Good Ol' Egypt

i had the best experience seeing the efficiency of the egyptian police system.
my moms wallet got snatched - with my driver's lisence in it. so i had to go file a report and make 3 copies of it.
the brilliance of the Egyptian government is that police stations have no copmuters - so making 3 copies involved a poor man writing them 3 times and getting them signed by half a dozen people 3 times!
funny - we spend 1 billion over some museum in fayoum ( like how many people set foot in fayoum??) but we have no computers in police stations
speaking of driver's lisence - i got into this discussion with leila. it is a driver's lisence or a driving lisence?!they both make sense to me

Mastering Blogging

FINALLY i have mastered the blogging!
after a few weeks of wroking hard i finally figured how to put all my news item on the front page!! and it was easy, just a click on an icon which i never recognized!
so i am back in my beautiful country egypt - now if you know me that well, you'll see the sarcasm.
i have three weeks to go then i am off to germany! my plans is to stop in barcelona for a few days, so i got a nice thing to plan.
apparently i get overly excited when i have plans for travelling, i dunno if it is coz i love travelling or becuase i just don't like being here.
Overall the conference experience was really nice - new and VERY different culture and country, i could definetly see a STRONG culture shock coming if i were to live there.
apparetnly i am not at all tempted to go back or to go in south east asia for a while as part of my dream to see the world.
i have however managed to put the US somewhere in the near future, in the next year or two, why? 1) i have met so many americans this summer, i think it is time to explore this side of the world 2) it may be a way to finance my stay in an african country after that! and by african i mainly mean kenya ( it's close, cheap and english speaking and probably safer that west africa)
so if i am president next year i will stay in egypt. if i am not i do not think i will have enough motivation to stay here- i am growing less fond of living here day after day. so i am interested in working with the salaam project, to stay in aiesec and to work on a porject which i believe in immensly!maybe i will ditch this whole NCP thing after all - who knows!
for now i will have fun and work here for those three weeks
after germany i need to start looking for some part time job - i realized i am in my final years and i need to start ssaving for my future plans, anyone willing to help out in that?
work awaits!

Korea day 8 - best part of the day

so this part is the AMAZING part, that makes this day one of the BEST days.
i head to the tower, nice walk up hill first- great excersise. stop at starbucks and get my first english breakfast tea in a a week - andit was GOOD!! hmmm
then saw an amazing view of seoul with the mountains from behind - it was that kind of scene that makes you wish you had a guy next to you,
back to itaewon, meet like 10 people from the conference, we had a blast - me and shady pretended to be married and wnet into a shop, we played with shady's wakie talkie endlessly.
we visited a palace which was beautiful, and was in an amazing gardern, then went to pizza hut where i ate till i was stuffed.
we were meant to take a night boat trour in the river but we canceled it becuase we got to the world stadium where the world cup was held andwe found that there's a match korea vs japan. a frienly match for the olypmic team! how random, but the atmorsphere was GREAT, we screamed and sang and jumped up and down.
we had the cheapest seats yet we saw everything - there were plags and fireworks and nice ribbons flying around and the seats were comfortable! WOW!! my first stadium experience. the two hours of the match flew by like 5 mins. it was AMAZING
we then went shopping in carrefour but as the sizes are super tiny i got nothing.
Back home i saw the pictures from the conference on the computer of the man i am staying with. the photographer is SO GOOD, i saw him around the conf - he looked quite cute - and he is soooooooooo good. he took a picture of me, and shit man , i look drop dead gorgeous :P okay, exagerating here, but i looked soooo nice, his other pics of my friends - he made them look so nice! it's like magic,
but for now i will stick to the saying that the photo only shoots what's there - mabetgebsh 7aga men 3andaha!
ta ta for nowlouly

