London Calling

Download this: "London Calling" by The Clash
Why: because i love london and it was calling my name today

Fact: Hitler was intending to use Oxford as his capital if he conquered England which is one of the reasons it was not bombed.

Not a lot ot say about this day really. I had to get up bright and early to leave with erin and drew. the nielsen house is right next to the bus stop so they just basically took me to work with them and after saying goodbye, i walked over and caught the bus into london. i had tried to get as caught up on the blog as possible but the ride was way shorter than i expected.

i got off the bus at marble arch and actually still had a pretty good sense of the city and found my way to oxford street. i walked past all the shops and then down to regent street which took me to piccadilly circus. oh how i missed that place.

after walking though the circus and nearly getting hit by several cars and busses, i made my way through leicester square (we missed the rock last night. sadness) and on to covent garden which is quite possibly my favorite place in london. i headed straight for hte apple market hoping that the lady who sold the dolls was still there but it was a thin hope since its been 4 years since i bought mine. sadly, she didnt have a stall anymore. i wandered aimlessly through the market before deciding on some food for lunch. i had yet to have a fish and chips so i made my way to a little stand inside one of the buildings (all while pulling my suitcase and with backpack on) to get an order to go.

the guys workign there recognized immediately that i was an american because he was like "eh, american. we love george bush!" and i was like "dude, seriously? you must be the first foreigner ive EVER heard say that." then he starts in about how he loves george bush and how he should just push the big red button and take out iran. i was so totally shocked and seriously hoping he was kidding but i dotn think he was. that order of fish and chips could not have come fast enough at that point. i also got a huge squirt of ketchup for my chips because "i know how you americans like to ruin your chips with this stuff." thanks buddy.

after taking my order and running for it, i found an empty bench near some music and sat down to enjoy it. covent garden is the perfect place for people watching and i thoroughly enjoyed it. i needed to get rid of my last coins so i stopped to get some ice cream from a stand in the market and watched a street performer while enjoying it. after that, it had started to rain and get nasty again and i was tired of lugging my case around behind me so i just walked up to the tube stop and bought my ticket to heathrow a bit early (you can catch the piccadilly line all the way to terminal 5 for just 4 pounds which is what i did). when you are trying to go to heathrow on the underground, you have to be careful to get on the right train because there is a split in the line just outside the city and one train doesnt go to heathrow. thankfully, im used to the tube and i had no problem catching the right one to the infamous terminal 5.

upon arriving i had no problem checking in but security scared me just a tad bit. i was able to take half a bottle of diet coke through and no one even said anything to me. i never even took my plastic bag of liquid out either and no one even notice that. the only thing they even did was check for residue on my electronics and then sent me on my merry way. i didnt feel so secure at that point.

i really didnt do much but sit around at the terminal and i had to wait for a gate number to be posted next to my flight which the didnt do until like 45 minutes before the flight. terminal 5 is really nice but totally ridiculous. it had like 3 actual terminals that take a ton of maneuvering to get to and it took me almost half and hour to get to my correct gate and boarding was nearly complete by that time.

i was praying for my first on time flight of hte trip but that didnt happen. what is up wiht this seriously? apparently some idiots decided to try to fly with expired passports and the airline was trying to get special permission to bring them along even without the correct paper work. the captain kept coming on to say that in 10 minutes we will have it sorted out and they will either be here or they will take their luggage off and leave them behind. 1o minutes turned into an hour before they decided to leave the morons there. i said we should have left them from teh start because who actually doesnt know that their passport is expired? and besides it actually freaked me out that these people were able to get to the boarding gate before anyone even noticed the problem...

so after an hour of delay we were on our way. i was praying teh whole time that i didnt miss my transfer to the hotel because i didnt want to do it myself. the flight was relatively uneventful for hte most part. i watched the other boylen girl which was not bad and then did some typing. there was this kinda rude little spanish teen girl sitting next to me who was talking up her seat and half of mine. she was elbowing me (i finally started throwing elbows back at her) and leaning on my tv control that kept causing it to change the channels and stuff and she never did apologize for it. nice.

