[ Thursday, August 07, 2003 ]
Most wonderful party with Joanna. Huzzah for that. I had a wonderful time, although in hindsight I think I should have gotten drunker. Oh well. Next time.
Also, I am now in two places at once. Please take note.
Carter [2:51 AM]
[ Tuesday, July 29, 2003 ]
Due to the magic of Google, I am now the number 6 search result for the words "homemade ninja equimpent".
Oh how I love referrer logs.
Carter [3:28 AM]
[ Monday, July 28, 2003 ]
I have not been this excited about a movie in a long, long time.
Carter [6:20 PM]
[ Saturday, July 26, 2003 ]
Nobody expects:
Tales From Cairo #6
Right, so...much, much later. It's far too easy to just read that, so I want you to fully appreciate the time I spent doing absolutely nothing. Let's be generous and assume that the airport spent two hours confusing me as described in the last TFC.
That leaves me six hours to account for, with nothing to show for it. Not so much as a memory. My brain was thoughtful enough to excise this period of time completely. Nothing happened for six hours. Now, to really get a sense of this, I want you all to think back to grade school. Think of an entire school day, beginning to end, all your classes. Except that there's only one long class instead of all those different classes. And it's not actually a class, it's just a big room that you can't leave. And none of your friends are there, they've all been replaced by impolite Germans. And you can't sit down, since there's a sleeping Indian man sprawled across way too many seats. So you just wander in circles like some freakish zombie for the entire day. That's pretty much what this was like.
Let's all take a moment to reflect on that.
...
...
...
Thank you.
When my flight actually left I took the chance to play another game of "look at other people's tickets to see if your row is really boarding yet", then took my seat, much relieved to finally be escaping. I wound up seated next to a platinum blonde Russian woman who did in fact tell me her name, although I completely failed to remember it. Because of this, I mentally referred to her as "Natalia" throughout the entire flight for no good reason. I didn't pay her much attention until about 20 minutes into the flight when she suddenly pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out of her purse, opened it, took a healthy drink, and stuck it in the pouch on the seat in front of her. I was doing my best not to stare at her, but evidently she noticed my fascination, since a moment later she pulled the bottle out again and offered it to me. I politely declined, and she shrugged and tucked the bottle back into its pouch. A little later, the stewardess came by and handed out drinks. We both got cokes.
The difference came when I poured half of mine into the little plastic cup and drank it. She poured half of hers into the little plastic cup as well, but she then ignored it and poured whiskey into the can until it was full again and proceeded to drink from that. She offered to do the same with my can, but I politely refused once more.
We continued in silence for a while. After a few minutes she turned to me again. "<Would you like some whiskey?>", she asked.
In Russian.
"What?", I said. Since I don't speak Russian and all.
"Would you like some whiskey?" she asked again. English this time.
"Ahh, no thanks, I'm fine.", I said. Which was not entirely true, but it applied to whiskey quite well.
"That's three times I've asked you."
"Yeah, I noticed that too."
"<You don't drink?>" Russian again.
"What?"
"You don't drink?"
"Ahh, no. I don't drink."
This is a lie. I do drink. Not an awful lot, in the grand scheme of things, but I do. In normal circumstances, if it's there, I'll drink it. However, I do maintain a strict policy against drinking with strange women, within the heart of the former soviet union, on an empty stomach, after I've been awake for nearly two days. It doesn't come up very often, but I've never gone against it.
"Why?", she asked me. Right. Here goes.
"Uhmm...I just...don't."
Oh very good. Thanks, brain.
"You are afraid, I think."
Sigh.
I didn't feel like explaining the real reasons, as there was a linguistic haze between us that made long sentences more trouble than they were worth. Instead I made up some vague story about there being a history of alcoholism in my family. This may very well be true, since I am scotch irish, but I don't have any particularly recent evidence to speak of.
"Oh." she said. And seemed satisfied for the moment.
Pause.
"<Why are you going to Egypt?>" she asked me. Russian. Again.
"What?" again.
"Why are you going to Egypt?"
"Ahh, I'm going for my mother's wedding." Straightforward answer, you're still drinking alone.
"She is marrying an Egyptian?"
"Yes."
I wasn't going out of my way to be friendly here, but I was desperately afraid that she was going to get visibly drunk and start hitting on me in earnest.
Much to my relief, without any further conversation, she did get visibly drunk and then promptly fell asleep. Hurray.
The flight continued. Some part of me knows that this flight was over five hours long, but so help me it seemed like about half an hour, tops. This is probably due to the fact that everything else I had done that day was exponentially longer, and on top of that my theory of relative anticipation. After that flight, I could stop moving. I could go somewhere and stay there, and not have to worry about getting knifed by soviet mobsters. Somewhere comfortable, and private, and with a minor miracle, air conditioned. This was my dream.
Around this point in the dream, Natalia woke up again. Although, for whatever reason she was no longer acknowledging my existence, which was fine by me.
