Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Wee Hours of New Years
I would tell everyone more about them... but I'm going to the Cairo Museum. So I'll do more with... yesterday... later.
In the air, over... clouds
So this is what I know at this point:
1) The flight from Massachusetts to JFK is boring. It always is. I guess that I can only get so excited about forty minutes of flying time and forty minutes of sitting on the runway. Upon landing, I found my next gate, which was hosting a flight to Rome prior to mine. After two hours of sitting across from two engineer barbies (they were engineering graduates from U. Penn whose voices just rose and rose and rose in pitch and volume as they discussed cell phone ring tones and other things that I didn't care about) I went for dinner, which was actually very tasty.
2) Superfreakonomics is a very solid sequel to Freakonomics. I know that because I was able to get through all of it in my extended time at JFK. Also, I was skeptical about using an electronic reader as opposed to you know, a book. Call me a convert. The Sony Reader is very pleasant, and seems to be reaasonably easy on the eyes.
3) I forgot to bring a pen in my purse. I have several in my suitcase, but that is currently not accessible. This means that the puzzle books that I brought are slightly less useful than I might have hoped. But, I have my computer and I have my ipod, and I have my brother's reader. It could be worse.
4) It's better to fly first class. I had more legroom on my Boston to JFK flight than I do now. Also, when I passed through the first class section, I noticed no children. Not so of coach. I am in seat G. In seat E, one row ahead of me, there is a woman who has a little girl on her lap (old enough to seem to be pushing the idea of infant in arms concept). This girl goes has gone into hysterics about once an hour. When she's not bawling/screaming, she's running up and down the aisle and hitting people with her pillow. I am not a fan.
Those are the things I know for sure. Around twenty minutes into the flight, several women, including the one with the child, started absolutely screaming at each other in what I assume is Arabic. This incident was about three rows ahead of me, and lasted for a good ten minutes. It took three flight attendants to break it up. The lady sitting next to me and I were both a little fascinated. A bit remaniscent of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. And small child is screaming again.
The top of my list of things that I don't know for sure is the time. Egypt is seven hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. My computer is reading 5:10 PM, Eastern Standard Time 12/31/09, which is impossible. We left at 11:00 PM on 12/30/09. It's an 11+ hour flight. I'm supposed to land in Cairo around 5:00 PM local time, which means 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. So I'm thinking that maybe it's really 5:13 AM, which would mean that I got around 4 hours of questionable sleep. But I can't really be sure about that. I certainly did not get 17 hours of sleep. Oh, good news, the movie ended and they're playing maps. We are almost over Portugal, with four and a half hours to destination.
These are some nice clouds...
1) The flight from Massachusetts to JFK is boring. It always is. I guess that I can only get so excited about forty minutes of flying time and forty minutes of sitting on the runway. Upon landing, I found my next gate, which was hosting a flight to Rome prior to mine. After two hours of sitting across from two engineer barbies (they were engineering graduates from U. Penn whose voices just rose and rose and rose in pitch and volume as they discussed cell phone ring tones and other things that I didn't care about) I went for dinner, which was actually very tasty.
2) Superfreakonomics is a very solid sequel to Freakonomics. I know that because I was able to get through all of it in my extended time at JFK. Also, I was skeptical about using an electronic reader as opposed to you know, a book. Call me a convert. The Sony Reader is very pleasant, and seems to be reaasonably easy on the eyes.
3) I forgot to bring a pen in my purse. I have several in my suitcase, but that is currently not accessible. This means that the puzzle books that I brought are slightly less useful than I might have hoped. But, I have my computer and I have my ipod, and I have my brother's reader. It could be worse.
4) It's better to fly first class. I had more legroom on my Boston to JFK flight than I do now. Also, when I passed through the first class section, I noticed no children. Not so of coach. I am in seat G. In seat E, one row ahead of me, there is a woman who has a little girl on her lap (old enough to seem to be pushing the idea of infant in arms concept). This girl goes has gone into hysterics about once an hour. When she's not bawling/screaming, she's running up and down the aisle and hitting people with her pillow. I am not a fan.
Those are the things I know for sure. Around twenty minutes into the flight, several women, including the one with the child, started absolutely screaming at each other in what I assume is Arabic. This incident was about three rows ahead of me, and lasted for a good ten minutes. It took three flight attendants to break it up. The lady sitting next to me and I were both a little fascinated. A bit remaniscent of the Real Housewives of New Jersey. And small child is screaming again.
The top of my list of things that I don't know for sure is the time. Egypt is seven hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. My computer is reading 5:10 PM, Eastern Standard Time 12/31/09, which is impossible. We left at 11:00 PM on 12/30/09. It's an 11+ hour flight. I'm supposed to land in Cairo around 5:00 PM local time, which means 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. So I'm thinking that maybe it's really 5:13 AM, which would mean that I got around 4 hours of questionable sleep. But I can't really be sure about that. I certainly did not get 17 hours of sleep. Oh, good news, the movie ended and they're playing maps. We are almost over Portugal, with four and a half hours to destination.
These are some nice clouds...
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Airport tomorrow!
It's a little sad, but even though I'm leaving tomorrow, I won't be getting to Egypt until 5:30 pm on Thursday. Which means leaving my house around noon tomorrow, flying to JFK, hanging out for six hours (oh goody), and then finally flying to Cairo. Soooo excited.
Now, I have recently found out (from quasi-reliable sources) that camels are not as nice and friendly as I had previously thought. Apparently, they may be mean. However, I will work through that - I'm sure that the camels are just misunderstood.
So, I have more or less packed. Right now it's less packed, but I made a list. I tried to go to Triple A and switch money, but apparently Egyptian currency is not something that they stock. Only Euros, Pounds, Pesos and Canadian dollars. Boring. I could have ordered some, but that would have been more of a plan ahead kind of thing.
And now to enjoy some reality television. Next post from JFK!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Test
Hey Everybody!
I'm going to Egypt in four days (December 30th) for a week or so. I'm super excited, and now I have a place to keep everyone posted and put up some awesome pictures. Hopefully, most of the pictures will be of my future friend, Mr. Camel. Not Joe Camel. I don't approve of that one.
I'm going to Egypt in four days (December 30th) for a week or so. I'm super excited, and now I have a place to keep everyone posted and put up some awesome pictures. Hopefully, most of the pictures will be of my future friend, Mr. Camel. Not Joe Camel. I don't approve of that one.
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