Day 3: Aswan "You make me wanna walk...like a camel" - Southern Culture on the Skids

4/16/07 Aswan

We all pile into the minivan and make our way to the station to catch the sleeper train to Aswan.

Once we get to Aswan, there’s an optional side trip we can take to Abu Simbel to check out the temples. Only catch is, everyone going to Abu Simbel has to go as part of a massive caravan that leaves Aswan at 3 am (for safety reasons, everyone going to Abu Simbel goes in an escorted caravan). It’s a four hour trip, you stay for 3 hours or so, and then you take the caravan back. Kerrie and I had already discussed the side trip, and there was no way in hell we were going. Besides, none of us had really gotten more than a few hours of sleep at a time. Since the trip would be scheduled for the next morning, we had to decide who was going right now. Mohammed takes a head count of who wants to go, and everyone raises their hands except for Kerrie and I. Come on, we can’t be the only lazy bitches around here. Someone asked if Mohammed was going, he just laughed and said no…it’s a long trip. Kevin and Devak changed their minds about going…they’re lazy bitches, too. In our defense, that’s like driving from Houston to Dallas, going to six flags for a couple of hours, and them coming back.

So we make it to the train station, catch our sleeper, and tumble into our assigned quarters. Kerrie and I decided to try some of the local wine (since it ain’t easy finding a lot of alcoholic beverages in this country) and order a bottle of red, which wasn’t bad at all. Kate comes in and the three of us shoot the shit for a while and finish off the wine.

The little porter comes back after Kate has left and makes up our little beds. I decide now is a good time to use the bathroom. I’ve never been on a passenger train before, so it took me a minute to figure out the toilet. There’s a foot pedal, and a knob to turn on a fountain of water inside the toilet, and…how in the hell do you flush this thing? Also, there was a sign to only use the bathroom when the train is moving. I step on the foot pedal and a space opens up to release my “present” (I can’t think of a nicer way to say it) and I see the train tracks. Are you kidding me? So there’s just a trail of toilet paper, piss, and shit up and down the rails. Lovely.

Anyway…

We arrive in Aswan bright and early in the morning, and the place is just beautiful. It’s nice and green, not nearly as populated as Cairo, and the people seem to be better drivers. Also, Aswan is where I saw actual Nubians…black folks, like me.

Our minivan arrives, and we are taken to the docks to catch a boat to the Philae Temple. The boat hands are teenagers, and they bring out this bag of wooden bracelets. I guess this is one of those instances where the souvenirs come to us instead of the other way around. Mohammed whips out his 5 EGP for a bracelet, and we’re all like “hey, if Mohammed is buying one, then it must be a good price.” I decide I’ll just swipe up 10 of ‘em and be done souvenir shopping for my co-workers. We pull up to the dock for the Philae Temple. I’m the last one off the boat, and I hand the kid a bill for 50 EGP for my bracelets. I thought his eyes would bulge out of his head. He gives me another handful of bracelets for free. Cool. Why does he do it? Because we’re “the same color.”
I love that shit. Believe me, I milked it for all it was worth (I asked for a “Nubian discount” on more than one occasion). I did notice, however, when the Nubians did the “you’re my color” thing, they seem to genuinely feel a kinship. When the Arabs did it, it was usually to talk me into coming off some more money. Either way, I got a kick out of it.

So we did the tour and took the photos at the Philae Temple.

Afterwards, we take the boat back to our starting dock and wait for our minivan to arrive. Of course, there’s a bunch of little souvenir “shops” and I got ushered into one by someone who wanted to give me a good deal “because you’re my color.” This guy was really trying to get me to buy this blouse. I did as I’d been doing, feigning interest before walking away. As I’m getting into the minivan, ol’ boy comes sprinting up with the shirt to make me a final offer. I agree to give him 40 EGP (way down from the 200 he initially quoted me…see what I mean about the different uses of “you’re my color”). Mohammed laughed and told me I was definitely a tourist. Hell, I though I did okay, a nice Egyptian shirt for my sister for less than 8 bucks.

