8 days and counting...

in reading and rereading some of my previous posts from the last few months, i have concluded that my punctuation is dreadful and borderline offensive to every english teacher i have ever had...ooops...it isn't like i don't know how to punctuate correctly, cuz i do, but i just prefer typing three little dots (...) and starting a new thought...so deal with it, too late to change now...

anyhow, things have wound down now, and i just spent the last 2 weeks with my big sister and her room mate jenny, and i dropped them off at the abyss that is the cairo airport. we basically kicked the crap put of egypt for 2 straight weeks, taking on cairo, upper egypt (luxor and aswan, which is actually south), and the sinai peninsula (dahab and sharm el sheikh)...so essentially we covered every region of egypt (minus the western desert) in 13 days and i'd say we had a pretty fabulous time...

i will spare you all the intimate details of the trip (because it was far too action-packed...and im lazy) but i will sum up each leg of the trip in simple summaries...

cairo: awesome, dirty, crazy, annoying and intense...i had forgotten how much of a pain in the ass cab drivers are in this city, but i got to use my arabic a lot which was fun but i got to revisit a lot of the things i hadn't done for months like the national museum, the pyramids, and some sweet mosques...highlight: MUMMIES...they are repulsive little old things and one still had an eye after 5000 years...now, i am no biologist but i dont know how an eyeball can survive that long...pretty icky for lack of a better word...

luxor/aswan: venturing to the south (which is called upper egypt because of where it is in relation to the nile river valley) presented all new challenges for me since i hadnt been to either city yet. both cities were neat, and luxor had the coolest place i have probably ever been in Karnak Temples and i felt like i was 8 years old again running around Chuck E Cheese...except instead of a ball pit there were 130 giant stone pillars and instead of the mascot, Mr. Cheese, there were scattered bedouins everywhere trying to squeeze every last pound from my shallow pockets...HIGHLIGHT: sailing on the nile in aswan, absolutely mind bogglingly beautiful (is "bogglingly" even a word?) and Karnak Temple...LOWLIGHT: stupid cab drivers and smelling my flesh cook in 120 degree whether...

Sharm El Sheikh/Dahab: sharm is a heinous resort for rich europeans built up by israel when they occupied the sinai...historical facts aside, sharm was pretty lame...it was pretty i guess and we made friends with lots of fish which was cool...but its way overpriced, loud, and just not my scene...if you're looking to spend loads of money to eat bad imitation western food next to swimming pools that probably cost more than my house to build, then buy your tickets immediately, you won't want to miss this...Dahab on the other hand is awesome...i had been there before, so i knew what was going on for the most part, but we logged some awesome snorkeling time and climbed Mt Sinai, the mountain where moses received the 10 commandments and god appeared as a burning bush (granted, this is all allegedly true since it clearly can't be proven)...HIGHLIGHT: great food and snorkeling in Dahab and overall cool people (i'm looking at you Mohammad and Yasser)...LOWLIGHT: lame sharm and climbing a mountain from 1 am til 4 am...the sunrise was mindblowing and the experience itself wasn't a lowlight (closer to a highlight), but my legs still hurt cuz i am i wimp...plus the people we climbed with were for the most part lame and inconsiderate, but our bedouin guide was amazing...

so we headed back to cairo the last 2.5 days and saw some other neat pyramids (not the famous ones, but their predecessors) and a really neat mosque and spent some time regaining all the energy we expended traveling...traveling truly is amazing, but it is beyond exhausting moving from hotel to hotel, fighting with cab drivers (and hotel managers), and sweating off 13 pounds a day...i still wouldn't have changed it for the world though, it was a blast hosting lindsay and jenny, and even better i loved being able to show people the country i have called home for the last 5 months, as they can now confirm most of the crazy stuff i have put in prior blogs, just ask them...

so, their visit came and went faster than my tan will (that was a failed attempt at a metaphor...in other words, their visit went quickly, and my tan will be gone soon too...nevermind)...they were here for 13 days, but it felt like a sleepover or something, but i had an absolute blast...sadly, however, since their visit has ended it means that my time here is nearer to the end...8 days from now i will step back into the country that spit me out 5 long months ago...its weird to be counting in days now instead of months and weeks, and its been hard to watch all my friends leave...i have already said some of this stuff, but important things deserve repitition...i have had an amazing experience...no regrets...

i did come here hoping to learn a ton about myself and answer all life's little questions that remain unanswered, and dont get me wrong, i have learned more in 5 months about the world and myself than 162 years of formal education could ever hope to teach me, but this experience has only spawned more questions...like what in the world i wanna do with my life? why do i want to learn arabic? and how will i continue? i do have some small and undeveloped answers for these little enigmas, but i am far from solving anything...most importantly, as my good friend grady put it, i have learned just "how small i really am"...in other words, i have realized how daunting and large this world really is, and how little i truly matter in the grand scheme of things...but if nothing else that realization gives me motivation to continue to work toward changing something about this world, no matter how small that may be (oh man i am getting philosophical and losing readers by the dozens...which means i am down to zero readers cuz i figure i had about a dozen to begin with...)

i began this blog 5 months ago, and from rereading, i really had no idea what i was getting myself into...but i have learned a lot and hopefully i can come back to the states and share some of what i learned to other people and show them that this region isn't big and scary, but rather rich with culture, oddities, and amazing people (except most cab drivers)...but don't take my word for it, buy a ticket...but leave your american flag pajama pants at home...not cuz this region hates us and that symbol, but because they are ugly pants...

so anyway, enough tangients...8 days left...needless to say, i miss home...not so much the location as much as the people (and the washing machines and the Mountain Dew), but it will be amazing to see everyone again, so i look forward to it...and i leave you with my list, perhaps the last one ever...

1. the first day here, jenny ripped off a cabbies door handle and caused serious drama...thank god i can spit out some arabic or it woulda been a scary situation...in retrospect, it was hilarious, but undoubtedly stressful for her

2. maybe you are wondering why i constantly mention cab drivers...hard to explain, maybe you need to come here to experience them, but they are generally annoying, scummy, and doing anything they can to rip me off...no one is safe, though there a few good ones out there (you know who you are...as if any of them will ever read this)

3. i will miss having everything delivered to my door (beer, laundry, food etc)...i won't miss inhaling the equivalent of 91 cigarettes every time i walk out of my elevator...and i defintely won't miss nearly losing a limb in traffic...

4. how much is gas in the states now? i swear if its more than $3.00 i am moving back here immediately...

5. my english had gotten way worse since i have been here...mostly just my vocabulary has shrunk, so bear with me the first few days if i speak strangely...

6. ohhh good god i cant wait to see my dog...

7. this region has left a huge impression on me...i will be back soon, that is a promise....


this is todd, signing off (i always wanted to end a post like that)

peace