She had a brief conversation with the Russian woman next to her, which I assume went something like this:
Natalya: <Hey, is that Cairo?>
Other Woman: <No, I don't think it's Cairo.>
Natalya: <I think it might be Cairo.>
Other Woman: <I don't think so.>
Natalya: <How long have we been flying?>
Other Woman: <Not long enough for that to be Cairo.>
Natalya: <Oh, then that's probably not Cairo.>
Other Woman: <Right. It's not Cairo.>
Natalya: <Ok, it's not Cairo.>
It would have been boring, if it weren't so slavic.
Somewhere in here they brought the little immigrationy cards out. If any of you haven't been on an international flight before, this happens. You need to affirm that you're not bringing more than 200 kilograms of mangos into the country, and make some sort of guess as to your great grandmother's maiden blood type, and you're usually doing it in a state where it can take you somewhere around five minutes to remember exactly how to spell your name.
I became reacquainted with Natalia at this point, when I became her new personal hero for knowing that "occupation" meant the same thing as "job".
Then the plane landed, and I had arrived.
It even feels good just typing that.
I grabbed my bag and exited the plane, which was somewhat depressing as stepping out the door was accompanied by a sensation rather like being hit in the face with the inside of an oven. Much like walking out of your nicely air-conditioned home and into the city of Dis on the sixth circle of hell, this was the kind of heat that just instantly takes all the fight out of you. And I didn't really have any fight left in me in the first place.
In case you were wondering, yes, you do actually walk out of the airplane and directly into the great outdoors. Since most Egyptian airports predate the Wright brothers, you can expect a respectable open-air hike whenever you get on or off a plane.
You can also expect most of the airport employees to be carrying assault rifles, but that's not really related.
I followed the crowd along the runway and into the airport, which was by far the strangest building I had been in since I left Russia. Once inside, we all queued up in front of the visa office, which in a particularly poignant example of the Egyptian system of government, was actually a bank. I got to the front of the line and asked for a visa, prepared to hand over my passport, and the card I had filled out on the plane. Instead, I was asked for some money. I forked over some dollars, and in return I got two stamps which I assumed were what I had wanted in the first place.
From there we all went and got into a mysteriously larger line in front of some people who seemed a bit more like government officials (in that they were surrounded by additional men with AK-47s). One of the heavily armed guards informed me that I had to stick my stamps (thus far carefully cradled in my free hand) into passport. This seemed like it made sense, so I picked a place in my passport that seemed like it could very well be where stamps are supposed to go and carefully stuck them in. Got to the front of the line, forked over my newly stamped passport (as well as my mangos and blood type card, which I was oddly relieved to know was necessary at some point) to have my recently purchased stamps cancelled by the official looking man. Well, ok, probably not cancelled so much as validated, or confirmed, or...ok, I really don't know what the hell was going on at this point. But I got through, and presumably was now allowed to be in the country.
I ambled over to the baggage claim and watied for my bags. Ambled really is the best word for it, as whatever magical force that had been keeping me animate was now dwindling rapidly in the face of the inescapable inferno of my final destination. If I thought I could have leaned against something without losing consciousness, I would have. But no, I just had to stand there and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
And wait.
My bags weren't there. No surprise. I didn't have the strength left in me to be surprised. Even if I had had the strength, there could be no surprise. I knew. Somehow I knew. I knew when I had to recheck my bags in Moscow. I knew when the counter critter at Logan had resented my travel plans that involved her. I knew when I was packing. Which was good, since it inspired me to put everything I really needed (i.e. toiletries and books) into my carry on bag.
Once everyone else had gotten their bags and left, I approached a man in uniform.
Carter: Excuse me?
MIU: Yes?
Carter: My bags aren't here.
MIU: The bags are all over there.
Carter: No, my bags aren't here.
MIU: The bags come out over there.
Carter: My bags didn't come out.
MIU: Your bags aren't here?
Carter: No.
The MIU wandered over to the baggage dispensing hole and stuck his head through. I can make a pretty good guess about what went on, but I'm not entirely certain.
MIU: <Are there any more bags back there?>
Thrower: <No.>
MIU: <There are no more bags?>
Thrower: <No, no more bags back here.>
MIU: <This guy's bags aren't out here.>
Thrower: <Well, they're not back here either.>
MIU: <There are no more bags back there?>
Thrower: <No, no more bags back here.>
MIU: <Ok.>
Then he walked back over to me.
MIU: There are no more bags back there.
Carter: Oh, ok.
Carter (internally): I don't care about my bags. Leave them where they are, I'll go get them eventually. I don't care if they're in Russia, I don't care if they're in New York, I don't care if they're in the arctic circle, I'll go find them after I get some sleep. But I need to see something that isn't an airport soon, or I'm going to wind up climbing a clock tower.
MIU: You need to go talk to that man.
Carter: Thank you.
I talked to the man. I told him that my bags weren't here. Unlike his predecesser, he believed me. I produced my baggage
claim tickets, and he inspected them.
Man: Your bags were only checked until Moscow.
Carter: Yes, but I got them rechecked when I was there.
Man: So where's the ticket from that?
Carter: ...
