Day 1: Crossing the Atlantsuck and Cairo

What a long day of travelling. I've spent an unknown number of hours in airports and on airplanes - some of them I was conscious, some of them I was not. Sleeping on planes sucks, even with all the right equipment (you know, like one of those inflatable neck pillows). I think the air pressure is all wrong or it's too dry or something - I kept waking up with a dry, swollen tongue and a sore throat.

JFK airport in New York city sucked also - terrible food. On the plus side, all of the planes I've been on seem to have TV screens with movies and games and GPS-enabled maps so you can see how close you are to your destination. Also on the plus side, Air France ruled - they give you damn good food, bread, cheese, wine, whatever, all complimentary. I made some half-ass sangria with some orange juice and red wine!

Flying over the Atlantic was boring as you may have guessed. No scenery. Oh, and it was also in the middle of the night, so you wouldn't have seen anything if there was scenery. Flying into the airport in Paris was cool. I saw the Eiffel tower from afar, and the city was laid out in weird triangular blocks instead of square blocks like most cities in the U.S. Maybe that was just in the part of Paris that I flew over, I dunno. The Paris airport was ridiculous. We landed, got out of the plane and loaded into a bus parked nearby. It drove us past all these terminals under construction. Then we waited and waited and waited for a bus to take us to the terminal we were supposed to be leaving from - the plane had started boarding 10 minutes prior. It finally came and took us right by where we got off the plane in the first place. Then we went through the boarding gate and sat on another bus for 10 or 15 minutes before we finally got onto the plane. "C'est la vie" is the expression I believe...

The flight from Paris to Cairo was scenic. We flew over Greece and several Greek Islands. I was unconscious on and off. When the plane came into Egypt I noticed that all the towns surrounding Cairo were laid out in this weird clumped-together blob pattern. Interesting. Egypt (around Cairo) was much greener than I was expecting. As the plane circled to land, we saw the pyramids and everyone "ooo"ed and "aww"ed. They are big. Really freaking big. I'm going to see them on foot tomorrow. Very excited. ... We got off the plane, met one of our travel guide's reps at the airport, got visa'd, and got taxied.

AWESOME taxi ride! Egypt is like Ecuador (or Mexico so I hear) as far as the driving goes. Tons of tiny, dinged-up cars swerving around with complete disregard for lanes, safety, and pedestrians. It was night when we got the taxi ride, but most people drive with their headlights off. The swerving and near collisions are punctuated by flashing the headlights and various horn honks from quick triple-beeps to a few heavy long beeps when you come close to smushing a scooter or small car. Also there are people lining the roads. They are all running around through traffic like the hardest level of Frogger. Women, children, old people, and crazy people pushing carts are walking around not only in traffic, but across the street while cars dodge them going 30mph. It's insane. Also, all the cars have tons of weird neon flashing lights and bright glowing colors. And some of the "cars" are wagons pulled by donkeys. I'm totally gonna hit up a local Egyptian auto parts store and ship myself some neon crap. The cars are all brands that don't exist in the U.S.: Peugot, Fiat, Opel, and other crap I don't recognize at all. I saw one Chevy truck. And the best part...

In Egypt they don't have traffic lights! Here's how a four way stop works: traffic is moving at a steady pace down one street (30-40mph). Traffic on the perpendicular street edges closer and closer until they're about to get T-boned and they start honking and flashing lights. Finally, a slight backup in traffic going down the first street will cause them to slow down enough where traffic on the second street just pushes through. People hit the breaks hard and honk a lot while traffic from the second street starts streaming though. The intersection is also immediately flooded with pedestrians crossing in all directions including diagonally. If only my camera wasn't in my bag in the back of the taxi van. We only went through one real intersection like this - the rest of the time was just a slow but steady weaving through packed streets.

I don't have any pictures today, but I will get plenty tomorrow. And I will make sure we take a taxi back into town at night sometime to get some good video of this craziness!