We flew KLM from SFO - Amsterdam and let me say KLM gets a glowing recommendation from me. Everybody's got their own personal monitor with on demand movies, tv, music, games, and more! And more, I mean beginning lessons in the basics of 15+ languages. That's right, all I know about the arabic language I learned from the back of an airplane seat in front of me. We learned numbers, days, months, and some basic conversational stuff like Thank you, Hello, and Where's the Bathroom? They even had Vietnamese in there. Good stuff.An excellent movie for the plane before going on a spiritual journey: Darjeeling Limited. I've never wanted a laminating machine more. Wes Anderson - kudos to you. And Tim for making me watch that instead of Spiderman 3. Networked videogames people. Tim and I played Tetrix, crazy Connect4 and Reversi. I made some nubber in seat 40F cry in backgammon. It was awesome.
So I hear Egypt is a 2nd world country. And what does that mean really? Well I guess judging from its capital it means you have a city that's clearly modern and developed, but still has a very large population of impoverished people. The gap between the two you can see in these two pictures. Note however the importance of satellite tv. There's a dish for every single apartment in the picture on the left. Everybody's gotta have TV right?
Cairo is very urban with a thick smog layer that seems to permeate everything. It's nothing new, but it makes you appreciate the clean air when you can get it. Excellent snacks can be had for crazy cheap. We were only here for a day, but it seemed like the culture allowed women to walk around freely. I saw some young girls who looked as if they could have walked out any typical American mall, very trendy, all with the traditional hijab or headscarf. Later in the trip, I would see virtually no young women out and about. Didn't even see them working during the day. Definitely a male-oriented society here. But Cairo still had that metropolis thing going for it.
Hyundai owns the Egyptian market. They are everywhere. All taxis are Hyundai it seems. Best looking car we found - BMW 3 series. A few Mercedes here and there. The taxi cabs like to flash blue and red lights to help them maneuver through traffic. Oh, lane markers are suggestions here as you'll frequently see cars pass one another between lanes. Though honestly, I've seen much worse traffic chaos in Vietnam.There are fantastic sunsets in Egypt I think due to the smog and dust that permeates everything. I like to call this the Milpitas Effect. They always have nice sunsets there.
4 comments:
The plane ride sounds awesome! I would have been content riding the plane back and forth. Actually, just sitting on the plane with the plane not flying everywhere.
I think the fact that the plane was flying to Amsterdam made it that much cooler. Too bad we couldn't stay for a day or four there.
The only way that this plane could have gotten better is if you could chat with your opponent as you played them. But I guess I knew where they were sitting so I could have gone over to seat 40F and why did you quit our game so early? Was it the bitter, bitter taste of your defeat so close at hand?
You know I sat there with an open request for any takers in backgammon for at least 45 minutes on that plane hoping they'd come back, but nobody wanted to play with me anymore. I think An finally gave me a go, but even she quit on me before we finished. Good times.
You mean you didn't learn any Arabic from that book I got for An???
m: yeah so we had 2 books of assigned reading before the trip - your book and the tour nook for egypt. I tried to be smart and assigned the arabic book to tim and the tour book to myself to save time. Luckily, most everyone we met in Egypt (mostly tour guides, sales merchants, and taxicab drivers) all spoke multiple languages fluently. It was sorta uncanny. Regardless, your book remained the sole arbiter of what we're supposed to say. But the backseat instructional taught us how to say it. It was a good combo!
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