We made it to Cairo and are now happily and sleepily ensconced in our friends' apartment. It was quite the journey getting here, but I expected that, so no surprises there.
I was reminded of a few things, however, like how all foreign countries are the same, in that they are foreign. Upon landing at the Frankfurt airport, the sights, smells, and atmosphere immediately reminded me of all the other foreign countries I've ever been to. The bathroom smelled like bathrooms did in Russia (in a cleaning product sense, not a gross sense). The door handles reminded me of Jordan. The oddly worded signs in English reminded me of just about everywhere outside the States. After a little while, the idiosyncrasies of each individual country rise to the surface and distinguish it from other foreign places (often quite a bit). But every time I leave the US, it takes a little adjusting and everywhere is just Generic Foreign for a few days.
The girls behaved themselves more or less. Specifically, Miriam behaved more and Magdalena behaved less. Sure, every time Miriam had to go to the bathroom - urgently, of course - was at an uncannily inopportune moment (during the initial check-in at the airport, right when it was time to board [that happened twice] [and of course we'd had hours and hours of layover but she didn't have to go then] and right during passport control in Egypt), but otherwise she did great.
The hard thing about Magdalena fussing so much, especially during the last flight, is that the people around us judged us based on their experience. Most of them were probably on their first, or MAYBE second flight of the day. We were on our third flight and coming up on 24 hours of straight traveling. So I would think we could all cut the 1.5-year-old some slack in the fitful unhappiness department. Not so, judging from some of the looks we got. Sigh. We've been through this before.
And now, to bed, to see if I can start chipping away at the jet lag. Maybe tomorrow you'll get some actual observations on, you know, EGYPT.
I was reminded of a few things, however, like how all foreign countries are the same, in that they are foreign. Upon landing at the Frankfurt airport, the sights, smells, and atmosphere immediately reminded me of all the other foreign countries I've ever been to. The bathroom smelled like bathrooms did in Russia (in a cleaning product sense, not a gross sense). The door handles reminded me of Jordan. The oddly worded signs in English reminded me of just about everywhere outside the States. After a little while, the idiosyncrasies of each individual country rise to the surface and distinguish it from other foreign places (often quite a bit). But every time I leave the US, it takes a little adjusting and everywhere is just Generic Foreign for a few days.
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| Killing layover time at the airport in Frankfurt. |
The hard thing about Magdalena fussing so much, especially during the last flight, is that the people around us judged us based on their experience. Most of them were probably on their first, or MAYBE second flight of the day. We were on our third flight and coming up on 24 hours of straight traveling. So I would think we could all cut the 1.5-year-old some slack in the fitful unhappiness department. Not so, judging from some of the looks we got. Sigh. We've been through this before.
And now, to bed, to see if I can start chipping away at the jet lag. Maybe tomorrow you'll get some actual observations on, you know, EGYPT.