Cairo Post 11, Part 1: Power And Lack Thereof, Domestic Air Egypt, Ticket Debacles, Lunch and a Movie with Nour

Just before I got back to my computer the power came back on after being out for a few minutes. Another similar outage prevented me from posting a blog before my group left Cairo for out Nile Cruise last Friday morning because that time the power was out for a good 6 hours+. This is not a complaint about the electric grid here in Cairo, but an explanation as to why I was out of contact for so long. I had planned to write a pre-Nile cruise post detailing what I thought it would be like and such, but alas that did not come to pass. Instead what I am going to do is seperate this post into two parts, one as a general post that might touch on the cruise here and there, and the second part solely dedicated to the cruise. You ready for this?

Begin Part 1...for some strange, but probably not unfounded, reason we made our flight from Cairo to Aswan on Air Egypt seem as though it would be the flight out of hell. In actuality the flight was more spacious then every normal domestic flight I have taken in the United States. Shame on american domestic carriers for jipping us out of room and space. And it had nothing to do with the size of the plane either because flying down we had an Airbus A320-200 and coming back we had the A321-200, both single aisle jets that you will find on domestic carriers in the states (and comparable in size to the Boeing 737 family of planes). I had enough space that when the woman in front of me reclined all the way back, I could still get out of my seat without asking her to pick it up. American carriers, got your acts together and give us the space we deserve.

If one didn't know better, one would think that every ticket agent at every tourist site in Egypt had never seen 1 pound, 5 pound, 10 pound, hell even a 20 pound note in his life before. Why do I say that? Well because almost every single time we have gone to buy tickets with a 50 pound note (roughly $10) the teller responds "no change", even after someone with the correct change gives it to him, he will most times still insist that he hasn't the change. I appreciate not wanting to give up small bills...if you are not a business that services probably a couple thousand people a day. Is it really possible that the Egyptian government provides no change to their ticket tellers, I am inclined to say no. So stop jerking us around Egyptian ticket tellers and give me my change back!

On a much lighter note, yesterday I was finally able to meet up with my fellow Lawrentian Nour Bahgat '08. We had lunch at Al-Azhar Park, which reallllly beautiful, with Lucie, Miranda and Nour's friend Nana.

See the full gallery on posterous

Nour and I had planned to do a dinner last week but things got thrown out of wack once the midterms were announced so it got pushed back to this week. Besides the park being really beautiful, the food was also great. Of course if you know me, you know that I am a big fan of chicken so of course I had a grilled chicken breast dish (in fact after I finish this post, I'm going to run across the street and have a grilled chicken caesar salad sandwich). Well Nour and Nana didn't approve of my mono-meat dish so Nana offered me a piece of her kofta, or lamb. I really don't like trying new things, especially not meats...but it actually wasn't bad and reminded me of sausage a little bit. I think I'll have it again at some point in time. After lunch, Nour and I went to the City Stars mall to watch The Karate Kid...except that the newspaper was wrong and The Karate Kid isn't out yet over here. So instead we saw The A-Team and it was actually quite good...aside from the occasional over reliance on special effects. I think I will watch the movie again when I get home though because I felt as if I was missing some pieces from the story and I think that was due to editing...and there is only one to find out for sure.

Again, thanks for reading and Part 2 should be coming up in a couple hours.

-Diggs

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Cairo Post 10: If Beauty You Seek Then Beauty You Shall Find...Even In Cairo :)

Entitling this post "Beauty Lies in the Eye of the Beholder" crossed my mind for the briefest of seconds, but then I determined that it wouldn't really do justice to the feeling that I will attempt to convey. Simply put, amidst being shoved and pushed past on the Metro, I had a moment of zen and in that moment of zen I realized that there is an intrinsic beauty in experiencing a culture first hand...whether one happens to be offended by said culture or not. Beyond our differences as people lies a rhythm to life that, while interpreted in different ways in different places, is recognizable to anyone who seeks it.

My moment of zen was triggered largely by observing the interactions of a Grandfather with his very young granddaughter who was in the arms of her father, who himself was once in the arms of the man now playing with his daughter. Grandpa would put the tiny fingers of the baby in his mouth and pretend to gnaw on them until the baby cooed. Countless times I have witnessed similar interactions, mostly in a language that I fluently comprehend, but experiencing the familiar beauties in life 6000 miles away from home, I guess, exemplified it even more.