At this point, Mohammed tells us not to buy anything else around the tourist sites unless we don’t really care about over-paying. He decides that while everyone is at Abu Simbel tomorrow, Mohammed would take Devak, Kevin, Kerrie, and I to the bizarre and help negotiate our purchases. Cool.

We venture over to the High Dam, which is just as exciting as you’d imagine looking at a dam to be.

After that (non) event, we make our way to our 2 star hotel…which I might add had the best damn hotel view any 2 star hotel ever had. Great view of the water, boats, islands…it was sweet.

Anyway, while we’re waiting in the lobby of the hotel to get our keys, who should wander downstairs but the bra-less wonder from JFK. We all shoot the shit for a minute, she thinks she’s seen me before, and I mention the coincidence that we were on the same plane together. Of course that really gets her going. She’s also from Texas (Dallas), and blah blah blah, I don’t really like talking to strangers, and I really don’t like to do it for a drawn out period of time. My mom does it, my sisters sometimes do it, I’m just not that girl.

We get our room keys, and have just enough to change and take a quick nap before we move onto our next excursion.

We catch out little boat, and are introduced to the crew and one of our local guides. We have a fabulous lunch spread on the boat while listening to the history of the Botanical Gardens of Kitchener Islands, The Elephantine Islands, and the West Bank.

I can’t remember the name of our local guide, but the man was 52 years old and looked like he was pushing 80. Seriously. I guess someone mentioned that we had a few doctors in the making on board, so Mr. Guide Man chatted up Henna. Like I said, he was only 52, but he’s had 2 heart attacks, a stroke, smoked 40 cigarettes a day, and was suffering from congestive heart failure. No wonder he looked so old (plus, you don’t exactly get the best medical care over there).

After a while, we pull over to the bank of the Nile to stretch our legs a bit. Of course, there just had to be a group of half naked teenage boys swimming not too far from where we docked. The “doctors without borders” have brought along a nerf football, and get a rousing game of “monkey in the middle” going. That was truly fun.

After playing around for a while, we hop back in the boat and make our way to where we will grab our camels.

I meet my handler (Abdul) and my camel (Mickey Mouse), and off we go.

I was a little uncomfortable on the camel at first. I was high up, and didn’t really know how to guide it…which is why we all had handlers (although they didn’t so much guide the camels…more like whack ‘em on the ass to make ‘em speed up). I especially got nervous as we neared a drop off area. I was towards the front of the pack with Nicole and John, and I was starting to panic ever so slightly but Abdul said “Don’t worry. Mickey Mouse…he good. He good” so I calmed down again and continued to enjoy my ride.

As we’re going down this narrow path, another camel rider is coming towards us in the opposite direction. He says something to me in Arabic and then slides his hand along my thigh.

Son of a bitch! No he didn’t. “You’re lucky I don’t know how to turn this camel around!” I turn to John and ask “did you see that?” He did that whole you’re kidding thing, too (although he was probably just glad that it was my leg and not Onyi’s, cuz then he’d have to ride off after the guy for touching his girlfriend).

Anyway…

We reached the end of our camel journey to find our boat waiting for us. I tipped Abdul 20 EGP. I had given him 10 at first, but he wanted more because he took a few pictures for me…but I didn’t really mind, since I had made it back in one piece.

Again, we’re on the boat, and we are on our way to visit a Nubian family. Turns out, it’s the family of the guy who owns the boat company (JJ’s tours). We kick off our shoes before entering the house, and we are ushered into the den. JJ offers us all drinks, and tells us a little about Nubian life, and he shows us his wedding video, since he’d gotten married a year or so ago. He explains dating customs: basically, no one is supposed to know you’re dating until you are engaged (he and his betrothed gave each other hand signals when passing in the street to arrange to meet), and at that time you take financial responsibility for the bride’s family until you’re married, which is why they like short engagements. You invite all the neighboring tribes/villages, so the weddings are always massive (not unheard of to have 3000 people). After his wedding, we see (on video) JJ, his new bride, and the female members of her family/entourage board a boat and cruise around the Nile. For some reason, many of the women are dancing around, holding cans of air freshener. Kerrie asked why, and his response was “there’s so many people on the boat, when it gets hot, we don’t want to smell each other!” Ahh, mystery solved.

