Is Salaam 'Alaykum Egypt

I feel guilty that I haven't posted since the last trip, but let's face it, that's what you want to read about. Globe hopping makes for a far better read than everyday spreadsheet jockeying. That being said, let me tell you about on enormous adventure to Egypt and Jordan. You should know that getting things done with travel agents in Cairo is difficult, and we struggled mightily to get a Nile cruise set up. Cairo is 9 hours ahead of San Francisco, and things just move at a pace that's hard to be patient with. On the day we left, we at least knew we had a cruise to get on, and the rest of the stuff might just sort itself out as we went. We jumped on a SFO-LHR flight, and managed to score some business class seats, but unfortunately, no window for me. In London, we are working our way through a security check, right in the middle of a shift change. Half of our six person group got through without incident, and three others including me, got told our carry on bags would be too large to carry on. So we get shipped all the way out to check our bags, picking up a UK stamp in the passport for our troubles. Heathrow is notorious for losing bags, so it was with great nervousness that I passed off my bag and hoped for the best. At passport control, the officer says to me "Where you headed today"? "Cairo", I replied. He looks down at my passport, sees where I was born, and without flinching says: "That's a long way from Kansas!" I've been laughing about it ever since. We got a British Midland flight from London to Cairo, and were totally impressed by how good the service was. They nearly wore out the carpet going up and down the aisle with the drink cart. The food was nice for coach too, but sitting in the back of the plane on the aisle means lots of people heading to the lav. bump into you on their way through, making sleep far too difficult. We got to Cairo with no real way to get to the hotel, but a guy who sort of looked like he belonged in the airport (he had some sort of badge, but that means nothing) offered us a ride in a van for what didn't seem like a huge rip after I negotiated down a little. It's a long warm smoggy trip from the airport to the Cairo Marriott, which depending on who's driving can include a claustrophobia inducing tunnel. We arrived at the hotel and got our first taste of the security measures. Your vehicle stops outside gets sniffed by a dog and viewed carefully by someone looking underneath with a mirror. and then they let you in. There's a metal detector at every door, that if you're not Arab or it's daylight, no one seems to care whether you go through it or not. The Marriott is a huge complex that we had time to explore a little, finding where all the bars, restaurants and currency exchange were, and looking for a little something to help settle an uneasy stomach. Dave and I even managed to grab an Egyptian Beer(our first Sakkara of many) at the Irish Pub. Yes, you read that correctly Egyptian beer at an Irish pub, although to be fair, it is a Heineken product. For dinner we settled on the local Cuisine at Egyptian Nights. We started with the Mezze platters, There is a hot, and a cold, and ended up with what would have been enough for dinner on its own. There was Babaganough, Tabbouleh, Kofta, Calamari, Tahine, and the most delicious bread I've ever eaten. It's a flat bread, cooked on site, outside, in an oven that you walk by on the way in the door. It's amazing, and worth paying for a night at the Marriott just for this bread. The main dishes were also tasty, but unfortunately we were so full we couldn't even consider dessert. I did however enjoy my first Turkish coffee, which is a little like rocket fuel served in a demitasse, with a sprinkle of cinnamon and ground cardamom on top. After dinner we took the whole group down to the Irish pub to take part in their week long St Patty's day celebration. It was a nice makeup, since we'd spent all of the holiday on a plane. There was even an imported Irish band. At that point you could easily forget where on earth you were, and we felt a little guilty not experiencing any local culture at all, but we got over it eventually.