Waving Goodbye

My Wonderful Son (WS) is off on his adventure today. This morning he left for Singapore, a two-week trip on his own.

As with much of parenthood, this is a bittersweet moment. Yes, I'm happy we've raised a son who's independent and brave enough to discover the world. Just as with the first day of kindergarten, there is the achievement of reaching the milestone, but a reminder of how fast they have grown. Eleven years ago we took WS on his first trip to Europe; his first taste of escargot, playing in Sherwood Forest and skipping rocks in the Lake District. That trip was also the first time we travel out of the country as a family; something I had dreamed about, but wasn't sure we could achieve.

As WS was getting ready, it was hard setting aside the Mom-ness - "Do you have your passport? Did you pack your allergy medicine? Do you have enough sunblock?" Even though I know no matter how much you prepare, there will always be bumps in the road (or crying babies in the cabin). The most important travel skill is dealing with the unexpected. No guidebook or jet lag pill can give you common sense on the road. For just like walking, it's a skill you have to learn for yourself.

Bon voyage Son. Have fun and take chances. Show the world that some Americans love Al-Jazeera and won't let patriotism act like a blindfold. We're proud of you.

Dusting off the blog

Welcome back.

That was directed to both you, dear reader, and myself.

This project took as respite as life resumed to "normal;" working (teaching) and getting son off to college, home improvements... life.

Then life gave me a wake up call.

One ordinary morning this Spring, I was on my way to work with neither coffee nor lunch - not a pleasant situation. I stepped into Starbucks to correct both issues and hovered over the sandwiches. "I don't like chicken salad with tarragon, the tuna looks dry, the egg salad could kill me..." Without the caffeine, my decision making skills were nil. It was several agonizing minutes before my lunch was decided upon.

As I turned to get into the coffee line, a gentleman motioned for me to go ahead of him. He was a normal, docker-wearing guy - wire-frame glasses, fresh haircut, button-down shirt. The kind of fellow that mom would approve of. Nothing out of the ordinary. I deferred his offer to cut in front of him by saying, "That's ok, I don't know what I want." To which he replied,

"You don't know what you want out of life?"

"Uhhh.....no.... yes, no... I mean... I don't know what coffee I want... no really, go ahead."

The now cruel, but ordinary looking man shrugged and went ahead. Meanwhile, I was shaken to my very core. "What do I want out of life? What am I doing with my life? What kind of sick bastard would ask someone such an existential question before they had coffee?" By the time I had gotten to the barista, not only did I still not know what I wanted but felt like I was thrown into some supernatural scene from the 90's show "Northern Exposure."

After I fumbled my order and paid for my latte and sandwich, I saw the gentleman leave. I was starting to wonder if I hallucinated the whole scene, but seeing him leave with his grande drip coffee struck me even more. He wasn't some stoner, or punk, or Mr. Anti-Establishment. He was a Mr. Ordinary asking an extraordinary question.

As I continued my walk to work, wondering how I could possibly carry on with an ordinary day with such questions rattling in my brain, the answer came to me as clear as a bell:

"I want to travel and I want to write."

This hasn't been an easy thing for me to accept. On some level I feel like an eight-year-old wishing for a pony and wanting to be a ballerina. Sure, honey, good luck with that. Who wouldn't want to travel and write?

Ironically, I have traveled out the country since this blog last updated - twice. In both cases, I considered posting updates with "wish-you-were-here" type of antidotes, but I didn't. Keeping up a blog while traveling is work; work that would keep me away from the experiences of travel. (And I am not the only one facing this conundrum.)

What was missing was the writing component. Over the last several months I have taken some classes and workshops with Lighthouse Writer's Workshop. I am still forming ideas, and taking one-step at a time. But if I want to write... maybe I should be writing.. something.

So here we are. Thanks for coming along.

Home

I've been home for over a week now, and am slowly getting back in the swing of things.

My plane arrive on Thurs (7/31) evening, and the next day I was shopping for WS's dorm room. I highly recommend being jet-lagged for such an occasion, as you are too tried and disoriented (even with a triple-shot from Starbucks) to really get into the emotional aspect of what you are doing. Instead to thinking, "Oh my God, my baby is going off to college," I was thinking, "Please God, get me through this so I can go home and take a really long nap."

A couple of culture shock points:

-Driving. It's been two months, and Egypt was a pretty scary place to be in a car, or on the road. (I neglected to mention in my blog, that we did witness someone getting hit by a car while attempting to cross the road in Alexandria. Not a happy moment.) I feel my driving skills are just fine - but I have noticed that I do speed a little more than I normally would. The Egyptian mentality of "If the road is clear - GO" may have rubbed off on me; but I don't believe a police officer would let me off the hook for that.

