reaping the benefits from an 8 year old's identity crisis

so, last week was the Egyptian mothers day. Although I am positive this holiday is not an indigenous one and is in fact mimicking the Hallmark-happy days of praise in the West, it did seem to inspire several of my children to earn any ass-kissing points possible.

Now, when I was in grade school, I did not think of my teachers as human beings with real lives outside of school, let alone parent figures. However, in the grand tradition of sucking-up that seems to have taken root during the primary years of the children's schooling here, I recieved more Mothers Day presents than I know what to do with. I came back from every class with a trash bag full of wrapped presents. While opening these presents, I had to admit a sad truth: opening wrapped presents no longer holds the excitement and wonder it once did for me. Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for everything I have recieved, but I no longer feel that rush of "I just want to tear off this wrapping to see whats in there!" I once felt. Sigh. The loss of this feeling along with the absense of the desire to write on my hands can only mean one thing...I'm growing up. We all knew it would happen.

But, I did open all of the presents, and some were great and some will certainly be regifted, so if you recieve any of the following from me when I return, it means I don't care about you enough to buy you a real gift:

-a green pashmina
-a beach towel (this one was handed to me in a plastic bag with no explanation, though it came in handy on the beach this weekend...thats a future post)
-2 candy dishes
-a baby-doll dress clock (it's exactly what it sounds like)
-2 Egyptian boxes (perfect for regifting)
-a hello kitty clock
-a candle holder with read glass hearts
-3 picture frames
-a gold Cleopatra jewelery set that included a necklace, earrings, and a pin (is it wrong to regift only part of the gift...because I want that pin...I'm getting into broches)
-a cow salt and pepper shaker set (quite possibly the best gift)
-2 bathroom-art paintings of tulips
-"airflame" perfume
-a coffee mug (that has pictures of mugs on it...it blows my mind)
-one fake rose

NO GODDAMN CANDY...these kids don't know me at all

None of these compare to that time one of my kids accidentally called me Mommy and then got all embarrassed...that was a great day.
-

Goldfish are the new cats...

Most of you are aware of my annoyance with this insane obsession with cats that has seemed to infected my friends (mainly by way of their blogs and myspace)...but for some of you, this is a new rant.

For months, I have had to endure the blog and myspace postings of picture upon picture of cats. cats on couches, cats in kitchens, cats on bed, cats with funny hats, etc...lately it has seemed as though I must learn to ignore these persons' (who otherwise are very dear to me and I hold in the highest esteem) incomprehensible fondness of these incredible innane and uninteresting creatures. But, today, I had an idea. If I could think of an animal that is more boring, ignorable and unexciting as these cats, I could enact my revenge. It took me about an hour to do so, but I have finally thought of an animal who possesses these qualities:

This is the Goldfish Revolution. Don't fight it. Be prepared to get postings and emails with pictures along this line:






thats as exciting as they're going to get.

Friday is my new favorite day...

So, very recently I have begun attending Cairo's "Hash" on Friday afternoons. No, not that kind of hash (although it was one of the things that intrigued me initially). The Hash House Harriers are groups of somewhere between 40 and 100 people (usually expatriates when the Hash is abroad) who get together and either walk or run together. The great thing about it, however, is that the walk takes place in these amazing places. In Cairo, of course, it's usually in the desert. It is a pleasant way to spend the afternoon and make friends in new places.

Well...the greatEST thing about it really is the "circle" afterwards, where everyone drinks beer, singling out fellow "Hares" (and yes, I understand the lameness of the name) to chug beer or pour it over their heads. I only did the walk as I am in no way a runner, much less in the desert, but thankfully many people who join the Hash walk as well and you can pretty much go at your own pace.

