Buyram holiday

The second week of Novemeber flew by pretty fast. On Monday I went to the police station to pick up my residence permit. Once I got back to campus I went straight to the health center to get my 7 bug bites checked out. In the end I was diagnosed with an infection and prescribed medicine a nice shot of benadryl in my butt muscle. That night I booked my flight back to the States (I arrive January 11, 2011) , my flight to Beirut and my flight to Addis Abba, Ethiopia with an eight hour layover in Cairo both ways for the 10-day buyram holiday. The next day I went to Gold computers, mind you the world Gold was spelt in red for a netbook. The total cost was around 600TL ($375). The rest of the week ended pretty fast since I had a midterm, a quiz, a paper proposal and the CLS application to finish.

Auto reply: I will be in Africa exploring for the next 10 days.

Friday morning I head out to Ataturk airport using public transportation. This was a bad mistake on my part because there was so much traffic. I checked in and went through passport control with 15 minuets to spare. My Egyptaian Air flight was pretty fast but kind of weird as everything was in Arabic and then translated in English. After getting a visa for $15 and chasing in $100 for 575EGP I hoped in a cab bound for the Egyptian museum. My driver Ali, was rather inapproapiate as he asked to sleep with me and kiss me multiple times. At one point I yelled at him and said I am a married virgin. American's don't have sex before they are married. This meant nothing to him as he asked me two more times to sleep with him. Eventually he took out his cellphone and showed me his 2 y.o. and 5 y.o. sons and said he had strong genes so I should consider his offer.

With my ISIC card the museum cost 30EGP. The museum was filled with royal statues, King Tutankohmons cargophagous, animal mummies including a 20foot long aligator and other historical figures. Unfortuantaely I was not allowed to take pictures. I left the museum in search of an Egyptian dinner and ended up at Fefla a restaurant Jimmy Carter once ate at. I ordered Egyptian sausages for dinner but was torn between that and pigeon. After dinner my hired cab driver took me across the street to an oil shop where I purchased lotus flower oil and lavendar oil. I headed back to the airport with about 3 hours to spare and was immediately confronted with an Egyptian man who said “you have beautiful lips can I kiss them?” I replied no. He for some reason was convinced that I should say yes. I really do not understand why Egyptian men seem to be so disrespectful in a culture that seperates men and women.

Addis Abba – I landed at 4am paid $20 for a visa and cashed $300 for 4,920 birr. When I left that section I was immediately hugged by my cousin Lauren and greeted by her husband who said “man you two look alike.” I stayed up until 6am laughing with them and watching them deavour Turkish and Egpytian cheese chips and Whoppers from Cairo.

In the morning my cousin one of the maids, Si to make us french toast. Ten minuets later, Si came back with the best buttered bread of my life. Lauren replied this is not french toast. Si replied we were out of eggs and cinnamon. I just laughed and asked for the strawberry jam.

That night we went out to Sishu, a snazzy burger restaurant. Here I ordered a double butter burger for 140bir (8.75), lemondade and a strawberry tart. Without a doubt the butter burger takes third place for best burger. The first being Butcher and Singer in Philadelphia fillet mignon burger. The second being Viallini's in Philadelphia kobe beef burger. After that we hurried home to make sure we got in before the hyennas came out.

Sunday was a low key day as both my cousin Lauren and her son Azariah were both sick. We spent the day watching Law and Order and CSI on the tv. The cool part is there shows come from Dubai, so the majority of the channels are in English with Arabic subtles.