JJ gives us a tour of his home, and explains that when it was built, they had to mix in feces as an ingredient (“how do you say…shit”) to ensure the house would stay cool; and no, it didn’t smell.

After enjoying JJ’s hospitality, it was time for dinner and (for some of us) the smoking of the sheesha.

Day 2: Cairo, Giza "We're luxurious like Egyptian cotton..." - Gwen Stefani

04/15/2007 Cairo and Giza

So we all get up early and meet for a carbilicious breakfast at the Victoria before heading off to Giza to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx. I guess everyone was slowly trickling in. Most of the Doctors without Borders were already seated. I was enjoying a croissant when Kerrie decided to check her voice messages (her cell phone miraculously worked...probably cuz it's one of those super duper phones that lets you check the internet). The brain trust at Continental neglected to put her bag on the next flight out like they were supposed to (this despite 3 phone calls from Kerrie' stepmom, where she was assured the bags would go out on time). I guess we would only have one good luck baggage story. Henna's bag had also been re-routed (to China), but hers actually made it to Cairo. Kerrie...no such luck. We'd have to go shopping later since the next flight out wouldn't leave until the next day, and we were leaving Cairo tonight.

We make our way to the subway. For women traveling alone, there's the first car, which is all female. Since there were a bunch of strapping young men in our group, we took an uneventful ride to Giza, where we are met by a minivan. It's always a little harrowing in the minivans. I've mentioned before that no one drives inside the lines, and they barely respect signal lights. At one point, our driver was yelling back and forth with another. The other driver got so into the shouting match he ran into the car in front of him. We laughed and laughed.

So when I imagined the Pyramids, I pictured them as being in the middle of this big desert, but that's only half true. You round a corner in the city and there they are. You can pretty much drive up to 'em.

So we get to the first pyramid and we start breaking up into our usual little groups. Next thing you know, we're practically accosted by a bunch of baksheesh seekers. Those selling crap and those selling crappy services. Kerrie and I are telling this one guy as politely as possible that no, we don't want to buy any postcards, pyramid paperweights, bookmarks, etc. Meanwhile his friend has pretty much dragged poor Kate away. Kerrie and I go to "rescue" her just as she's having her picture taken. She's obviously pissed. Apparently baksheesh seeker #2 grabbed her camera and practically forced her to take a picture. Seriously, you had to hold onto your things, otherwise someone will try to carry your bags or take your picture in order to get you to come off some money.

Anywho, after about 20 minutes of snapping pictures, our group comes together again, and Mohammed continues our walking tour. I nearly bust my ass walking down into the Queens tomb, and I sit on a camel for the very first time (it's kind of scary the way he gets up and down; you have to really hold on tight).

There were a hell of a lot of kids roaming around the pyramids selling souvenirs...especially for that time of the morning. This little girl came and sat down between Kate and I at the Sphinx and started shooting the breeze. At first, she was trying to sell us some bookmarks. Once that didn't work she just started telling us about school and how she's basically out selling when she's not at school. In the end she gave us each a free bookmark. I shoved 2 pounds into the kid's hand, but she tried to give it back, saying the bookmarks were a gift. That was the only time someone tried to give me something and truly expected nothing in return.

Our group heads off to lunch where we have some local cuisine consisting of no meat and a bunch of beans and pasta that I never would have thought to combine. It was good as hell, though, especially washed down with a Fanta. Fanta is one of the big drinks in Egypt. When you go to someone's home there, they all have Tea, Coke, and Fanta. I think I drank more Orange soda while I was in Egypt than I have in my whole life.

After lunch, we climb back into our minivan and the driver takes us to the Egyptian Museum. Mohammed impresses us with his knowledge of pretty much every piece in the museum. He has arranged for Tamer to meet up with Kerrie and I so we can go shopping for her some clean clothes. After a harrowing game of what I now call "Egyptian Frogger", Tamer, Kerrie and I have made our way on foot to the shopping district.

Egyptians love their tobacco. You see someone smoking a sheesha pipe around every corner, and people will light up a cigarette any time and anywhere they damn well please. One of the salespeople lit up while helping Kerrie find the right size pants. No wonder there's so many hardware stores stocked with a ton of fire extinguishers everywhere you turn.

