Good Morning from Chicago, Illinois...well literally Hoffman Estates, Illinois. I got back from Egypt this past Tuesday around 6 in the morning and spent about 30 hours in New York before getting on a train to come to Chicago on Wednesday afternoon. Because of my rapid movements, the internet being out in the hotel the last night, being in the air for 12 hours, on the train for 21 hours, fighting jetlag...I really had no chance to post until now. I had a grand scheme of writing an "exit" blog and writing down my thoughts before coming home, but I guess I will just have to make due with my thoughts as they are now.
Before I get to my thoughts together on Egypt, I would like to share my thoughts on the phenomenon known as jet-lag...I HATE IT! I've never felt so loopy and utterly tired and so incapable of doing what i want to do before in my life. I would sit down in a chair and almost instantly fall asleep, I would have been a hypnotists dream...although I doubt he could have gotten me to do anything besides have a conversation in my sleep...I'm quite good at that actually, ask my Mom.
Now to Egypt. How do I find the words that mean Egypt? First of all, if you don't get the reference I just made I must ask what happened to your childhood? Second of all, I think the best way to describe how I feel about Egypt would be love/hate. I absolutely love the history of the place, visiting the incredible structures that have been standing for millenia. I mean stop and think about that for a second. The buildings we make today will stand for maybe 100-150 years, and I think that's being incredibly optimistic. To walk the halls that were once elaborately decorated for different Gods and Goddesses and to be able to see remnants of the work of the master craftsman who labored tirelessly 5000 years ago...it is just awe inspiring. Of course going to those tourist places usually involved getting bothered by the relentless hawkers who pray on the overly hot tourists like buzzards do dying animals in the wild. And then of course there was the almost daily adventure of dealing with the perpetual rudeness that comes with riding the Cairo Metro, getting pushed this way and that way without much regard for trampled feet on poles in the way. I didn't like the forced tipping for just sitting down in a restaurant, even if you are a party of one. I couldn't stand the apparent change shortage that all the ticket selling places seemed to be going through...the list of things that annoyed me is quite long, but still I find myself wanting to go back and go through it all again.
If I have more concrete things to add I will definitely do that, things probably have not fully worked themselves out in my head yet. For the foreseeable future though I think I will be retiring the "Cairo Post" posts and get back to my regularly scheduled ramblings as they come to me.
Again thank you for reading!
-Diggs
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