the flight. At 2 a.m.
Stepping off the plane and onto the ladder was intense – the heat and humidity just attacked me. It was tough to take a deep breath, and almost instantly, my skin felt clammy. My first reaction was, “Oh shit. No way I make it three weeks in this. Not going to happen. What have I done? How did Indiana Jones survive with his khakis and jacket? Can I go home? This is insane. Why did I agree to this?” (There were a few unprintable thoughts mixed in, but you get the gist.)
I mean, when it’s 80 degrees … at 2 a.m. … that’s hot. And you know it’s only going to get worse from there.
2. In Cairo, I finally understood “dry heat.” In the Pacific Northwest, when it gets hot, there’s always a touch of humidity. Not in Cairo. There’s more than a touch of smog that keeps the heat kind of trapped in the city … but there’s no humidity. Growing up, I never bought the idea of “dry heat” somehow being better or worse than … not-dry heat. I was like, “I don’t care if it’s dry heat or humid heat – 100 degrees is 100 f’n degrees!” Now I get it.
3. It was interesting to see how things changed as we moved around the country. In Alexandria, it was really humid, thanks to the Mediterranean Sea. And, since it was also warm, the combination made for a mildly miserable walking-around experience. But as soon as you got to the waterfront, a constant breeze cooled things off considerably.
Then you got to the southern end of the country, down in Aswan. There, it was hotter and dryer than Cairo. Makes sense, I guess. But without the smog trapping the heat, it felt a bit more tolerable than Cairo.
4. But the worst heat was in Luxor, which is in central Egypt. Luxor itself wasn’t bad, but the Valley of the Kings – a shadeless valley where something like five dozen pharaohs were buried – the thermometer hit 108 degrees by 10:30 a.m. I still can’t imagine that, and I lived it. I mean, there was no escaping the heat there. Gulping water didn’t do the trick. Nor did a wide-brimmed hat, white T-shirt, sun block and shorts. None of it mattered. The sun was relentless.
5. Air conditioning. It was in all of our hotels, and the only time it was turned off was when the maids turned it off. It was also in all of our buses. I developed a new appreciation for A/C. I just might get an air conditioner tattooed over my heart one of these days.
6. But the truth is, I would rather go to Egypt in July, instead of February or March, 100 times out of 100. Okay, so Egypt’s March temperatures are like Vancouver’s June temperatures (65-70 degrees or so). But you go to Egypt for the heat. That’s part of the experience. You’re in the desert, baking like a potato. That’s the Egyptian Experience right there. So that’s why I never complained about the heat while there. It was like … that was what I wanted to experience. And I did!
It’s like, if you want to get the Vancouver experience, you don’t come in July, when it’s 80-90 degrees. You come in March, when you have pretty even odds of sunny and warm weather, sunny and cold weather, overcast, rainy weather, showers and whatever else Mother Nature has in store. That unpredictable weather? That’s the Vancouver Experience. Part of it, anyway. But you get what I’m saying.
So bring on the 90 degree temperatures! I just hope my co-workers, family and friends don’t shove a sock in my mouth after I drop gems like, “Make sure you’re drinking enough water in that heat! We had to drink 3 liters of water each day in Egypt! Have I mentioned that it’s hot over there?”
Looking Back: Private Beach August 3, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: alexandria, post-trip
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Two posts in one day! Can you tell I’m trying to put off cleaning?
(Also, this is one of those posts where the photography leaves much to be desired. As you can see in some of my previous posts, I take a bit of pride in taking pretty pictures. But, for some reason, all three photos I took at the beach just didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped. My sincere apologies.)
I recently finished reading “Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever, Inc.: Covering the Fights for the Soul of the Oregon Coast” for the second time. It’s the kind of book that makes me never want to leave the Pacific Northwest. The book compiled several of Matt Love’s impassioned love letters to the Oregon Coast. The essays, loosely arranged in chronological order, look at how it came to be that Oregon’s coasts remain relatively undeveloped and free and open to everyone.
My family spent many spring and summer weekends at the Oregon Coast (and Long Beach, Washington, which is just a short drive from Oregon’s northernmost coastal community, Astoria). We rarely vacationed outside of the Pacific Northwest, so the idea that beaches should be free was just so … normal. Whether it was Seaside or Lincoln City, we’d never forked over a few dollars for the right to frolic in the coast. Doing so never crossed our minds. A private beach was so far out of our purview, we’d never considered it. And until I read “Grasping Wastrels” for the first time last year, the thought had never crossed my mind in my entire life.