There are Hash's all around the world, in most major cities. I encourage people to join wherever they are living, especially if it is abroad or they have just moved to a new place. It's a fantastic way to meet people, also to explore your area. And, you get drunk afterwards! If you want to find one in your area you can visit their website here.

the photo blog...finally!

you know what? I can't post any photos on this f-ing blog without taking about 3 hours out of my day.

so I posted them all on photobucket...click here to see them.
You got it all in there... UAE, Nepal and India. Have fun!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (and Rickshaws, Japlopies, but unfortunatly no John Candy)

How does one make it to Mumbai from Kathmandu in time for her flight in four days? Why, she takes every conceivable form of transportation known to man. It's only fitting that our vocabulary unit in class this week is transportation.

Step one: Get the hell out of Kathmandu. We left on a 7:00 pm bus. Now, normally embarking on this sort of adventure would have us giddy with excitement, however, on this particular night, both Sara and I were suffering from the "why-the-hell-did-we-eat-that" syndrome. Sometimes your common sense takes a back seat to "oh, sure I want to try what looks like boiled buffalo on a skin flap...anything for the sake of adventure." Oh man, my stomach is turning as I write this. Poor Sara had it worse than me (and she's the vegetarian). So there we were, two American girls writhing in digestive pain in a bus full of Nepali men sitting directly behind the young dreamer who is happy to practice his English anywhere, at anytime. I mean, more power to him, it's certainly how you learn, but I usually pull back speaking to any stranger when it looks like their dinner could end up on my shoes. As the night went on (it was a 10 hour drive), things got better...especially about 4 hours in when we figured out how to adjust our seats. We made it to Sunauli, the border town with India at around 5 am.

Step two: Get to the border...4 km away. Seems easy enough, right? Well,it was actually...the only thing is the only way to get there was by rickshaw. Don't get me wrong, it was a beautiful night/early morning, but we did not see it coming. But, like I said, it was a nice little ride, although certainly slow going. It was nice and dark so we could see the stars, a nice calm before the shit storm that was about to unfold.

Step three: Cross border, get to train station. Immigration on both sides was a breeze. The officials were helpful and the process was beginning to become routine to us by this time. The official on the Indian side told us to look for a man named "Bablu" for our bus. This we did. We finally found Bablu and his wonderfully charming brother (I guess the sarcasm doesn't come across on the blog). His brother sat us in their "office" while he took our info (though we only gave him our names). He looked at our train ticket and finally says to us "ok, we need 1500 Rupees for Sleeper class conformation key." Ok, certainly, we had been traveling for three weeks and were a little tired/sundried, but we were no fools. No one was going to flim flam us, at least not for that much. We said no thank you, we will just take our chances at the train station. He got a little more testy and said "no problem, I will just cancel your tickets." Ok, it was on now. What ensued was a 20 minute war of words with me shouting "this is fucking bullshit" at the top of my lungs while he continued to threaten to cancel our tickets. We got on the bus and he followed saying "Go back to Nepal." More fighting, on the bus. It was quite the scene. Even typing about it is getting me so angry, I don't thing I had ever been that irate before in my entire life. Things finally calmed down and that dick (excuse me family) finally left. Our bus was about 4 hours but it broke down about 1 our from the train station.

Step four: Get to train station. The riders on the bus split up and each took separate jalopy-style cabs. There were about 13 of us cramped in a space for about 4. It was a bumpy ride, not for the boney-butted. Finally, we got there and with the help of some very friendly young Nepali men, we made it to the train station, where we stayed in the safety of the tourist office until our train arrived.

Step five: Train ride!! Oh, finally the fun part. We had the lowest class, sleeper. We had heard some serious horror stories about the sleeper class in the Indian trains. But, honestly, it wasn't bad at all. We spent two days watching India roll by while finishing our books. I finished "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie, I figured it would be a good read in India (thanks Aarti). It was. The first night on the train I had nodded off only to be stirred awake by two local travelers, a couple. They stared at me for about 15 minutes before saying hello and asking for my address. They wanted to be pen pals. They asked about my religion and when I told them I don't have one they seemed to lose all interest in me. I really enjoyed the train ride. i have some great video from the window, but I doubt I will be able to download it now. I'll try to put it on my computer at work, and see if thats any faster. We got into Bombay two days after departure and made our way to a hotel that charged us way too much, but it had room service and cable, which was all we wanted (aside from maybe a pool). We spent the night watching TV and eating, a good last night. We had no desire to go into Bombay, we were just too tired and the city too dirty. I would like to go back to India, but would probably go north to Delhi or south to Goa.

