Atlantic Crossing

As promised, the (not so interesting) story of my journey to Aegyptus:

I guess it began at the security checkpoint. After saying goodbye to my mom and dad, practically disrobing for the friendly TSA employee ("Where are you going?" Egypt. "Oh, day trip?"), and doing the awkward belongings-gathering shuffle at end of the x-ray belt, I was off. And somewhere in between the Starbucks kiosk and the terminal entrance (that's about 15 feet), I realized that I was suddenly, maddeningly alone.

I travel by myself often. I do it all the time. I had even made it to Rome once all alone. But on the other end of those flights there was always someone waiting for me--the excited parents, the patient boyfriend--and in Cairo there was nothing. Maybe, if I was lucky, there would be a driver from AUC from whom I was not to expect a confirmation nor any help through customs, according to the friendly email. I didn't even know where I was living.

That's probably where the panic set in, and quickly ran the whole gamut: adrenaline rush, elevated heart rate, lightheadedness and...tears? Almost. But then I remembered. I needed a bottle of water. Having a task to do, some distracting action? This I could accomplish. And so I did, and thus passed the one and only moment of true fear so far. Thank you, Poland Springs.

Not much to say about the 9 hour and 45 minute flight over. I had the perfect seat neighbor: friendly, liked my sarcastic jokes about the in-flight entertainment (included but not limited to the American cinematic masterpiece Step Up), watched Deadwood on his DVD player for six hours and passed out. I tried to sleep, but succeeded only halfway. My seat neighbor drank five complementary German beers within the first two hours with the same intention, but had no luck with his sleep until the sixth hour of Deadwood. To each his own.

I woke up as we were circling Frankfurt, just in time to get a nice view. Little red roofed hamlets, dark forests, and a single anonymous factory with an incredibly large chimney. I think the graphics people from Crusin' World must have taken the same flight that I did.

So, got off the plane, saw that my assigned departure gate was precisely ten feet from my arrival gate, and started to wonder what I was going to do for the next four hours. Well, first stop, bathroom. And so began my foray into the shortcomings of the Frankfurt airport. If there's one thing I expected of the Germans, it was efficiency. No aesthetics, no sugarcoating, no conceptual design, everything created for its purpose. So you think they'd be able to build a damn bathroom. But no. Here's how it goes:

You pull on the unobtrusive-to-the-point-of-being-near-invisible ladies' room door, only to find that it instead opens inward to a sink room approximately the size of my 4 x 4 dorm room closet, where about six women are trying to a) wash their hands b) do their makeup or c) brush their teeth. And none of them will move. So you think, okay, I'll wait until it's a little less crowded in there, at which point someone with more Frankfurt Airport Bathroom Experience Points barges in ahead of you and leaves a swath of angry Swedes or Indians or whoever in the wake of her rolling suitcase. So then you think, well, I'd better go in. There must be a lot more room in there past the washroom door. So in you go, barely even able to make it in the door, hitting everyone within arms' reach (NB: that'd be everyone) with your backpack/messager bag only to find that past the golden gate of the washroom door there are two (2) bathroom stalls, both of which are occupied. So you wait, impatiently, until someone exits, at which point there is no where to which you can retreat, and pressing forward is impossible, so you engage in the awkward bathroom waltz ("Which way are you... oh I'm sor...ha, sorry...no I'll go this way...sorry") until you finally get a stall to yourself. Wash, rinse, repeat upon exit.

Okay, that's my rant. Other things were pretty inefficient in the airport, like the oddly un-ergonomic gate seating that allowed for only about 1/4 of the plane to sit, or the inability of the airport staff to open the door to the plane, but the bathroom was by far the worst. I tried to use the TMobile phones to call my boyfriend, but they wanted a credit card for long distance calls. I played that game in Italy once, and lost (it involves me paying over $75 to leave a 15 second message on a cell phone), so I wasn't playing it again. I found an Internet terminal, where it was 2 Euros for 10 minutes. Not a bad deal, I guess; at least I could shoot off a quick email to the family and habibi.

