switzer somewhere: Egypt- Day 5

{journal entry}

Day 5

right now i am sitting on the plane to take me to cairo. i am pretty ecstatic. my dream is coming true. let me tell you about my morning and the adventure that brought me on this plane.

per usual, on mornings that i don't want to wake up late-like big time- i usually wake up at least once every hour before, starting a few hours before...i think i checked my phone @ 11, midnight, 1, 2, 3am. my alarm was set for 3:30am. plenty of time to get to the hotel lobby by 4:35 am.

last night i laid my clothes out, had my bag packed and was pretty much all set to go for the morning. HOWEVER....the cell phone i was using for my alarm was still set to switzerland time- so an hour behind. so when i checked at 3am it was really 4am here in egypt. BAH. @ 4:15 i shot straight off the couch because i realized it. grabbed my pile of clothes in a mad dash to the bathroom to change. threw up my hair. threw on my tennis shoes. grabbed my deodorant and eyeliner for later. threw my bedding off the couch. grabbed 2 water bottles and headed out the door. i rushed off to the lobby-left at about 4:23 and got there in time to get my breakfast box, go to the bathroom and apply deodorant and sit there and wait 10 min till we left. hah. phew! that seriously was almost CATASTROPHIC. what if i hadn't realized my phone was at a different time?? i would have missed the trip. i think all those hrs i woke up before hand was Heavenly Father trying to get me t realize but when it got to 4:15 He was like WAKE UP MONICA. also, when our group leader arrived i realized i had totally forgot about bringing my voucher.

here i sit. i sit over the desert plains of egypt. we are getting ready to land now. my story will continue later.

it is NOW 6:50 pm. i don't EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN. i feel too overwhelmed with it all to start, but i have 1 1/2 hours till my plane leaves so i might as well use my time. i will start from the beginning and convince myself there is nothing overwhelming about it.

so this morning when i went to pick up my lunch box an older couple were picking theirs up as well and they were headed to cairo. in fact, there was a pretty large van full of people leaving from my hotel. i climbed in the back seat and made friends with that same lady from the lobby. she had a UK accent. she told me where she was from but i have no idea what she said. then we arrived @ the airport in Sharm and a big pile of us were standing around. naturally, we all thought we were all in the same group. not the case. they pulled 5 of us out and told us to stand yonder. turns out we were in a completely different tour or something even though all others were going to cairo. my group consisted of 2 older ladies...marianne & jenny who are from manchester england. they took me under their wing immediately. then a husband & wife-didn't ever get their names. she was/is pregnant. they are from england as well. it was a UK, egyptian english accent kind of day today. i wished the whole day i had a UK accent. i resorted to just using the accent in my head. all 5 of us stuck together. sat by jenny & marianne on the plane-where i learned their names.

after we got off the plane in cairo we were to look for our tour guide...well the sign that said "blue stars". it took us a bit to find. found it. our tour guide was funny from the get go. he remained funny and quite popular everywhere we went. he said he works 6 days a week (everyone here has fridays off for prayer day...their religious day) being a tour guide so he has gotten to know people everywhere he goes because he sees them everyday.

-INTERJECTION-

we are sitting waiting for our flight-me and the british and 2 men laid out one orange & yellow carpet/rug and prayed. you know the muslim way.

back to today- we drove our of the airport to cairo traffic, naturally. our tour guide-if only i knew what his name or nickname was-gave us history as we drove(the whole day). there were guards all over the streets. he said because the president was leaving his house (i think to the airport) it was cool to see guards every 40 meters(i think that is the number he said)

-INTERJECTION-

i am talking with the british now. i love talking w/these people.

a mosque where they would go on fridays