So that's how it is, huh?
Carter: She told me they were rechecked.
Man: Just orally telling you?
Carter: ...
Carter: ...
Carter: ...yes.
The man nodded solemnly, and then did a lot of typing.
I have no solid theory about why so much typing is needed for air travel. It should be obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of IT that it's not logically necessary. You could just assume that the system is poorly designed, which it is, but I have a hard time believing that it is consistently poorly designed. As we all know, poor designs tend to change all the time. If that were it, I would expect a lot of typing one week, a lot of clicking next week, and a lot of sneezing the week after that. I have progressed through several other theories. Perhaps they're all on some crude form of IM. Perhaps they're all writing novels. Perhaps they have some strange kind of keyboard that ceases to function unless each and every key is exercised at least once every 30 seconds. I hope never to know, unless one day I snap and actually ask them to justify all their typing.
But I digress.
The man handed me a sheet of paper with three phone numbers on it. He instructed me to call them every so often to see if anyone had my bags. He labelled them each with a brief explanation, airport baggage office, egyptair central baggage office, cairo air authority regional baggage office. Someone would know something sooner or later.
I thanked him, and essentially FLEW through customs with my lonely carry on bag. From there I ventured through the magic doors that led to the outside world. I stepped outside and...and...and...
Nothing.
Nothing was there. My mother was not there. My stepfather was not there. My ride was not there.
I took a long, slow, deep breath. And then I lost it.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Fueled by an endless well of frustration and secure in the knowledge that no matter how much I screamed my voice would not reach the ears of another native english speaker, I let loose a longer, louder string of profanity than at any other time in my life, before or since. Then I got over it. I was calm again, by benefit of being on the verge of complete physical collapse. I was also at a complete loss as to what to do. I had no idea where I was going, or what I was going to do. I tried to think of someone I could call. I didn't have my mother's number handy, let alone anyone else around Cairo. I considered calling my father, since eventually my mother would probably call him, too, and we would have indirect contact. But by then I had found a phone, and this plan started to unravel. The phone didn't seem to accept cash, not that I had any kind of cash it would accept, and I certainly didn't have whatever it wanted.
I seriously wanted to sit down, but if I did that, I would fall asleep, and then I would get robbed, or arrested, or killed, or any combination of the three. Someone offered me a taxi ride and I enjoyed vehemently refusing. I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew what I wasn't going to do, and I wasn't going to take a cab. I was absolutely certain of this.
Someone else honked at me, and I turned to them, prepared to refuse a cab in a new and creative way, and there was my mother.
Hallelujah. Or alhamdulillah. Or whatever. I could sleep now, my mommy was there. Along with Atef (A-T-E-F) and his wife, complete with their own personal cloud of irony in the form of what I sincerely hope is the only SUV for two countries in any direction. At least they had plenty of room for all the luggage I didn't have. Sigh.
They apologized, saying they had gotten lost, and had been waiting on the other side of the airport. I shook hands with Atef (A-T-E-F) and then hopped into the back of the SUV. I gave the cliffs notes version of my trip (russia. luggage. tired.) to my mother, and then I fell asleep.
...for about eight seconds. See, falling asleep in a car driving in Egypt is like falling asleep while you're on fire, and
being chased by a rhinoceros. It aint gonna happen. There's really nothing quite like it. The entire time you're in the car,
you have an etremely visceral, gut-level feeling that you're going to die at any moment. It's related to the sensation you can get from being on a rollercoaster, or having a gun pointed at you, but it's much more intense. I won't go on a rant about egyptian driving right at the moment, but just accept for now that it was not possible to sleep during this ride.
We made it home, which was a depressing building that looked like it had not really been built, but rather worn down out of a solid rock completely at random, then lightly furnished and filled with roaches. Mom said something to our doorman, Hussein (yes, his name was Hussein. Pronounced the same, to my ears, although I'm not 100% on the spelling) and then showed me to the elevator. The elevator was another reason I was almost glad my luggage had vanished into the shadow realm. It had clearly
been designed to hold two people (namely Warwick Davis and Verne Troyer) but the idea of fitting either one of us plus my bags into it was laughable. As it was, we squeezed in and went upstairs.
We got to the apartment, which was air conditioned. This was good, in that it mean I could sleep there, and...you know...not die. My mother showed me my room, which judging from the decor was previously inhabited by an intensely disturbed preadolescent child. But that didn't matter, it had a bed in it. My mother suggested I should probably get some sleep, which was very, very true. And so I did.
Carter [12:01 AM]
[ Friday, July 25, 2003 ]
By far my favorite referrer log yet, it seems someone put this search into Yahoo, and got my blog as the answer.
I can only assume it was not what they were looking for.
Carter [6:31 PM]
I can't sleep. I just...can't. I have lost, or at least misplaced, some kind of basic sleeping skill or skills. I think I'm getting used to it. I'm also starting to realize that if any of my friends actually followed the links I keep on this blog, it could severely change their opinions of me.
Interpret these things as you will.
Carter [3:19 AM]