Step six: Get yourself the fuck to Egypt. Airplane #1: Bombay to Sharjah, UAE. Thankfully we didn't have to spend much time in Sharjah, we just bought some gummy bears (which I had been craving) and fell asleep on the airport floor. i actually slept through the night, which was surprising. They had these great massage chairs in there that really did the trick. We boarded Plane #2 the next morning and 4 hours later, landed in Alexandria.

Step seven: From Alexandria to Cairo. We hoped on the train. Thats it, not much to this step really.

Finally, we were home. Free for one day to relax and take it easy before we had to hurl ourselves back into the chaos that is Sakkara Language School. It's been a week now and things are getting back to normal, everything is becoming routine again.

I know I know, this would all be better with pictures. I need to put them on my work computer to ensure me keeping my sanity during uploading, however. This week, I promise!

On learning to like (if not tolerate) spicy foods

As it has been a few days since my last post, I thought I would update you all on my week.

We spend around 5 days in Pokhara, too long to spend in any one place really. The first couple days were amazing, we hiked up to the World Peace Pagoda, erected by the Japanese some time ago. The pagoda itself was beautiful, but the view was amazing (its really all about the views here). We've been trying to watch our wallets, so we don't end up starving at the end of this trip. Therefore, we have been splitting dinners of veggie curry everywhere. Exceptions to the penny-pinching rule were made for tissues (which are in high demand around the area of my sinuses) and, of course, chocolate. Twix and Mars bars, more specifically.

We spent a few more days in Pokhara, basically stalling because we were at a loss for what to do next. One day we rented a boat for 5 hours and went out on the great lake we were staying near. Most of the gigantic mountain range visible in Pokhara is reflected in this lake. It was, needless to say, a wonderful day. I believe it was that night or the next when we were lulled into a restaurant by the sounds of Van Morrison's "Sweet Thing" followed by many more of the classics. Imagine our disappointment when Van the Man was abandoned in favor of Bob Marley. If I don't hear another Bob Marley song in my life, it would be too soon (though I'll most likely hear one tonight). He seems to be the most significant leftover from the once prominent hippie movement that had its claws in the Nepalese tourist scene in the mid-late 90's. Bob Marley and hemp necklaces.

A few days later, we took a bus back to Kathmandu with hopes of fixing our flight situation. We only have a ticket from Mumbai to Egypt (as India was our original plan) and wanted to change it for little, if no money. Turns out changing it would cost us $300 each! We were bummed because we just don't have very much money. Thankfully two men came to our rescue. Their names (and I'm not shitting you) are pronounced 'Props' and 'Achoo.' They each seem to know the comedy that is their name, as they laughed every time they said it. Anyway, Props and Achoo proceeded to look online and make a few phone calls, eventually getting us a visa to India for the next day (today) and train tickets to Mumbai for considerably less than we had expected. Man, and I thought the Egyptians were helpful!

We ended up striking up a little friendship with these oddly-named men, and went to eat with them last night. We went to a restaurant that was famous in Kathmandu, I guess. Props ordered us food and drink. I had no idea what he said, but turns out he had ordered us so much food it would make a pig blush. Also, we drank the Nepali rice wine out of a barrel basically. It was delicious. The place was lively and the food was so spicy at times it felt like torture. But once I wiped off the chilies, the food was actually delicious. We met a German man, George, who had been living in Nepal for 20 years and lived on a farm. I loved him. I'm sure the man I marry will be a carbon copy of this man.

