I was at a function somewhere recently ( I don’t remember where) when someone brought up the subject of
If I need to get to the hospital, should I just get in a taxi or call an ambulance.
I laughed and replied:
Get in a taxi. It will get you there faster and it’s not like the ambulance staff can do anything for you.
Then this article came out in Egypt Today.
Brand new, shiney ambulances. I am still going to get in a taxi.
Tickets have been purchased.
Tentative routing:
Cairo->Bangkok
Bangkok -> Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai->Hanoi
Hanoi->Hoi An
Hoi An->Nha Trang
Nha Trang->Saigon
Saigon->Mekong Delta
Delta->Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh->Siem Reap
Siem Reap->Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpir->Manila
Manila->Seattle
Man, I got tired just typing that out.
A small page with a handful of our photos from Bangkok.
We did something different on this trip.
Normally we each have an SLR.
This trip we shared one SLR.
So some of these are mine, some of these are Kaddee’s.
The Wat Arun photos are definitely Kaddee’s photos. The rest, who knows.
Yeah, it has only been a month and a half. It is hard to find time to process the photos.
Here are a dozen or so of my favorites.
We are having a great time. The food is fabulous and our hotel *very* nice.
We have no computer with us, so we have sporadic access.
This is just a quick note to let you know we are alive.
This article claims that the Egyptian government has lifted the restrictions on tourist travel.
For those of you that don’t know, traveling almost anywhere outside Cairo by car or bus involves a convoy. The 2 places where most people encounter this is
All the buses and cars have to meet at a checkpoint, and they all travel together. So they all arrive, more or less, together. Which means hundreds of tourists hitting the temple all at once. Such joy.
If the article is true, it means that it is should now be much easier to travel within Egypt.
It means, insh’allah, no hurtling death rides from Aswan to Abu Simbel.
It also means, insh’allah, that it will be possible to rent a car and travel alone at one owns pace down the nile and tour the temples when *I* want to, instead of arriving on a bus with 50 of my closest friends.
I am skeptical, because I have had to wait for a police escort when traveling even in areas that don’t require convoys…
In one’s day to day life, it is easy for one (or at least this one) to bemoan the myriad slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Holiday’s like this are important touchstones to sit back and look at the big picture. As a dear departed friend once said:
I am dry, warm and no one is shooting at me. It is a good day.
So today, Thanksgiving, is supposed to about appreciating what ya got. And I got lots. More than most. And I do appreciate it. I am not a public person when it comes to demonstrating my feelings, but to all my friends and loved ones:
Thanks for putting up with me for another year. I know it ain’t easy. I appreciate it.
Today is shopping and a quiet dinner of take out with Kaddee’s mom and aunt who are visiting. Tomorrow is the big dinner with about 16-20 of our friends (and a few strangers) here in Cairo. An eclectic grouping of people. And food. Trying to find “the traditional” staples has been a challenge. It will be interesting to see what people can assemble.
I wish you all all the best.
I was reminded recently of jumping in a pile of leaves.
This time of year, back where I grew up, was leaf kicking time. Didn’t matter how old I was, if there were leaves on the ground (in the gutter, on the sidewalk, in the park) I would have to walk through them and rustle them.
The colors on the leaves in the NE were so vibrant, the noise the dry leaves made seemed so loud and somehow comforting, and the feeling of the leaves swirling around my legs just felt so good. If you were lucky and the leaves were dry enough and there was just a bit of wind and you kicked you could get them to swirl around your head, which was always an extra bonus.
Combining the 3 sensual inputs of color, sound and motion touched (and still does) some part of my brain that makes me smile and feel like a child again.
Living in Seattle has seriously curtailed my leaf kicking. For the most part, if there are leaves on the ground, they are wet. And kicking wet leaves is not only less satisfactory, but is also likely to land you on your ass.
But there are plenty of leaf kicking opportunities here in Cairo, believe it or not. The mango trees shed their leaves once or so a year.
In addition, people will “trim” trees here at least twice a year. They are “trimmed” usually by men in gallabeyas climbing and bouncing on the branches that are to be removed until they snap off.
Then, a few days later, men in trucks come by to collect the branches.
So during that time there are all these leaves on the ground just begging to be kicked.
There are 2 minor nit pics:
So walking through them doesn’t quite conjure up the same colorful swirling magic that happens in the NE, and your shoes and slacks are then covered in dust and dirt.
But I do it anyway, cause it still puts a silly grin on my face.
Especially when I do it down the street in front of the art school. All the students stop their incessant mobile phone conversations to stop and stare at the crazy OLD khwaga kicking leaves.
Heh. They don’t know what they’re missing.
Congrats to Obama and all the people that made it happen. They worked hard and beat the odds. Nice work.
A few months ago, I said that I thought that McCain was going to win. This was before the Palin pick.
I was wrong.
I am pleasantly surprised that I was wrong.
And the democrats have increased their leads in the Senate and House. If they can’t get their agenda passed now, then they should just disband as a political party.
It is going to be interesting.
I hear some vague hints on the intertubes about some sort of election for “leader of the free world”. (and I have always wondered: how much of the world is free? and is it “free from ..” or “free of ..” and what is it free from/of, exactly?)
But I had to dig for any information about this election, cause hardly anybody is talking about it. Everywhere I go, when people find out I am American, they have no opinions of the election.
None of the other ex-pats ever talk about it.
The newspapers barely have any coverage. Dont’ see anything about it on tv.
It is almost as if it wasn’t happening!
But once you find any info, it is apparently a big deal (at least to the small minority of people that follow these things). Go figure.
As far as I can tell from what I read, it is an election between the messiah and the anti-christ.
Should be a no-brainer to decide, no? After all, who wants to vote for the anti-christ? I mean, besides his evil minions.
But there seems to be some sort of mixup. No matter where I look, or how hard I dig, there seems to be no clear cut answer on about which is which.
Some people even claim that they are both facets of ba’al Zebub, and that the one true savior was forced out of the race early on. But that can’t be. How could the true savior lose the eternal struggle between good and evil? Unpossible!
And it looks like it will be close, with lots of accusations of voter fraud
to rile up the losers.
What a great time to be an american. Too bad the time difference makes it really hard to stay up late enough to see how this latest episode of “the great experiment” goes in real time.