Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Home Sweet Home!!! Welcome Back!


So we finally made it back home! It was a very long trip, it all started 3AM Monday Morning Egypt time meaning 8 PM Sunday night in Baton Rouge, so the bus came and pick us up it was hard saying bye to Suzzu and Mona, but hopefully we will be back in a couple of years. I should first talk about the last night we stayed downstairs most of the time, Guido feed the girls and enjoy it so much like always, the girls were all over Guido, Zetu and Suzzu like they knew it was our last night.
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Before we left the house there are certain superstitious that Egyptians have so we walk out the door and walk back inside with the right feet meaning you will be back, and of course you have to drink water, it is said that if you drink water from the Nile River you will be back, so here we are at 3 AM the girls and I are drinking water.
So a big bus pick us up, we were suppose to go in a minibus but all of the minibuses had being sent to Red Sea area, so we drove to Cairo in style a 20 seatter bus. GAmila slept in Zetu's arm the

whole night and SAmia did not want to get off Guido's legs.



The ride in the bus was good, could not sleep much. The road from Alexandria to Cairo is called Desert Road since is all desert however there are allot of constructions, many villas, many businesses etc.



I did not had the opportunity to go into Cairo this time but in my last trip it is a fascinating city, I tried to get a picture of the pyramids but it was foggy, but I did get to get some pictures of the Nile that runs across Cairo, also some of the vegetation around Cairo. Oh also when we were entering Cairo there was a beautiful Sunrise it was just amazing to see the sun coming up around all of these buildings.







































So we finally arrived at the airport, the airport in Cairo is crazy is lines and line and they all are a mess, so I am dying to go the restroom and I figure I should go before I go inside so Zetu, Ahmed and the girls stay in the line that checks your bags to get inside the of the terminal, after crossing this check point I am on my own so I go looking for a restroom and what do I find a restroom with just a hole in the floor so I have no choice. When we go back, Ahmed is calling a friend of the family that is an officer that works in the airport, yes in most of the third world countries if you know someone inside the airport an officer your life is much easier. So we finally made it to the first check point by the Egyptian police at this point Samia is crying and I am all stress out people are all over the place is just crazy and the officer makes me opens my bag, I should mention I had lots dand lots in food in my bags so I was freaking out. He finds some silverware that I have in my bag (that is a long story that I would go into some other times) so then he finds the powder vanilla and starts smelling (oh gosh thank God I travel as an American not as a Colombian) so I tell him smell it all of these in my broken arabic, with crying kids next to me people all over the place and an open bag I am about to start crying. So then he kinds of nods and let's me go. So then I am trying to figure out how I am going to push 3 bags all of them weighting at least 80 lbs a stroller and a crying toddler. I find a guy Mohamed one of the guys that get tip and he is nice enough to put my bags in a buggy and take me to the Egypt air line I would estimate there were about 60 people ahead of me. At this point I start thinking how I am going to push this buggy the stroller and Samia.....so Mohamed is about to leave and asks me for a tip, and I only have large bills no pounds, so I tell him I only have coins so he says ok then when I start giving them to him he says oh they are not Euros. Oh I should mention I did not even have a chance to say bye to Setu or Guido....so this is making me more sad, when all of a sudden a tall guy comes to me dress in uniform and ask me are you Madam Anamaria and I said yes. OH my God I was so happy he was the family friend so at this point it was just super easy in less than 30 minutes my bags were checked in, we did immigration and I got to see Guido, Zetu and Ahmed. It was sad when Samia said bye to Guido she started to cry she kept on asking me Fein Guido mami....so we just sat and waited for our flight.


The flight was not difficult Samia slept most of the time and GAmila played and nap, the hardest part was going to the restroom with SAmia, but a very nice girl Kim was nice enough to give me a hand. She is a sweetheart, we even exchange address.


Arriving in NY was not difficult neither we past immigration and it was so nice to hear the Homeland Security Agent said "Welcome Back" then we pick up our bags and once again a very nice lady put all of my bags in the buggy, so comes Customs I am praying to please not have my bags open specially when I saw lines and lines of people who are put aside and their bags are inspected. So as I get closer to the agent my heart is beating super fast but he looked at as and I guess he felt pity for me, Gamila strap to my hip crying, Samia is saying mami "pipi, popo, mami pipi" he just look at me and said go ahead take her to the potty, so here I am passing the guy and saying Samia you are great and then we see Baba....and Samia just started to run o her baba.














After meeting baba we went to check into Jet Blue to wait for our flight, we were just so happy to see BAba, and SAmia would not let go of her baba she even wanted to go into the restroom with him. The flight from NY to NO was great we even landed 40 minutes before earlier ...made it home and GAmila slept in her crib with no problem, SAmia slept with us. I did not even feel it it was Tuesday 8AM Egypt time, Tuesday 1AM in Baton Rouge, in less than 5 minutes I was out cold...and happy to be home sleeping in my bed with Yehia.


Today we stayed home recuperating and sad at many times thinking of them back in Egypt to the point that we called like 3 times INshallah they would come soon....

Girls you did great today at 8 o'clock you guys went into your bed and are sleeping right now in your own room, so is not that bad the jet lag did not really affect us.

2 comments:

Stacy said...

I'm so glad ya'll made it home safely!

Unknown said...

I am glad to hear yall are home and that your flight was not to bad with girls by yourself. I have really enjoyed reading your blog about your trip. It seems like yall had a GREAT time. But man I know it has to be nice to be home.