Well I have 3 month of no posts I need to make up for so let the novel begin......

From my last post I was just getting back from my end of April trip to Sharm el-Sheikh.  For the next month I mainly just worked, besides a few weekend trips to Cairo.  I really enjoy coming to Cairo for a weekend every once in a while.  I stay in an area called Maadi which has a lot of expats from around the world.  There are places such as the Ace Club (American Club) or the British Club where a lot of expats go for drinks and food on the weekends.  My company has a flat in Maadi that I am allowed to use from time to time so that is a very nice perk.  There are a lot of tourist activities to do in Cairo, however I haven’t done as many as I would have hoped so far.  Some places I have been are the Citadel and Khan al-Khalili market.

The Citadel is a fortress that was built hundreds of years ago (construction started around 1200).  This fortress has multiple museums and a few mosques.  The large mosque in the Citadel is the mosque of Mohammed Ali.  This mosque took 18 years to build and is a beautiful building.  Whenever I go to places of history in Egypt it really makes me think on how young America is compared to other countries.  Egypt has history that dates back thousands of years and America was discovered in the 1400-1500s (I think).  Another note worthy point of the Citadel is that it has a great view of the city of Cairo.

The Khan al-Khalili is the most famous tourist market in Cairo.  A lot of expats try to avoid this area because it is known as a tourist trap.  The market is fun in small doses.  You can only handle so much of people coming up to you and hassling you every 5 seconds.  The only way to get through the market is to not acknowledge people and you have to be mean.  I know that sounds horrible but if you are just a nice tourist and talk to everyone that approaches you, you will be in the market all day and night.  There are so decent shops in Khan al-Khalili but most of the shops have junk for sale.  In my experience the best tourist shopping is on Road 9 in Maadi.   

Sharm El Sheikh

Well after almost four months of working in Egypt I finally did a little traveling.  My first destination is a popular vacation spot in Egypt called Sharm El Sheikh.  It is a place located on the Red Sea and it was beautiful.  I spent 4 days there over Easter weekend and spent a lot of time on the beach and did a little bit of scuba diving.

This is a picture of Shark's Bay Beach where I spent most of my vacation.  It was very quiet and I was lucky to have great weather.  The coral went from the beginning of the beach all the way to the end of the dock and then there was a 12 - 15 dropoff.  It was a great place to snorkel and the coral was great.  As I mentioned I did a little bit of scuba diving ( 3 dives to be exact) and didn't see anything really amazing except for a large manta ray.

I met up with my old roommate Eric who is being shipped off to either Qatar or Saudi Arabia for a new project.  The nightlife was........ well it was interesting to say the least.  There were mainly Russians on holiday so it was difficult to communicate with most.  Although I did get to meet a few people from around the world.  So all in all the first trip was a lot of fun.  I will be headed to Cairo for a few weekends in the next couple of months but my next official trip is back to the U S of A in the end of June.

Qatar, Boat Trip & More....

I can't believe it has been a month since my last update.  I would have gave up on this blog a long time ago if I was following it:)  I want to say I will do better but you must remember there isn't internet everywhere like in the great USA and there are two different kind of outlets in Egypt and sometimes I am powerless.  So that is my excuse even though not a good one....... So lets start with Qatar!!!!

I thought Doha was an awesome city.  It was so clean and all the buildings were brand new.  I didn't get to see all of Doha but I tried to see as much as I could in the short time I was there.  They have a great river walk and I would love to go back in a few years to see how much it changed.  My company has multiple very large projects in Qatar and hopefully more to come with the World Cup in 2022.  One thing I noticed was everyone had very nice cars and you could just tell there was a lot of oil money floating around.  I spent most of the week at one of our jobsites getting training on a new software program that hopefully we get in Egypt soon.  I learned alot but I am going to be honest being trained from someone whose native language isn't English can be exhausting.  One day I was trained by someone from India, Asia and Egypt.  Which definitely gave my brain a challenge.  Don't get me wrong though I think that is one of the coolest things about working abroad is getting to have coworkers from all over the world but when you are use to Egyptian English and then you have to switch over it can take some time.  I was also glad to meet some other TIME (Turner International Middle East) outside of Egypt.  Besides that I walked around the city alot and unfortuantely couldn't get into The Pearl becasue you have to have permission to get in that area.  I thought of my architecture family and friends when I was there too I figure they would really enjoy the site.  Now for the Boat Trip.......