Keeping all that in mind, imagine my surprise when our tour stopped at a private beach in Alexandria for a dip in the Mediterranean Sea. That day’s tour had wrapped up by about 1 p.m., so with some free time in the afternoon, our tour guide took us to a beach a few miles east of Alexandria’s busy downtown core. Turns out, the beach was actually nearly in the shadow of one of the country’s presidential palaces.
As we prepared to get off the van, our tour guide told us that beach access would cost 15 Egyptian Pounds (roughly $3 USD). I was mortified! How can you pay to use the beach? It was just so … wrong. The sand, the water … it’s all our God-given right to enjoy that! How is it any different from hiking through the Gorge, which is free? How is the beach experience any different than it would be at the Oregon Coast, give or take a few degrees? You can’t charge someone to use the beach! Now, if I was donating a few pounds to the beach for upkeep … THAT I could understand. But that was clearly not the case.
(How did we get there? Our tour guide told us there were free public beaches in Alexandria, but those were even MORE crowded and dirtier.)
My indignation wavered when our tour guide told us it was the beach or staying in the van, which would be off for the entirety of our stay (in other words: No air conditioning). So I paid the money but wasn’t happy about it.
Nor did things improve much once on the beach. Owing to self-esteem issues and a desire not to get into the water following my ill-fated boogie-boarding trip in Seaside last year, I chose to stay in the sand. I could take a plastic lawn chair for free, but an umbrella would cost 3 Egyptian Pounds to rent. The nerve of these people! First they charge for beach access, and now they want more money for an umbrella?
It didn’t end there. Vendors hawked sunglasses. Restaurants and vendors offered food, water, soda and ice cream no more than 200 feet from the water’s edge. There wasn’t room to throw a Frisbee around or stretch out for sun-tanning. The umbrella’s and lawn chairs were planted less than 10 feet from the water’s edge, and hundreds upon hundreds of families crammed into the narrow stretch of beach, which was no more than maybe 1/10th of a mile long.
And none of it felt right. Even if a section of coastline is packed in Oregon, a five-minute walk is all it takes to find some peace and quiet. And no one’s going to charge you to be there. Nor will anyone come by, selling knock-off sunglasses. And the only food available is the stuff you packed in your backpack.
That’s the thing about the Oregon Coast. You make your own experience. If you want the bustling beach, go to Seaside. If you want the city at your backs, go to Lincoln City. If you want peace and quiet, head for Tillamook County. If you want to walk along “The World’s Longest Beach,” head to Long Beach, just over the bridge in Washington.
And once you’re there, it’s all up to you. Last winter, sweaters and long pants ruled the day in Beverly Beach. Last summer, Dusty, Mikaela and I shared a beach blanket for a nap in the sun. Do you know how good it feels to put your head down on your backpack and sleep while soaking up the sun? Then, this past March, I took my shoes off, found a nice dune and read while the waves crept further and further toward my feet.
No, the water isn’t 70+ degrees, like it is in Egypt. But that’s the charm of the Oregon coast – if you’re going to wade out there a ways, skimboard or boogie board, you run as hard as you can into the water, let the ice cold waves wash over for you for 30 seconds, and after about the third chorus of “Jesus Christ, this is cold!” … you’re used to it. At least until you head back to your beach blanket, relax for awhile and decide to give it another shot.
But there was none of that in Alexandria. Sure, it’s nice to dip my feet in the warm water. But, like many things in Egypt, it felt alien, compared to anything back home. But, unlike most things in Egypt, it also felt wrong.
Looking Back: Khan el-khalili August 2, 2008
Posted by ducksflytogether in Uncategorized.Tags: egyptian hustle bug, khan el-khalili, post-trip
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First an apology for my lack of blogging this past week. I was still fighting a stomach bug for the better part of the week, and once I kicked that, my car’s transmission decided to go bad. So my mind has been elsewhere these past few days. Enough with the excuses! On with the blogging!
So, Khan el-khalili. It’s a market that dates back to the late 1300s, although I’m not sure merchants made their living on pyramid paperweights and stuffed camels back then. Today, it encompasses several city blocks, and it’s really a one-stop shop for touristy stuff.
It’s not all touristy, but every time you turn around, there is a statue, papyrus scroll, stuffed camel or some other knick-knack. Take a turn down one alley or another, though, and you’ll stumble upon clothing shops, jewelers or hookah salesmen.