Of course there are the not so familiar aspects of being abroad, specifically in a country predominated by the Muslim faith. For most of the Metro trip I was treated to the deeply toned, yet reserved, voice of a man reciting from the Quran. His voice was barely audible over the noise of the Metro, unless you were within earshot...like I was. I still contend that the most religious experience that I have had so far in my life was hearing the call to prayer from 20 or so minarets in the heart of Old Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. This pious man on the Metro carried the same level of captivation in his voice, spinning a beautiful symphony of words no louder than a cricket in Central Park. But just like the cricket, if you happened to hear him, you would have heard nothing but music...unless of course you actually understand Arabic.

But of course the more things change, the more they stay the same too. There was a teenage guy on the train with gelled up curls fit for the Jersey Shore. Beyond his over-greased hair I didn't pay much attention to him until I noticed him talking a few gentlemen sitting down. I had noticed when I got on the train that he was holding a charging plug and of course I assumed that he had probably just bought it. It gradually dawned on me though that he was actually trying to sell the charging plug to someone on the train. I'm used to the impersonally shouting of the New York City subways where the hawker yells out what he has and subsequently the price for it. This kid made hawking a personal experience, talking up the product with his potential buyer before giving his price...well at least it appeared that's what he was doing. If I read the interactions correctly, then bravo to that kid...not that I want the NYC hawkers trying to butter me up with sweet talk, but if it works here then more power to him.

Thanks for reading...I hope I didn't lose you while trying to get my feeling across.

-Diggs

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And So The Great Instant Replay Debate in Baseball #MLB Has More Fodder

By now, if you are a baseball fan or a watcher of Sportscenter, you have heard about THE CALL. Of course I mean the safe call made by Jim Joyce on the 9th inning 2 out 1-1 pitch hit into the hole between 1st and 2nd...did I mention that if Joyce had gotten that call correct the pitcher, someone whom I had never heard of named  Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, would have had a perfect game? I know I didn't, but you get my point. Now to the credit of Jim Joyce he went and reviewed the tape after the game was over, realized his mistake and went to Galarraga to personally apologize for costing him a shot at history. This of course raises the question of, 'well what if the umpiring crew, or some other entity, had the ability to check that call in game'?

I am not a believer in completely scrubbing the human aspect of baseball, but I can understand the argument that can be made for instituting a call review policy for close calls as well as for home run calls. We cannot expect the umpires to be perfect everytime, and to be honest I don't want perfect umpires...but when there are extraordinary situations in a baseball game (like the play that could seal a perfect game) I think there should be some sort of avenue available to the umpires, or some sort of reviewing entity, to make sure that the human element of umpires does not get in the way of potentially history making moments.

I do realize that this presents a slippery slope because this then calls into question other aspects of the game like balls and strikes and whether or not that should fall under review. To be quite honest I don't have an answer for that question just yet.

On the topic of umpires and how they handle mistakes. BRAVO to Jim Joyce for owning up and apologizing. There has been a rash of horrible umpiring of late, Bob Davidson, Joe West and Bill Hohn come to mind. Bob Davidson for his defense of his horrible strike zone calling and subsequently ejecting Carl Crawford and Joe Maddon, Joe West for being the old curmudgeon and being rude to Ozzie Guillen and then ejecting Mark Buehrle (one of the most mild mannered people in the game) for "throwing equipment", and then Bill Hohn for throwing Roy Oswalt (another mild mannered man in the game) out while Oswalt was saying "I ain't talking to you" repeatedly. These three cases that I highlighted don't involve mistakes per se, but they do highlight what has become an issue in umpiring, the evolution of the "all-mighty umpire".

There are other names that come to mind as umpires with attitude, Hunter Wendelstedt, Chris Guiccione (who has been better of late, walking away after ejecting Lou Pinella last year showed some improvement), Greg Gibson, Jerry Crawford (he creates ejection opportunities in my opinion) and I bet there are a few more. Umpires need to remember that their job is not to incite an argument, nor is it their job to let someone argue until the cows come home. Letting someone have their piece, without provocation, should be ok. Of course if overuse of obscenities or a protracted argument ensue, appropriate action should be taken, but that action should not be taken if the umpire helped to create the situation. The umpire is supposed to be the bigger man on the field. I think everyone wants to see them actually live up to that.

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