This past Sunday I got invited to go on a friends boat for the day and it was amazing.  The boat went around the coast of Alexandria in the Mediterrian Sea.  I finally swam in the SEA!!!!  I have lived next to it for over 3 months and haven't got it until now.  Hopefully I will get more opportunities.  After the boat trip we went out to a seafood restaurant on the Cornish.  The fish was fresh and amazing.  My friends that own the boat left an open invitation to come and use it whenever.  It just shows how hospitable Egyptians are and of course I gladly with accept in due time:)

Besides that not a whole lot to report.  I went to Cairo for a weekend and met up with some friends and had a great time.  I am headed off to Sharm el Shiek on Thursday to do some diving in the Red Sea and have a nice little 4 day holiday so I am very excited since I haven't got a chance to travel outside of Cairo and Alexandria.  I also posted some photos of the job I am working on.  The water is the most beautiful I have every seen at the Marassi project.  I can't wait to use it this summer!!!

Miss you all

Adam   

Back to Reality

I have been back to Egypt for a few weeks now and things have been busy.  Work is finally starting to click and things are starting to pick up.  Unfortuantely I can't post any pictures of my work but I can tell you I am working on the Marassi Project.  This is a new development located on the North Coast of Egypt.  There are some pretty good websites for it on the internet just look up Marassi which is being developed by a company call Emaar.  I will try to put up pictures every now and then but I have to get permission before I can do that.

Anyways besides work I have moved into a new villa with another American guy named Eric.  Like me he worked for Turner Construction in the States and moved out here the same time I did.  Our new Villa is awesome.  At the bottom of my blog site there is a photo stream which includes all my most recent photos. I believe it will also take you to my flickr account which I just started.  I am slowly getting better at this blogging thing so hopefully my skills will develop as time goes on.

So besides moving not a whole lot to report.  I am heading to Doha, Qatar tomorrow morning for some training.  I am excited to see that city and hopefully can make a trip to the Pearl (look it up on the internet).  Miss you all!!

The Revolution (Part 2)

A lot of people have asked me if I saw anything crazy during the riots, but I was not close to any of the action.  The only thing that really changed for me is that they beefed up the security where I was living and the police abandoned all the checkpoints in my city and they were taken over by the bedouins.  The bedouins are the local people that live in the deserts.  There are hundreds that work on my job site and a lot of them stay in tents on the site as well.  So instead of coming to the checkpoints and seeing a couple cops there were about 10-15 bedouins and a few with some large weapons, but fortunately they like expats so there wasn't any issues.  Other things was I saw some tanks mobilized and a few military units assembling. Supposedly there were some buildings that got burnt down close to me but I never saw them.

This entire situation was very new and foreign to me so at the time was never worried or scared for my safety.  Actually the more I thought about it I really couldn't blame them.  Reasons being is that over the past decade or so it seems like a lot of foreign money was put in/invested into Egypt.  The problem was that the money doesn't work its way through the social classes.  In the Egyptian society there seems to be a lot of poor people and a few rich people but the rich are very very rich.  Workers barely make enough to feed their families and I heard something like 90% of people under the age of 30 are unemployed in Egypt.  Probably one of the main reason why the younger generation was so involved in the revolution.  It seemed like Mobarik was almost running a dictatorship.  All past elections over the last 30 years were rigged to keep him in office.  Now I know he has been portrayed as an awful guy but he was a big part of keeping peace in the middle east over the past few decades.  He has done a few good things but obviously they haven't weighed out the bad.  

All in all my feelings on the revolution are mixed.  I do believe it is time for a change, but the way it was carried out I don't agree with.  Although I know it wasn't portrayed in the media this way but it was for the most part a non-violent protest.  There was some rock throwing and fire starting, but before each large protest the protestors would have someone checking people for weapons before they entered the large crowds in the square (however this didn't keep them from digging up rocks).  Okay I am starting to feel like I am rambling so I will finish my story from the previous post.......