upon arriving in cairo at 1 am i realized something. it was warmer at night there than it ever was during the day in oxford. sweet. the airport however was a whole other beast. i am so totally glad that the contiki guy was standing on the ramp waiting for me (again, not so secure though) and was able to walk me through teh entire process. he told me where to go to get a visa and then when i got back to him he put it in my passport, arranged my papers and sent me to stand in line to get through immigration which was insane as well. there were only 3 officers working so it took forever to get through. the whole time i was just people watching and im totally in a different land for sure. there were men in the long robes and women in the dark black outfits that have only a slit for their eyes and nothing else. wow. talk about total culture shock standing there soaking it all in. the other thing that totally freaks me out is that i cant READ or understand anything at all since its all in arabic writing and language. i cant even pick up a word here or there to help me out. talk about feeling totally helpless and overwhelmed.

again, thankfully the contiki guy was there to help out. once i collected my bags i saw that there was another canadian couple from my tour that had been on my flight as well who were getting a transfer with me. the rep said the hotel drive would be like 45 min to an hour so we should go to the bathroom if we needed to. big mistake. i walk to the bathroom and there is a lady outside who points to the womens bathroom as if i didnt know the correct one. once i get inside, i notice that while there are actual toilets, there is no toilet paper that is until the bathroom attendent gives you some (thank god for charmin to go!) and then practically shoves you in the stall and closes the door. so i come out of the stall and she turns on the water, squirts soap in my hands and then hands me more toilet paper to wipe my hands dry. this works out great as you know. TP isnt exactly sturdy... so then i try to leave and the lady is blocking the door so i cant get out. she looks at me and holds out her hand and says "money." i told her i didnt have any but she kept repeating "money. money" and rubbing her fingers together. i was like "lady, i dont have any money. i just got here. no money except american" which was a total mistake because then she says "any money." she still had me locked into the bathroom so i just reached into my bag and grabbed a dollar and handed it to her and she said "More." and i told her "lady youre crazy. move or ill move you" and grabbed the door to push her out of the way. thankfully she realized i was serious and moved before i had to make good on my threat. lesson number 1 learned.

After joining back to the group, we were escorted out to our van and while we were walking, a man came up to the Canadian guy and took his suitcase and tried to put it into a different taxi. The contiki rep had to chase him off. Luckily, we were well taken care of for sure. I honestly don’t think I would have ever been able to do this on my own. It’s a totally overwhelming experience to say the least. After driving for a short bit, the escort had the driver stop to let him out at home and he told us that he wouldn’t be coming ot the hotel but he had called ahead to make sure our rooms were ready for us and that we wouldn’t have a problem getting into them. He then told us that the driver didn’t speak any English but if there was a problem, the driver would call him and he would sort us out. That made me feel so much better.

The drive was frightening to say the least. It is INSANE here. There seem to be no traffic laws and the lines on the roads are merely suggestions at this point. If using the horn was limited in number of use, the people here would be screwed because the blow their horns like mad. They also seem to want to set a world record for speed ever where they go. Despite being ridiculously exhausted and overwhelmed, we sort of watched the drive and found it to be shockingly entertaining and frightening at the same time. I couldn’t believe there was a traffic jam at 230 in the morning but there was. The most hilarious thing we saw was a motorcycle that had 4 people riding on it (none of them had helmets on either not surprisingly) At another point we saw a little kid walking along the side of the road pulling a suitcase behind him and no other people in sight. It was ridiculous. The number of broken down cars on the sides of the road was ridiculous as well. Im pretty convinced that Egypt is where old Volkswagens go to die as well. On second though, I think its like car purgatory or something. You would just have to see it to believe it.

The ride to the hotel took around 45 minutes or so and I think the hotel is out in the middle of nowhere but I cant tell for sure because the whole drive seemed to be the middle of nowhere to me but that’s just how I felt about it. We pulled in and thankfully everything was sorted out. We got our rooms with no problem and the porter took us and our bags straight there. I was too tired to even care about looking around. I just wanted to get to my room and crash. The room itself was really really nice so I was pretty excited about that. I didn’t have a plan at that point other than going straight to sleep, so after making my requisite call home to let them know I arrived ok, I crashed.

What an interesting introduction to Egypt…