Fate had other plans, as all of my email passwords have a required special character ("for added security!!") that's not on any of the German keyboards. After the first Internet terminal froze and I had to pay a second 2 Euros for the adjacent one, I was able to send a Facebook message out--the only password without an asterisk--while being chatted up by a man from my flight. ("I am going to Istanbul! How cool is that?")

I was standing in line to check in with the gate attendant that I was in the right place when I saw my friend Sarah. True to her promise, she was the one curled up around her backpack. Her layover was two hours longer than mine, so we commiserated for awhile about how we just wanted to lie prone, and how poorly designed the bathrooms were. Seriously. It was upsetting. Germany can do better.

Sooner or later we were greeted by our friend Hafsa and her friend from home Aliyah, both on our flight. We sat there for awhile and discussed the practicalities of the situation, i.e. why the hell we were going to Cairo in the first place. Finally, once the friendly blue and yellow Lufthansa people figured out how to open the door, we boarded. This involved us taking a bus to our plane, which was parked right next to a C17 (?? Jake, help me out here) from McChord. I was sitting next to a girl from Portland who goes to Willamette University and spoke no Arabic. I felt a lot better then, since I really don't speak any either. (This will become apparent later.) The plane ride wasn't anything memorable, as I don't remember any of it. I woke up just in time to look out to the left and see the Pyramids lit up with purple neon lights. Huh.

Turns out there were a lot of us on the plane, at least 15 bound for AUC. We all deboarded, and were almost immediately met by a really cheery and adorable old Egyptian with a huge AUC sign, shouting, "Go through, get your bags and DON'T MOVE. DO NOT MOVE...or I cannot help you, you are up to Allah then!" We got our passports stamped at Passport Control with no problem at all, and then waited an agonizingly long time for our baggage. I thought we'd go through Customs, as I knew we were supposed to at least declare our laptops. But the friendly AUC man whisked all of us under the Nothing To Declare gate. "Welcome to Misr," whispered the armed guard at the door. He winked at me. Welcome to Egypt.

We then proceeded down a tunnel, over some rocks, around a corner and into a really dark and random parking lot filled with police cars, a bus and a Toyota Tundra. The kids who were living in the Garden City apartments put their luggage in the bed of the truck and the rest of us put our luggage on the bus. We all boarded the bus, and then proceeded to drive in circles around the Cairo Airport for about ten minutes until some magical signal was given, and all the Garden City kids were asked to get off the bus and walk towards some unknown place/vehicle. At this point, we said goodbye to Hafsa and Alyiah and started planning their funeral.

But apparently they made it, and so did we. After our luggage was searched ("Any beer?!"), we got our room keys and found our rooms. Floors are sex-segregated and guarded here, so the two porters with my luggage had to be escorted by a female. Best part of the whole night: As soon as we hit the all girls' floor, the escort starts slowly, sonorously bellowing, "MAN ON FLOOR.....MAN ON FLOOR....MAN ON FLOOR." They're really not messing around here. You happy, Dad?

My roommate's stuff was there, but she was missing. I unpacked, which took all of three minutes because I tried to pack light, and took a much needed shower. I had just sat down to do a bit of correspondence when Nadja from the Netherlands (okay, could that get any more perfect/stereotypical?) and is for some complete and utterly unknown reason a post-grad studying Law here for a semester. She seems quite nice.

I proceed to pass out, and slept until I somehow woke up 8 minutes before my alarm feeling rather well rested. I set off to begin my first day in Cairo, which actually just ended. I'd write about it now, but I should get some sleep. You'll want to read about my first day though, so check back tomorrow. I'm also kind of waiting on some pictures to post with the story, otherwise you might not believe that it actually happened.

I can't give many hints, but I can say that it started with Sarah saying to me, "This is either the best idea in the world or the worst idea in the world."

Salaam ya shabab,

Kari