We had to go to a number of different stores to find undergarments. The men didn't even seem to want to acknowledge that women wore such things. Tamer seemed embarrassed to show us which stores would sell 'em. Once Kerrie found a store that sold 'em, the cashier averted his eves and just asked how many as he quickly shoved the panties in a bag. She later said "I should've just said one, and dared him to challenge me."

Oh, I forgot to mention that while we are shopping for replacement clothes for Kerrie, we were also hunting for a sheet. Later in the week, we were going to be spending the night on a felucca, and nights in Egypt are a little chilly...the boat crew would provide blankets, but we heard you kinda want to have a barrier between you and the blanket, and our original sheets were in Kerrie's bag back in New York.

For some reason, Tamer couldn't understand what a sheet was ("I've got to see this sheet of which you speak"). We described it in a million different ways, and nothing. Finally, as we're walking back to the hotel, we pass a bedding store. Ah, he finally sees what we're talking about. We wait for the cashier to finish his prayer, and then we get a nice Egyptian cotton sheet for 50 pounds, so now we're set.

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but Kerrie and I couldn't remember Tamer's name. Not to save our lives. But in our defense, it's not an easily pronounceable name. To this day, I'm not sure I'm saying it right. We basically referred to him as "sidekick" all day and never addressed him by name.

So the three of us make our way back to the Victoria, Kerrie and I say our goodbyes to Tamer. As I'm slipping him some baksheesh (see, that was service worth paying for), I tell him that I've forgotten how to pronounce his name. He started laughing and said "after almost 3 hours together, now you ask?" But I'm sure the 50 EGP he got from each of us helped him get over it. We say our goodbyes to Tamer (hell even after he told me, it flew right out of my head, so once again I don't know his name) and go upstairs to shower and change and get ready to go to the train station where we'd catch a sleeper train to Aswan.

I actually thought seeing the Pyramids would be the pinnacle of my experience, but the adventure just kept getting better and better.

Day 1: Cairo "Brown sugar how come you taste so good..." - Rolling Stones

4/14/2007 Cairo

So we land at the Cairo International Airport...we're obviously in the old terminal, cuz things certainly don't look hi-tech. We quickly breeze through immigration, since we'd already obtained our visas at the Egyptian consulate in Houston. I had to pee so I make my way to the bathroom. When I enter, the bathroom is empty, but as soon as I close the stall door, someone comes in. So, I finish up, and sure enough there's a bathroom attendant. She turns on the water and looks at me expectantly. And thus marks my introduction to the art of baksheesh.

Baksheesh is tipping in Egypt. I don't remember any of the other Arabic words I learned except for Baksheesh, and boy did we have to hand out a lot of it. People don't necessarily have to do much of anything for you to expect baksheesh. Someone would stick a hand out for simply giving directions, or to take a picture of you, or if you take their picture. It's not just a thing for foreigners either, it's simply a way of life in such a poor country.

Anyway, back to the bathroom attendant...I hadn't had the chance to change out my money, so all I had were US dollars. I handed her a buck. The exchange rate is $1 to 5.69 Egyptian Pounds. I basically gave the woman 5 bucks (EGP) to turn on the water for me and not hand me a damn paper towel. Oh well.

So I go back to the baggage carousel where Kerrie is looking out for my bag. Some of the suitcases some folks brought back could fit a human body; I've never seen such large suitcases. Egypt Air must not have a stringent weight limit like American and Continental. It takes about 30 minutes for my bags to finally come off.

I change out some money, we grab a cab, and take the first of many of Mr. Toad's Wild Rides into the heart of Cairo. I can't even begin to describe Cairo traffic. We went the wrong way down a one way street leaving the airport...and cars were following! There's be three lanes of traffic but 5 rows of cars. We made a game of spotting cars without any dents. Drivers just didn't give a shit. They were practically aiming for pedestrians. At night, no one drives with their lights on. They'll flash 'em at you to let you know their coming, but that's about it.