Today is rainy, we've taken to sitting in cafes and reading on these days. It suits us fine.

my so-called trek

Why, hello...I didn't see you standing there. Oh, me? This is my 6th day in Nepal and, well, could I ask you a favor? Could you just chop of my legs, for see, I am by no means a 'trekker' and walking up that mountain has made me to feel as if someone was beating the shit out of my lower half all night.

Ok, ok, it's not that bad. In fact, going up the mountain wasn't too bad at all...it was coming down that did me in. Every time I would stop to rest my legs would wobble and almost give out from underneath me. I know, I know, these things would not happen were it not for my poor shape. However, if you had the choice of paying half a dollar for a ride up/down to/from the unbelievably gorgeous mountain town or walking up/down the mountain to get there, you'd walk too...right? Well, maybe not.

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself. As I have said, we had a layover in Sharjah, UAE. A very clean fishing town on the Arabian Gulf with ABSOLUTLY nothing to do. Nothing. There are only so many times you can eat, drink or go on the internet in a day before you go batshit crazy. But, we did see a movie (Dan in Real Life) and managed to obtain a picture of the ease at which Arabic is translated into English:

We got into Nepal, got a hostel in Kathmandu and slept...for a while. This traveling stuff sure makes me sleepy. Exploring Kathmandu is a bit stressful, for everyone is desperatly trying to sell you something and the streets are packed. Really, not all that different from Cairo actually. I am getting the impression that because of the political instablity here (there is an ongoing civil war betweetn the Maoists and the Government) the tourism sector has taken a huge blow. But nothing has happened lately and it all seems pretty safe for us travelers, so no worries. We wanted desperatly to get out of Kathmandu for it was much too polluted and stressful for us. I will, however, be posting some fine pictures of the city (and the rest of our trip) as soon as I get back to Cairo, because connection is slow here and it costs money!

Taking a 6:30 am bus out of the city, we reached a town called Dumre, small with nothing much to see but directly below another town called Bandipur. Bandipur may be my favorite place I have ever been. We hiked up the mountain to get there (hence this painful feeling in my legs)...and man, there is nothing quite like the view of the Himalayas from atop a mountain, even if its one of the small ones! I tried to get a good picture of the snow-capped mountains in the background, but the air was foggy and a good picture was not to be had.

We reached the top and spotted a small village of great little Magar huts, animals, and little children running everywhere. There was a small, old guesthouse nearby, so we got a room and, you guessed it, took a nap. That night we simply took in the town, met some fellow travelers (Canadians...they were the only ones around!), ate some great food and drank some not-so-great beer. FYI- Everest is a watery ghost of a decent beer. They also enjoy Oranjeboom and Lowenbrau here. I take the Lowenbrau, every time.

The next day we decided to take the hour long hike to Siddha Gopa, "the largest cave in Nepal." Two hours later, we reach said cave. Two hours of constand downhill, my god did we have the shakes. The cave,however, was worth it. We found a guide just sitting in front of the cave with a fire and a beginners book in English. This guy's job is to sit on top of a mountain, sometimes walk around in a huge cave and occasionally learn some English for the sake of his communication with tourists.

The cave was amazing. Huge, really, huge. There were some natural formations in the shapes of trees, lions and cobras. We saw a flock (is that the word?) of bats sleeping on the ceiling. Though we would have been happy simply looking at the first room of this monstrosity, our guide insisted we follow him down tiny little latters, up rocks wet from the small waterfalls flowing over them, and inside a terribly hot tiny room that you need to crawl through the smallest of spaces to enter.

The next morning we took a bus from Dumre to Pokhara, another touristy city with a great lake and beautiful view of the Annapurna mountains. We are going to take a boatride today and maybe tomorrow head down to Chitwan Park for an Elephant Safari or two.

I promise, I will post all of my pictures in due time!

I hope all is well with you. I miss you all.