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.