After a few days of house arrest I got a phone call from the Egyptian Embassy telling me its time to skidaddle.  I was relieved to be leaving for a while because the news of the prisoners escaping made me kind of nervous.  Then the next day I went to the airport at 11am..... flew out at 6pm..... landed in Jordan at 8 or 9pm........ flew out to Germany at 1am........ landed around 5 or 6am......... flew to Chicago at 11am....... landed in Chicago around noon.............. with all the time changes, layovers, and flight time it took me about 36 hours to get home.  Oh and lets not forget I got called into customs and had to sit in a waiting room for 30 minutes until I got interviewed before I could enter back into the states.

Then over the next few weeks I stayed with friends and family.  I had a good time just relaxing and getting ready for my journey back.  I know these last couple posts are short little explanations of what I experienced during the revolution and it is kind of neat to look at this situation and know that I was apart of history.  Let the adventure continue...............   

The Revolution (Part 1)

Okay okay okay I know it has been a long time since my last post and I am sorry.  I will try to be better in the upcoming months but the last few weeks have been busy.......... (I am lazy).

In this post I am going to explain my views and experiences of the revolution in Egypt.  I want to avoid getting political with any of the issues I just want to tell the story from my point of view.

Anyways I was at work on Wednesday January 25th 2011 and we heard about some riots going on in Cairo.  At the time I didn't think anything of it and didn't really start paying attention to it until a few days later.  We had a three day weekend because of the Police Day so I went golfing one day and hung out at my deserted beach the other two.  Saturday afternoon my boss comes over to my place and tells me that work is cancelled for tomorrow because of the riots.  I knew things were starting to escalate because they had non stop news coverage of what was going on in Cairo and facebook was blocked in Egypt.  So not a couple hours later I get a call from my boss and asks me where in the world I want to hide out for a few weeks until this stuff blows over.  Now I know what you are thinking if someone offered you a free trip to anywhere in the world going back home wouldn't be your first choice.  Well I was afraid of the wrath of my mother if I wouldn't have come home immediately after something like this occurred.  So I told them to send me back home until this blows over.  So initially the plan was to fly out that day and then return when things are safe.  The problem was that there is really only one place to fly out of in Egypt and that is in Cairo.  At that time the airports were one of the worst places to be and chances of getting a flight out of the country in the next 48 hours were slim.  So they made the decision to keep us in our current location for the time being.  I was located in a place called Marina.  Marina is a guarded compound that has thousands of villas in it located on the Mediterrian about an hour west of Alexandria. So I was a safe distance away from the riots.

The next few days were very very boring!!  No internet, no long distance calling, and only 2 or 3 english speaking channels on the TV.  We couldn't leave the compound because it was to dangerous.  I didn't have any books and ran out of movies to watch so the days were very long.  Although I was very lucky to be where I was.  A lot of Egyptian people that I work with live in Cairo.  Most families own and live in apartments in Cairo.  The men in each apartment complex would all meet on the ground floor with bats, knives, or whatever they could get their hands on and stayed there all night protecting their families from protestors breaking in and stealing things.  Fortuantly everyone I work with made it back to work safely.

I promise to post the rest tomorrow........

The first weekend

(Written February 1st, 2011)

After the museum trip I had to go back to the office to meet my boss and head up to the north coast.  After speaking to only Egyptians for the past couple days it was great to finally speak to another American.  We didn’t get out of the office until late so we decided to stay one more night in Cairo.  That night we went out to eat with two other expats from a European consulting company.  One was from England the other was from Scotland, and both are great guys.  

For those of you that don’t know I lived in Australia for about a half a year and traveled Fiji and New Zealand in 2005.  What you learn when you live/travel abroad is that it’s really easy to meet people and make friends.  In my current situation every expat that I meet is a friendly one.  Most are in the same situation as me and looking to have some kind of social network.  Age, gender, and country of origin make no difference just as long as you speak the same language.  A common question I get asked is if I am meeting people and making friends.  The answer is yes but if you think about it I already have a lot in common with other expats that are here.  Now I will say that out of all the expats I have met I am the youngest by a few years.  The closest person to my age is probably 6 years older than me, and most are more than 10 years older than me.  Although there are expats closer to my age somewhere in Egypt I just haven’t met them yet.