-Suburbia. Except for Cinque Terre and Lake Maggiore, I've really been in urban spaces. I currently live in a beautiful example of suburbia; and for some reason it does feel a little odd. It is so clean here, I feel like I could lick my sidewalk. My house seems stinkin' HUGE, the yard even huge-er. I'm starting to resent the fact that I have to driver nearly everywhere. (I will be taking the bus into work three-days a week this Fall, maybe that will help.) Now don't get me wrong, I love my neighbors and I don't see us putting up our house for sale any time soon. It just seems to be so big... so American, to live this way.

-Walking. I've been trying to keep up my walking from Europe/Egypt; and it will require determination. It's not like I lost a lot of weight (my stomach would not let me eat a salad in Egypt), but I do feel better (and sleep better) when I walk more. In an attempt to keep up with the walking (and raise money for a worthy cause), I've signed up for the AIDS Walk on September 6th. I know it's only a 5K (3.1 miles) but it's a start.

-Food. Not only are our supermarkets huge, they are filled with crap. How many twinkie/ho-ho variations do we as a culture need? Or types of cereal? Or cans of soup? When we were in Cairo, our hotel was right across from a "Metro" which was "Egypt's largest supermarket chain." It was maybe a quarter of the size of my local market. Granted in America there is a larger market for "ethnic foods" than there was in Egypt; but why do we need so much?

-Normalcy. This may sound very odd, but there are moments when I'm sitting on my sofa, or laying in my own bed, that I wondered if the last two months really happened. Was I really out of the country? Did I really see all of those things? Almost like the trip was an outer body experience and I've been thrown back into reality.

Now I don't want to say this will be my last blog post, and I did want to set up this blog as "Thoughts on Travel and Life" not just one particular trip. With that said, a slight hiatus is in order. My teaching srarts tomorrow (our school is starting early, but closing down during the Democratic National Convention) and WS will be leaving soon. Life and its demands will be knocking.

In any case, thank you for reading. I hope it didn't bore you, or that my typos drove you nuts.

Ciao!

Back at Cairo

Our last couple days were back at Cairo. One of our lectures was at the Arab League. (Think the Arab version of the UN.) It was pretty impressive touring the facilities.

However, during the lecture it was hard not to say "I'm sorry" on how our current administration has ignored everything the Arab League has suggested in terms of international policy. That being said, the issue of Radical Islamic Terrorism never came up. I guess both sides have some faults - with no easy solutions.

One of the highlights for our last couple of days in Cairo was going to a concert. A week prior I had ventured out to the Zamalek neighborhood. (That's were the Islamic Ceramic Museum was. A museum that has no gift shop, nor do they allow photography inside. Do these people not know how frustrating this is for me?!?) As I was wondering around, I found a fabulous bookstore, Diwan - like a little Egyptian Barnes and Noble. (Me finding a bookstore - there's a surprise! Ha!) Being in an adventurous mod, I bought a CD by Fathy Salama. (Check out his My Space page.)Low and behold he was having a concert at the Outdoor Theater of the Cairo Opera House.

In a great example of the contradictions of Egypt, his band consisted of a man wearing the traditional turban and galabeya playing the finger cymbals, along side the bass player with this "Iron Maiden" tee-shirt. I never thought I would say, "Wow, that accordion solo was amazing!" but it was. He had a fabulous singer from Algeria, Karima Nayt. (Her CD is coming out in September, you heard it here first.)

Allison and I were tickled to met him after the show. Such a great musician, and he was so nice. He wanted us to come see his show in Alexandria, or again in Cairo in August. Sadly, we're leaving on Thursday.

Alexandria

After two nights in Cairo, we were back on the road to Alexandria. The highlights of Alexandria for me were the Biblioteca Alexandrina and the roof-top bar at the Four Seasons which was one block away from our hotel. (The Greco-Roman Museum was closed.)

First, the Biblioteca Alexandrina. This new institution is basing itself on the ancient library in Alexandria, often dubbed at the birthplace of Western academia. (I highly encourage you to check out their website, I couldn’t possibly cover all of their research centers and support. Their Eternal Egypt site is awsome.) The architecture was well-thought out. There was text from every language on the outside.

The inside was filled with natural indirect light.

They have a children’s library (which is pretty rare in Egypt), a manuscript collection, an internet archive (first one outside of the US), a couple of museums, a Planetarium and this really cool interactive program. They have nine (!!) projectors synched with each other to create one huge panoramic screen. With a pretty cool remote, you can navigate though a computer system on Egypt – past and present. For example, you can pull up a panoramic view of the Temple of Ramses II, with various links on the Aswan Dam, the history of Ramses II, how it was constructed, etc. (Being a group of teachers, we all wanted one in our classroom!)

While we did some sightseeing in Alexandria, the second highlight for me was the Four Seasons. Their bar, Blue, was outside over looking the Mediterranean; a perfect spot to watch the sun set.

Especially when drinking a Strawberry Tequila Mojito:

Maybe the seven-week mark was harder than I imaged, but I really loved hanging out in this bar, and I had some company. (Ok, I will admit that is me on the far right, looking the other way. I honestly didn’t think I was in the shot, and I was watching the sun set.)

My friend Kathy got this shot from the bar – amazing!