Good-bye Egypt, Hello Europe!

January 31^st, 2017

Blake and I left from Schutz at 3 am for the beginning of our European adventure. Once in Cairo, we found a place to sit near a Haagen-Dazs in the international terminal during our layover. While there, two Palestinians came up to the man sitting near us and started talking to him in English. The man sitting near us explained to the boys that he was a citizen of the UK but lived in the USA. He was also a professional tennis player who had just spent some time in Sharm El-Sheik at a tournament and was able to get back into the world rankings after an injury! He was worried that he may have a hard time getting back into the US as he is a visa holder and his father is Pakistani. The other two boys explained that they had met on a 14-hour bus ride to the airport from their town. One was headed to Turkey and the other to Germany for university. When the tennis player had to leave, he threw down about 200 L.E. approximately $10 USD and told us to buy ourselves a drink. The eyes of the two Palestinians widened when they saw the money so Blake and I told them they could have it. Soon we said our goodbyes and headed to our flight. The plane used to bring us to Germany was surprisingly small. In fact, this plane that we would travel in for four hours, was the same model that brought us on our short 40-minute flight to Cairo. Once in the air, the woman in front of us had terrible motion sickness which was very surprising to me as the flight had no turbulence. Even more surprisingly, the woman decided to eat on the plane which she subsequently threw up 20 minutes later once we hit some actual turbulence. Blake and I wondered if maybe this was her first time flying. In Munich, Blake and I found our way out of the airport and onto the metro called the S-bahn. We headed downtown to Marienplatz, the main city center. When we exited the metro, I was looking ahead of me at all the modern stores and little cafes getting wet in the rain. As I turned around, I saw a beautiful building built in the gothic architectural style that is so iconic of Europe and the famous glockenspiel, a famous clock with a moving scene every hour. We wanted to see the clock in motion, however, we found out they don’t use it in winter. Blake downloaded an app with the Munich map but his GPS wasn’t working well so we weren’t sure where we were most of the time. We found a place to have some currywurst and then I suggested we go to the English garden. Unfortunately, it isn’t a very nice place in the winter as the ground was wet and everything was brown. While walking back to the Glockenspiel, Blake began to recognize the area we were in. He found a beautiful church that he had been in before and a statue of King Ludwig I. At about 4:30 pm, we decided to head towards the train station. Our train wasn’t until 8 pm but We had spent the whole day walking around with heavy packs in the rain so we went to a restaurant to sit down, warm up and drink some German beer. After two hours, Blake and I decided to go to a small café and have some hot chocolate while we waited. Karina was waiting for us when we arrived in Landshut at 9 pm. When we got to her apartment we met her two other roommates, talked for a bit and then Karina directed us to her room where we would be sleeping. As Karina and the other girls have some big exams coming up, allowing us to stay with her and use her bed was extremely generous and we were very thankful.  

A funny faux pas

Sometimes you find out that you have been committing the funniest faux pas days, weeks, or months after moving to a country. Faux pas are a natural occurrence when living abroad. A friend living in Brazil as an exchange student years ago told me that weeks after arriving she was corrected by a baker after asking for some bread pão which she was saying without making the nasally, distinct  ã sound in Portuguese. She, unfortunately, was asking for some penis instead of some bread as a 16 year old. This is a common faux pas for English speakers who are learning to speaking Portuguese. Living in France I had my own set of faux pas, my second host brother felt very uncomfortable after I told him "I was going upstairs to have sex with myself" when I meant I was going upstairs to go to sleep. To use the verb "to sleep" apparently wasn't correct in this context. Now in Egypt, my family was looking for couscous. We were talking in Egypt and going all around this store talking about couscous. At the end of the day, we were recounting the story to an Egyptian friend who started laughing and told us to quiet down and say "coucous-E" because apparently in Arabic, couscous is a vulgar term for female genitalia. I think my whole family became a little red once we had realized we walked all around Alexandria talking about coucous that day!

Blake Arrived!

Blake arrived into Alexandria late on January 10th. I was so excited to see him after a month of being apart. We took Blake to all of the tourist places just like my family had done the first few days with Chris, Lauren and myself.

Blake and I on his first full day in Alexandria!

Blake at the Library of Alexandria

Philanthropy isn't just for Fraterities

Blake and I attended a Rotary meeting with my father in an attempt to meet people and see what his Rotary club was like. While we were there, I began talking about my time as a Rotary Youth Exchange student and my experiences with RYLA. Sally, the wife of Tom who is the Schutz school superintendent, asked me if I was willing to do an impromptu speech for a few minutes about my connections to Rotary. Afterward, a woman gave a speech about an orphanage that the Rotary club gives money to that she visited after a few years away and she stated that it wasn't in very good condition. David, a teacher at the school said that he believed the orphanage just needed to have Rotary members consistently check in on the orphanage after we spend a little money fixing it back up. David elected to go the first time and my family said we would go along and help.

Soccer game with the children.

     The next day, David, Nagua, Blake and my father went to the orphanage together with some sponges for cleaning and some new warm clothes for the boys. The boys were so happy to receive some attention. One of the boys was very excited to practice his English with us and acted as the translator for his friends. We played multiple games with them including duck duck goose, ninja, a game called billy billy ba where you have to yell "ba" before the other person can finish saying "billy billy ba" at you and others. Afterward, we saw their living quarters which were very unclean and smelly. We were disappointed in the condition and learned later on that only the boy's side was unclean because in Egypt they have very traditional gender roles and cleaning isn't seen as masculine. This causes a lot of problems in the orphanage. The boys who like to play quiet games get picked on and called crazy and there is a lot of bullying of the younger boys. Although their supervisor does a pretty good job keeping himself as an authoritative figure that the boys look up to I don't think they necessarily see these behaviors as bad. Another issue we discovered was that according to the Islamic religion and culture, a child cannot take someone else's name. This means that even orphans are not allowed to be adopted by anyone making their lives very difficult. We have gone back on multiple occasions to the shelter already to visit the children and bring them more necessary supplies.

Welcome to Sharm El-Shiek

     The morning after Chris and Lauren departed Egypt for the United States, my parents and I jumped on another plane to head to Sharm El-Shiek or as the locals call it, Sharm. On our short, 1-hour flight on Nile Air, we were fed sandwiches and juice. Before we landed, a very pretty flight attendant came up to us and started asking us questions about ourselves and asked why we were going to Sharm. Apparently, the flight attendants on this budget airline don't get the chance to talk to
speak English to Americans very much because they were very interested in us. Before landing, the flight attendant said she wanted a picture with us and told us to wait on the plane so she could grab her phone from the front! After landing, she pushed her way to the front of the plane to grab her phone. By the time she got back to us, the plane was mostly empty with the exception of a few stragglers. She and another male flight attendant took probably 5 or 6 minutes taking multiple photos with us. They even held up the shuttle bus that was supposed to take us to the terminal! It was the strangest thing!
     Driving through Sharm is not like driving through Alexandria. There are few cars to congest the streets, honking isn't allowed and the cars that do exist are all very new. Sharm is probably one of the best-kept city in Egypt. The roads are well kept, the buildings are modern and they even grow plants and grass there. Sharm is the town that the president will usually have his meetings with foreign diplomats because it is so beautiful and cared for. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency as platinum members through a family friend. Due to our status at the hotel, we were able to have free drinks and food in the member's lounge and we were able to have free sodas and water on the private beach and at the private pool. We spent most of our days at the resort snorkeling as the coral is absolutely stunning in Sharm and is easily accessible from the docks at the resort.

The terrain near Sharm El Shiek is very mountainous

Flying home from Sharm, we could see the pyramids out our window!