The next day my boss and I headed up to Alexandria.  Alexandria (Alex) is located about 3-4 hours north of Cairo.  Alex is a beautiful coastal city right along the Mediterrain Sea.  The first stop we made was a the City Centre which is just one gigantic mall.  Once I stepped into the mall I felt like I was back in the USA.  It was very clean inside (unlike most of Egypt) and they had a lot of American stores.  I was told they have larger malls in Cairo that I haven’t experienced yet but this one was plenty big for me.  We then proceeded to go to my new favorite store Carrafore (sp?).  Carrafore is similar to a Super Target.  This is where I have been doing all my grocery and supply shopping.  Also at the food court they had McDonalds, Fuddruckers, Hardees, KFC and Pizza Hut.  So the big USA chains are doing well even though they are on the expensive side for a typical meal in Egypt.  

After the mall we made our way to a birthday party.  There is an English couple that lives in Alexandria. The husband works on the same project as I do and his wife lives with him in Egypt.  He works for the same European consulting company as the two gentlemen I met the previous night.  We had dinner and a few drinks and it was a really good night.  I could listen to the English talk for days.  I enjoy hearing and learning their ‘slang‘ especially after a few drinks.........     

Cairo (pre-revolt)

(Written January 31st, 2011)

So a lot has happened since my previous post.  I believe I left the story with me just arriving in Cairo and explaining all of my initial shocks.  I am sure a lot of you want to hear about the revolt that has been going on in Egypt for the past week but I will get to that in future blogs....

Well I arrived at the hotel around 5pm on a Monday and over the next 36 hours I slept trying to adjust to the time zone.  No matter how much you sleep on the flight from one time zone to the next it still takes a few days to adjust to the new time zone.  So Wednesday morning I was picked up from the hotel and taken to one of my company’s larger site offices in Uptown Cairo.  On the way to the site office we had to drive through some of the most poor areas in Cairo.  One area was called something like “The City of the Dead” or “The Dead City”, but driving through that area you saw some things you wish weren’t real.  So eventually I got to the site office and met a lot of coworkers and yes they were all Egyptians I never met any expats* the first day.  After the introductions I went to the developers main office and met some some staff members.  So like most new employees first day you spend most of the day meeting people and you remember probably 10% of the names.  Although in Egypt it is more like 5% because the names are foreign and most of them speak so quietly I had to have them repeat their name 2 or 3 times.  After all the introductions I was suppose to head up north to the project that I was contracted to work on, but it was decided that I finished up the week in Cairo.

The next day I was picked up by one of my company’s drivers.  I want to elaborate on how transportation has gone in Egypt.  Before I left from the States I was told that I would have a driver to take me wherever I needed to go at any time.  This sounds great but I would compare it more to catching the bus for school then having a chaffer at my disposal.  Don’t get me wrong I am very appreciative of having someone drive me around especially in Cairo but I still don’t have that freedom of going whenever and wherever I want.  The reason being I have had to plan all my trips ahead because most of the drivers don’t speak English so they have to get directions before hand.  That leads into my next story.

As I said previously I was picked up from my hotel in Cairo by one of the company’s drivers that didn’t speak English.  Now he was suppose to take me to the Cairo museum and then the pyramids if there was time.  Also if any issues arouse he was to call one of my coworkers to translate for him/me.  We get to the museum and it is in downtown Cairo, so cars are whizzing by and people are everywhere.  He finds a place to park and we proceed to walk to the museum.  As we are crossing the street he walks on the side of oncoming traffic and acts as if he is shielding me from traffic.  We then proceed into the gates and many locals come up to me trying to sell their tour guide services in the museum and my driver tells all of them to take a hike in Arabic.  At this point I decided that my driver became my bodyguard.  He then signals to me that he is going to buy my ticket and that I should meet him at our current location.  So I gave him the thumbs up and walk around the courtyard while he purchased my ticket.  On a side note the museum was really gorgeous and HUGE.  There were a lot of tourist there from every continent and it was very calming to be around other foreigners.  Once he purchased the tickets I assumed I would go in and meet him by the exit, but sure enough I walked through the entire museum for about 2 hours and he was 2 feet away from me the entire time.  Needless to say it was quite the experience.   

expats* - In this blog you will hear me refer to expats a lot.  An expat is someone who isn’t Egyptian.  A reliable source told me that for every one expat my employer must have ten Egyptian employees.  