We arrive at the Victoria Hotel where we are supposed to meet the rest of the Intrepid Travel group as well as our group leader. There's 11 people in our group (Intrepid limits its groups to 12), plus the group leader :

Kerrie - my college friend and old roommate who was currently lacking fresh clothes and a change of underwear.

Mohammed - Egyptian group leader. It took him a coupla days to fully warm up to us, but after that, it was like we'd known him for ages; the guy is brilliant.

Kate - Aussie. She was on her fourth week of vacation, and the fifth is taking place right now in Libya (long story, don't ask). She was amazed that Americans only get 2 weeks (if that) of vacation.

Antoniette and Nicole - co-workers from San Diego. Fun fact: Antoniette's birthday is the day before mine, so I wasn't the oldest person in the group.

Onyinye, Kevin, Devak, Henna, Kendra and John - College friends. I called them "The Doctors without Borders," even though only 4 of 'em were wrapping up medical school (John and Kendra are Engineers). Ony, Kevin, and Devak had just been in Nigeria working at a hospital.

We do the "hellos" and "nice to meet yas" and after a brief respite, head off to our first meal together. We did a bit of walking first, and let me tell you, it was not exactly fun dodging the cars. For some reason, we were always walking in the street, but hey, we were just following Mohamed. Anyway, we end up having to sit at three separate tables. Mohamed sat with Tamer (I'd write it out phonetically, but I'm not sure I ever really pronounced it correctly), who I think of as his little sidekick...Tamer would coordinate some of the arrangements while Mohamed was out on the road with us. Kerrie sat with three of the doctors without borders, and i sat with the rest of the group. Three of us ordered the "mixed grill" which was an assortment of meats and just way too much damn food. One plate would have been enough for all three of us. We actually felt guilty about not finishing (I should have taken a picture to show just how much meat was on the plate). So after we eat like pigs, we head off to the Al-Azhar Mosque and Islamic Cairo.

The Al-Azhar Mosque has been around since AD 970. It was once one of the world's most pre-imminent learning centers. We all had to remove our shoes to enter the mosque, and the women had to be covered practically from head to toe. Of course since we weren't sporting the proper attire, we had to use the community burkahs. No telling how many skin cells were left over inside those robes from previous visitors...yes, I think about things like that...but not too hard, since that would distract me from fully enjoying my vacation.

After we leave Al-Azhar Mosque, we tour the rest of Islamic Cairo, which is no more Islamic than the rest of Cairo, but gets its name as a tribute to the city's most important mosque. We make our way down this long cobbled street with shops and vendors along both sides. We try this nasty assed black hibiscus "beer" that tasted like watered down Jaggermeister (I don't do licorice flavored beverages). Muslims are not so big into the alcohol, so they have different "beers" that're sans alcohol. Oh and check this out, the guys selling the beverages walk around with the vats of beverage strapped to their backs, and they carry drinking glasses around with them, and rinse them out (with what I'm so sure is purified water) after each use. Yes, we drank from the community glasses. Very sanitary, I know. That didn't really register with me at the time I tried it, but when in Rome...

Somewhere along the way, a small child latched onto me. The kid couldn't have been more than 2 years old...That's the other thing, there were a ton of unaccompanied kids running around. Okay, back to the kid, I guess she was trying to sell me a pack of tissues (there were a lot of people selling those). I only had big bills at that point so I had to shoo her off: "Sorry little girl, my name ain't Angelina so I'm not looking to adopt a child."

After Mohamed gives us the history of Islamic Cairo and yadda yadda yadda...we're off to Khan el-Khalili, Cairo's famous bazaar. The bazaar was a trip. I was getting calls of "Hey My Sistah" and "Hey Brown Sugar." Seriously, someone would call me Brown Sugar every five minutes. Some people had questions about whether or not I was Egyptian...most of 'em were convinced I was Nubian or at least of Nubian heritage, which I very well may be. I guess they don't see a lot of black people with my skin tone, because some of 'em were astounded that "you're my color!" Some shop keepers would just refer to me as "My Color," as if it were a nickname or something.

