Thursday Night - 11:13 p.m.
A Tale of Two Trips to North Africa!
A few years� back Amy B. and I went to Tunisia. Yes we thought we were cool going somewhere �exotic� over semester break while living in Salzburg. All the other kids on our program were going boring places like France and Italy. That was too mundane for us. Well let�s just say we didn�t get what we bargained for�what we got was 10 days (I think � it was so long ago I don�t fully recall � seemed like 100 days!) in hell with old English tourist, constant talk of praying morning �til night, sour soup (it tasted fine to us!), creepy hotel staff hitting on us constantly to the point that we didn�t want to leave our �hut�, much touching from random stangers in the Medina�s and of course men hissing at us in a town called Souz on the Libyan border. Real nice!
It was 1989 and Arafat was still a terrorist (wait I guess he STILL is or once again is or�whatever) and Tunisia was home to the PLO and America was a big bully (wait I guess we STILL are or once again are�whatever).
So in honor of all things coming full circle I asked Amy to recount her experiences from a recent business trip to Egypt�but first here are some pictures (very bad quality and huge but it's late and I am tired of editing this page so I'm posting them as is and begging your forgiveness!) from the trip back in �89! We were 20 years old�Amy we had only been friends for about 5 months!
Hello All,
Ok not sure if the trip to Egypt warrants the front page but given that Annie and I did our tour of Tunisia a long time ago, here are a few tales from another N.African country.
1. Arrival Egypt � IBM had helped arrange a service to pick me up and get me through customs, etc. Nobodies Madonna. Ok, meet lady she takes my passport, goodbye American passport, gives it to an official and then takes off to get another customer. Very uncanny to be in a sea of people minus your passport. Visions of �Not without my daughter� All works out well and I get whisked through customs and yes my luggage makes it. FYI Annie, huge suitcase as usual but this time excuse of wardrobe for freezing Hamburg and boiling Cairo.
2. Give them fish and they will eat, teach them to fish�..and dysentery is your friend-- Colin (Regional Manager and Egypt part of his territory) sees men fishing on the Nile, ok very gross. Says, why not throw your nets under the boats as it is cooler there. Well by golly they catch a heap of fish and give one to Colin. Very biblical experience for all�
3. Mohammad or tales of a lovelorn Egyptian � Mohammad, and yes his real name but also if you do not understand an Egyptian�s name they then tell you it is Mohammad, ok whatever. Engaged, for the 3rd time. Engagement means arranged marriage, so knows girl since March 18th, engaged April 18th and her mother changes mind on April 28th so now he is all about gifts and family and honor. So, guess that means my living in sin for 2 years with Niels is well beyond unholy! Why do I know this story? It was shared over a lovely Thai dinner and Colin and I in true, help for the lovelorn, counseled young Mohammad. Who by the way took us to the airport at 1am in his 1980s Mazda 323. My suitcase occupied a majority of the car.
4. Do I still qualify as a genetic defect? - (Annie insert comments here. - Hi Annie here. - There are these people in NA who have the dark skin and hair of the Arabs but light blue or green or gray eyes of the Europeans - they are super intense looking and we called them genetic defects. For those of you who have met Amy that pretty much describes her! They thought she was Tunisian when we were there hence I took the bulk of the harrassment! I guessed the same happened in Egypt and sure enough...) The answer is yes. Walking with Colin and Mohammad in Cairo after lovelorn, I mean business dinner. And getting lots of looks. Assuming, woman in western wear with 2 men. But no, Mohammad says, it is because he is speaking English to us and me in particular and I look Egyptian so that is why is it strange as Colin is only one who looks foreign. Right�. Must be my German and Czech heritage.
5. Pyramids via the office park window- Visited IBM Egypt who are located in a new office park in Giza and yes pyramids viewed via a hallway window. Somehow so bizarre.
Thanks Amy! I love it! I'm glad you are home safe and sound! NA is one freaky ass place!