Let the Adventure Begin

Since this is going to be a world famous blog I guess I should introduce myself to all that don't know me.  My name is Adam and I am an engineer for an international construction company.  I have been in the industry full time for about 3.5 years and I have received my first overseas assignment and it is located in Egypt.  I would also like to state that I have never blogged or followed blogs before so I am going to treat this blog more like an email to all my family and friends so they know what I have been up to.

Ok so as a lot of you know I flew into Egypt on January 10th, 2011.  People always ask how the long flights are and understandably a lot of people hate long flights.  Fortunately for me I have a 'talent' that makes it very difficult for me to stay awake once the cabin pressure kicks in.  Now I traveled alot in the past year for my job from Kansas City to Denver and was always upset because I would miss my free drink because I would fall asleep.  This worried me on the 11 hour flight from New York to Cairo because I would starve if I slept through every meal so I had to force myself to stay awake until I got food and that was very difficult for me.  I think someone needs to invent shirts for people with my 'talent' that reads "Please Wake Me For Meals" in every different language of course.  Besides my internal struggle to stay awake for food the flight was great, well at least until I got to Egypt............

So I arrived in Cairo and when I was taxiing into the terminal looking out the window I would already see the differences between USA and Egypt.  Right out the window it looked like an airplane graveyard.  There were planes just sitting there rusting and collecting sand.  There also were buildings that were A) falling apart B) being rebuilt C) buildings that were started but never finished.  To be honest with you I couldn't tell if the building was A, B, or C.  Finally I reach the terminal and take care of all visa documents and bag pick up without a hitch.  Now that I have my bags together I go out to the terminal exit to find my ride.  All I see is a mob of people right outside the terminal and they are dressed in the muslim robes and attire (let the culture shock begin).  I expected Egypt to be completely different from the USA (especially the midwest) but there really is no way to prepare yourself for the culture difference you just have to keep an open mind and remember 'this isn't Kansas (City) anymore'.

So there was some confusion with my pick up from the airport so I grabbed a taxi and made my way to my hotel.  Your first time riding in a car in Egypt is something you will never forget.  They are the best/craziest/most dangerous drivers I have ever witnessed.  The only way I can describe it is you are on a 3 lane wide road and they fit 5 cars wide bumper to bumper going 40 miles plus an hour.  In the USA the horn is rarely used but in Egypt it is a necessity.  They honk at cars when they are passing, at people crossing the street, etc.  Honking is not a form of anger like in the States but more of an acknowledgement factor.  A couple other things are that when driving on the interstate they ride with the line splitting the vehicle not in the lane.  The scariest thing I have noticed is that at night they don' t drive with their lights on all the way.  They use the lights as indicators as well which is terrifying.  Well that is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to differences in driving.  I don't think I will ever be able to drive in Cairo well at least not for a few years.  The best way to get through the driving panic attacks is to just not look and buckle up, because in all truth they are all very good and attentive drivers.

Cairo is by far the biggest city I have ever been in.  There was a rooftop pool in my hotel and looking out in every direction from 24 floors up I couldn't see the end of the city.  I was right next to the Nile and it reminded me of the Mississippi River a lot except that Egypt takes advantage of the riverfront more which makes sense since more than 70% of Egypt's population is located on the Nile Valley.  So besides the city being huge the other thing that stuck out was how dirty the city was.  I was staying at a five star hotel and right next door was a few blocks of apartment buildings that had roofs missing and dirt floors.  I saw kids going through garbage and just a lot of poverty.  That was by far the hardest thing for me to adjust to was being around that much poverty.  So the first day I was expecting a lot of crime and a lot of people who are going to try to overcharge the white man.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  The Egyptian people have been nothing but friendly, nice, and fair (for the most part).  They are a little pushy and argumentative at times but that is just their culture.

Well I have a lot more that I want to share and have already had many interesting experiences, but I don't want my post to feel like homework to read because they are so long!  I can't believe I have been gone for 2 weeks it only feels like 2 days!  I miss all of you but I am really enjoying my adventure.  I will try to post every couple of days and I love getting emails and pictures from everyone.  Until next time......

Adam