The bazaar takes up a huge area; it was at least a few square blocks long. Most of the shops sold the same thing, and there were a lot of "kiosks" (and I do use the world loosely here) set up that sold the same scarves and t-shirts as some of the shops, only you can usually bargain easier with the street vendors. Now when you approach someone, they'll have two prices in their mind: the price for Americans/Europeans and the prices for everyone else. As soon as they find out you're American, they quote you a jacked up the price. Now, when I was shopping, I wasn't thinking in terms of USD, but EGP. I wouldn't cough up 5 EGP for something (even though it amounted to less than a dollar) unless I thought it was close enough in price to what a local would pay for it.

Kerrie and I decided we didn't want to have to be subjected to the community robes again, so we shopped around for some scarves. I stopped at one of the street vendors who promptly quoted me a price of 100 EGP. Motherfucker, you must be crazy. I said 20. He came down some more. I kept saying 20. He came down a little bit more. At this point, I was annoyed. I said 20 was my final offer and once he saw I was serious, he quickly agreed. I start pulling out my 20, but hold up...You went from 100 pounds to 20 pounds without really batting an eye. Bet I can get it for 10. So I tell him I changed my mind, since I can't afford 20 pounds. "But I saw you had 20 pounds." Oh, you wanna call me out, okay, you're about to lose this sale..."yeah, well I need that for the Taxi." Of course he agreed to take the 10, but by then it was too late. If he'd sell for 10 pounds, everyone will sell for 10 pounds. Kerrie and I came across these 2 sisters selling scarves.

The price was right and they were hilarious. They brought the funny, so they got the money.
We make our way to a previously agreed upon bar/cafe to meet up with the rest of the group. At the time, only Mohamed, Tamer, and Kate had made it. Mohamed had ordered a sheesha pipe, which is a big custom in Egypt (although we didn't see that many women smoking).
In front of most stores, at almost every restaurant, you could order a sheesha pipe, which is used to smoke flavored tobacco. It was my first time trying the sheesha...it's surprisingly smooth. It's not like smoking out of any other "water pipe" one may or may not have tried in her youth. You don't feel it when you inhale. I knew I had to take one home...more on that later.

We left the bazaar to check out the fabulous Sufi dancers. As we were leaving, we were practically chased by this woman begging for money. She was holding a little baby, his little arm was wrapped up, it was kinda heartbreaking. Tamer was like "you have to walk faster" because apparently, it's the norm for people to bandage up their kids to gain sympathy from foreigners.

Okay, back to the good stuff, we went to see the Sufi Dancers a.k.a. the Whirling Dervishes. I can't remember the name of the place we saw them, but it was so kool. There's an Islamic sect that spins as a way to get closer to God, and I must say, they must be very close because these guys would spin in place non-stop for like 15 minutes, while spinning off different layers. Had it been me, I would have unleashed a stream of vomit onto the stage like you haven't seen since The Exorcist. I wish I had thought to record a video of it, but I do have a few pics that get the point across. In addition to the actual dancers there were also musicians on stage. One guy, who will forever be known as "Finger Cymbals" was tearing it up. You can even tell by the pictures he was really into it. Kerrie decided that if there was an award for "Little Miss Sunshine," Finger Cymbals would definitely get it.

It was pretty late by the time we left the Dervishes (around 9 o'clock) but some of us had gotten hungry. Mohamed took Me, Kerrie, and 4 of the Doctors without Borders to a local restaurant. I remember Spider-Man 2 was on the tube. Mohamed left after a few minutes to take care of some things and the rest of us dined on Egyptian cuisine. The six of us ate for 25 EGP. That's less than $5 US for six people to eat a meal, how awesome is that?

It was on our way back to the hotel that we realized that the only time you saw headlights was when someone was flashing them as they were about to run you over.

Kevin and I almost got trampled by a donkey...and so marks the end of our first night in Egypt.

Day .5: Austin to Cairo "Big ol' jet airliner, don't carry me too far away..." - The Steve Miller Band

4/13/07 AUS-DFW-JFK-CAI

And so began my airplane day.

I'd only gotten 3 hours of sleep since I had to finish cleaning up my house. I just can't come home to a filthy house. That'll almost ruin a vacation. Anyway, JQ was snoozing it up in the guestroom, and I was watching (but not really) Her Alibi as I cleaned up my abode.

