| 9/24/1999 | |
| What a long strange trip it's been | |
| This entry actually picks up at 11:00 on the 23rd, when we headed out to the airport. There were a number of us heading out on the same TWA flight at 1:30 AM (yeesh). We packed ourselves into a van too small, and started on the long journey home. We were discussing the pros and cons of the chaotic nature of traffic in Cairo. While it appears dangerous and scary, we hadn't seen any road rage, or accidents, or experienced any significant delays in transit. It seems to work for them. It would never work here; Americans are too high-strung. There would be many shootings. Just about then the one tire on the van exploded. We were in the left lane on a road on which there was no stopping. I immediately looked at my watch, one hour 45 minutes to departure, ruh roh. The driver hobbled the van quite a ways, across three lanes, or rather three streams of traffic, over to a place where he could pull over. He rolled down his window and said something, in Arabic of course, to the driver of a van next to us. The van pulled over in front of us; we were puzzled. The driver jumped out, and issued us out of the van. I figured he was going to change the tire; wrong. We were getting into the other van. I was very confused. This van as even smaller than the one we were in previously, but we managed to squeeze ourselves and the luggage inside. We headed, we presumed, to the airport. We made it to the airport with about an hour to go. To my dismay, I was the only one to tip our new-found driver. If there had been anyone this whole trip that deserved a tip, he was it. He saved our asses. With out stuff unloaded, a Globus operative facilitated our rapid passage through the first check-point. The natives we were blowing past looked none to pleased. I could see that look: "fuckin' Americans". We made it to the TWA check-in counter, where we waited. We got to check in, and then waited to check in again. After coughing up the big luggage, we moved on to passport control. They checked us out of the country, and we went on to the gate. One more check-point right there before getting on the plane, and we could finally breathe easy. We stowed our gear, with little problem. We used a shoe horn to get ourselves into the coach class seats (mental note: next time, first class), and settled in for a 12 1/2 hour flight (ugh). Happily, with the lateness of departure and all of the excitement, we were pretty wiped out. After take off, they served us a "meal" I believe they called it beef. I added fuel to the fatigue with a bottle of Merlot after dinner. It worked. I managed to put in about six to eight hours of sleep, a first for me. I woke up once or twice and looked out the window. I was kind of dazed, and couldn't figure out what land we would be flying over. Whatever it was, it was spectacular. The terrain was unlike anything I had ever seen. I was also puzzled as to why we would be flying low enough to see the terrain in such great detail. I finally woke enough to realize that it was actually the tops of the clouds illuminated by the near-full moo. It was one of the most profound sights I have ever seen. I wished I had a camera, but realized that it would probably be unable to get it anyway. I worked on my journal and watched "The Mummy". A couple of hours later we had land-ho. The sun was just starting to gleen over the horizon. Our flight stayed just ahead of it all the way to JFK. We had a refreshingly smooth landing. I love American pilots. We passed through passport control. The woman there was a real bundle of joy; bitch. We almost made it through customs. The dude finally looked at the declaration, and sent us off to the leech department. Here's where all of that haggling for Chris' necklace became for naught, as the US Treasury Department sucked us for 10% (those bastards). One might wonder why this is necessary when we have a budget surplus. Chris paid our fine, and we headed to gate 42 for our connecting flight. Just because you're in an English speaking country does not imply that things become easier. The elevator was filled with Arabic speaking dudes who had no clue where they were, where they were going, whether they wanted to be on the elevator or off of the elevator, how an elevator works, where to get off of the elevator, ARRRRRGH! GET OUT OF MY WAY!!!! We made it to the gate. How comforting to go to the bathroom without paying someone. Jim's flight was taking off from the same gate a few minutes after ours, so we hung out together. Incidentally, he was handling the transport of his head and sarcophagus much better than I thought he would have been able to. I laid down on the couch thing then passed in and out of sleep a few times. They called our flight, we said our final good-bye, and boarded our flight home. We arrived in Philly without incident. As usual, it took Park-N-Go forever to pick us up, but they eventually did. After a frantic search for our parking ticket, we paid the requisite $100, and exited. We were stopped at McDonald's in Ambler for the requisite coming-home burger and fries. They weren't serving lunch yet, so we waited. While we waited we decided that this place was much too much of a dump to eat in, so we left. A few minutes later we were home. End of trip. |
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