And there are hundreds of small shops, none of which are much bigger than a bedroom. Many of the shops are empty when you walk in, but that’s only because the merchant is just outside, too busy trying to hustle people in. “Spend money! Be happy!” It’s a common refrain.
We heard English, Spanish, French and German from various shopkeepers during our trips to the market, too. These guys are smart with their languages. If they didn’t know we were American, many shopkeepers would greet us in French and German before asking, in English, “Would you like to come inside?” or “Where are you from?”
Once you’re inside the shop, they want to know what you want. If it’s something they don’t carry, they dart out of sight for a few moments and come back with what you’re looking for. There has to be some kind of working agreement among the shops. And sometimes, the same shopkeeper will follow you from his store to another; once inside that next store, he’ll follow you around and help you negotiate there.
But we’ll get back to that.
Once you’re inside the shop, you can do a bit of browsing, and for the most part, they’ll leave you alone. If you show any interest in anything, though – whether you pick something up or just point it out – they’ve got you right where they want you.
If it’s something you want, it’s time to start negotiating. If you pay what the shopkeeper is asking, you’ll pay through the nose. For example, one of my buddies talked a shopkeeper down on a statue from 650 pounds (about $118 USD) to 61 pounds (about $11 USD). Why 61? The shopkeeper told him he was going to frame that extra pound as a reminder of the very, very difficult American buyer.
(If you do your homework and are determined not to overspend, the shopkeepers pretty much hate you by the end of the transaction, because you’re getting the “locals” prices, and NOT the “tourists” price. This happened to me on a pair of scarves I picked up for my mom and sister. I felt kind of bad, actually. The shopkeeper actually looked depressed.)
A sample conversation:
Shopkeeper: “Oh you like this stuffed camel?”
Me: “Yeah, how much?”
Shopkeeper: “American dollars or Egyptian pounds?”
Me: “Where are we? Egyptian pounds!”
Shopkeeper: “Well, how much do you think it is?”
(Note to anyone going to Egypt: Never NEVER NEVER name the price off the bat, unless you’re going to insult the man by low-balling him. You can get things so cheap, no matter what your price is, it’s probably more than you would end up paying, anyway. And, the shopkeeper can raise the price from there in negotiations.)
Me: “That’s why I’m asking you!”
Shopkeeper: “Oh well this is very nice craftsmanship, and see? (shows me the camel.) Egypt! (It’s embroidered on the side.)”
Me: “Yeah, I see that, but …. how much do you want for it?
(The shopkeepers never name their price right away. They want to sell you on the quality to try and ease the shock of an outrageous price.)
Shopkeeper: “40 pounds.”
Me: “Ha! You think I’m paying that? For this? Man you’ve got a million of these. How about 15 pounds?”
(Most guidebooks recommend taking the shopkeeper’s suggested price, cutting it in half and offering that. But toward the end of the trip, I got greedy.)
Shopkeeper: “No, no, my friend! No way I can do that. 35 pounds!”
Me: “No, I’m good. It’s not worth that. The most I can do is 20 pounds.” (At this point, I typically stop showing interest and say to whoever’s with me, “Okay, let’s go.”
Shopkeeper: “30 pounds! 25 pounds! But that’s the lowest I can go.”
(Immediately my brain screams, “Bullshit!” If he’s gone down 15 pounds already, he’ll go another 5. I just have to wait for it.)
Me: “Nope, 20 is all I’m willing to pay.”
Shopkeeper: “Okay, 20.”
Repeat the process for any number of goods. Group members on the trip negotiated for, among other things, hookahs, papyrus scrolls, statues, mummy action figure-type toys, table cloths, scarves, shirts, perfume, cigarettes and jewelry. Sometimes, the negotiations get more animated, and other group members are brought into the negotiation.
There are times when you and the shopkeeper are so far apart, the negotiations are short-lived. Other times, like when one of my group buddies bought four scarves and a table cloth set, the negotiations can start and stop for a half-hour. In this particular instance, we left after about 15 minutes, then she decided she liked what she saw. So we went back, talked the guy down a little bit, and he ran off to talk to someone else to get permission to knock the price down a few more pounds.
We started the trip in Cairo, so we checked out Khan el-khalili the first day we were there. Then, on our trips throughout the rest of the country, we stumbled across smaller markets that are attached to the big tourist attractions (you pretty much have to walk through these markets, with the shopkeepers in your face, trying to sell you all kinds of shit, going in and out of every tourist attraction). And we’d throw out prices on items down there, trying to gauge how much we should end up spending when we get back to Cairo. So when we got back, we knew what the price range should be and negotiated accordingly.