Jen was generous enough to offer to carry my happy butt to the airport at the asscrack of dawn so I can make my 7:45 flight to DFW. She has this thing about people paying to park at the airport when it averages around $7 a day. Saved me $70 bucks...Jen was definitely getting a cool souvenir.

The night before I had a conversation with my traveling buddy Kerrie, who was going to meet me at JFK (from Houston), about the wisdom of checking baggage. I guess I didn't have high hopes for the Egyptian airport. Kerrie travels quite a bit, and she's never had any problems with her luggage getting lost. Just the same, she suggested I carry on at least one change of clothes as well as any essentials in my backpack. Okay, no problem.

I've packed my massive traveling backpack (which I bought brand new on ebay for $4, thank you very much) inside this 30 inch long red duffel I'd bought along so I'd have an extra bag for souvenirs. JQ drops me at the airport, I check my bags, and am off to DFW. It's a quick flight. I decide I want to have an unhealthy breakfast before I go, so I go to Mickey D's and grab a sausage biscuit and some water.

Two hours later, I'm on the plane to JFK. As soon as my ass hits the seat, I pull out my earplugs and mask, and I am out like a light. Next thing I know, we're descending into JFK. Cool, I missed most of the flight.

So I get a text message from Kerrie that she's on her way to baggage claim; her flight from H-Town landed around the same time as mine. We were in different terminals, but she landed at the same one where we were taking off on Egypt Air. Now if you've never been to The City, JFK is a huge freakin' airport. I got on one of the trams, and damn near went to Jamaica, Queens. Good thing I was actually paying attention.

So I go collect my bag(s), and make my way to the Egypt Air counter. I'm looking around, but I don't see Kerrie anywhere. I call her cell...yeah, she's at the Continental Baggage Services because they've lost her luggage. How in the hell do they lose a bag on a direct flight from Houston? On top of that, she's an Elite member, so her bags are supposed to be guaranteed to be first off the flight. I knew that conversation from the night before would come back to bite one of us in the ass. Better her than me.

I only say that cuz Kerrie handles stuff like that better than I do. I would've raised such hell, they probably would've called security and I never would've gotten to go on my dream vacation. That, and I just prefer when bad things happen, they don't happen to me.

So we check in on Egypt Air (Continental promised they'd have her bags on the next Egypt Air flight, which only flies out once a day), and dawdle around JFK for a couple of hours. Kerrie buys a toothbrush and a $5 stick of deodorant, we split a not so impressive personal pizza (we're in New York for crying out loud, y'all can do better), and wait.

When it's time to board, I notice this woman, who kinda but not really resembled my grandmother. Only thing is, Mama Jean is about 20 years older, and would never wander around braless. Okay, I don't know if she was braless or just wearing one that didn't provide a hell of a lot of support. The end result was the same though...and not sexy at all.

So we're flying to Cairo in a 777. We were the only two on our middle row, so we were able to stretch out a bit. Egypt Air passed out socks, a sleep mask, and headphones to everyone, which was cool. I've never received socks on a plane before.

When they served us dinner, the first thing I noticed was (what I thought was) a bit of an excessive amount of carbs. There were like three rolls, some rice and some potatoes. I had read something about most Egyptians only having meat every couple of weeks because they can't afford it. So I shrug it off and eat what I can.

For the in-flight entertainment, they showed that Hillary Swank movie...I don't know what the name of it was but it was another "see the white lady come teach something to the poor minority students and help them overcome adversity" movies. I didn't watch it, I listened to my mp3 player instead.

Kerrie and I take an Ambien and try to get some sleep. I must be the only person on the planet that Ambien doesn't work for. At the most, I'll sleep 4 hours (hell, I took one last night, which explains why I'm blogging at 3 something in the morning). So I sleep off and on throughout our 12 hour flight. At one point, I woke up and they were showing Casino Royale.

A couple of hours later: breakfast. Once again, with the carbs. We had a croissant, 2 rolls, and a slice of white bread...all on one tray. They threw in some crazy cow, or whatever that triangular cheese is, some jelly, and some fruit cocktail that looked to be about two weeks old. I had a feeling carb heavy meals would be a recurring theme.

Next stop, Cairo!