Korea day 8 worst part of the day

yep this is it! best and worst day of my trip
first te bad side:
got up at 7:30 took the bus then the subway to downtown. on the subway while it was shaking some man grabs my arm for his balance. yet strangely hedoes no let go after that. another shake he holds with two hands. now i am from egypt - sexual harassment is part of my daily routine - but this was creepy! so he keeps on holding tighter and tighter and bringing my arm closer to him. by that point i have aready said every prayer i know. the next shake i put my arm really quickly as if it is by accident then offer him to hold on the reiling (is that spelled correctly?) and i steped backwards. thank god he did not follow me.
so by then i was very tense. so i got to the tower and take the teleferic/cablecar there,then look at some sights. in the tower there was a 3d theater. i could not resist. so i went in. it was about dinasours. after 3 minutes i ran out dead scared - even though it was not scary at all.
so i sya okay let's relax a bit - andgo to the fairy tale land. i go in, it starts nicely with snowwhite then escalates to a wizard then it becomes dark and scary. at this point i am nearly in tears so i ran back out sooo quickly.
again i do not know what was going on with me.
i went to the market, saw shady and gave him the biggest hug i have ever given anyone, i was soo happy to see a common face.
fast forward to the way home. 11:30 pm metro station - half empty.
now remember when your mommy told you "don't talk to strangers?" LISTEN TO HER. SHE IS RIGHT!! a man in his late twenties notices me and i notice him - we have somehting in common. we are both non-koreans. so he walks up to me ans asks me if i speak english, so i had to answer, i find out he's from morroco. so i smile politely and try to end the conversation. wishful thinking!
he comes closer to look at my map - and he stinks of alcohol. beer mainly. after that he asks me to go for coffee, i politely reject. he asks me to go out tomorrow - again politely reject saying i am going home, he asks questions about where i am staying, who i am living with etc and i make up some stories.
he gets on the metro with me - asks me out one more time - again i politely reject. ask for my number - i claim i dont have one - asks to help me out - no thanks - gives me his card - takes my email (i gave him the wrong one) - all the time his tougue was a bit heavy - he didnt walk straight and didn't seem quite that sober.
i finally manage to get to my station which seemed to take hours than the assumed 15 mins, by then i was completely freaked out. thank god nothing happened and i got home safely, but nervous as shit, i could have peed in my pants.
okay the good part comes later

Korea day 6 and 7

okay the party was AMAZING!!
really nice food, an amazing show. soo cool!
i got my picture drwan by a woman, and she made me look much prettier. after that we went to a kareoke bar and sang for like 3 hours then back in the hotel we got some drinks and snacks and sat in the garden, where i talked about us politis with a guy from the us and two french dudes, and i was quite interesting.
while we were talking we were also making another contribution to the world and to the circle of life. mosquitoes were having a feast off us. well at least off me. i think it is now definite. i taste good! from the amount of bites and their size you may think i was in nigeria or something.
the next day i went to my host family. a very nice couple, the wife is housewife who studied english lit. so it is quite cool. she is a very very nice person.
we went to the traditional market then we ate a VERY nice meal.
at night we chatter for a while then i slept
she's an amazing person. the man does not speak english but he workd in iYHA and he is also soo nice.
the main prblem is it takes me 2 hours to get to seoul. :( well it's better than nothing huh? the house in the suburbs and it takes me quite a long time, but i am fine with that.
more later

Korea Day 5 and 6

a bit late in posting - very little time.
so the iranian girl had her presentation - most of us are convinced that she completely wasted her time. she went on about what she had to go through and the difficulties and could not remember one achievement or result!
it seems very fishy how she complained about having verry little money yet she has a digital camera and a discman - hell i don't have a discman! the ticket she used to get from the UK to the US could have fed so many people in somalia, yet they were uset for her to ride her bicycle! weird concept!
anyway day over - next day
cultural day! me and shady went to get a camera for him and got lost and were late for the cultural night. they had to make the dance and the performance without us! it as really nice having all these people from all these places. i took LOADZ of pictures.
the statement of the day " Beer gets people together"
so throughout the conference we are all split in groups, and korean are quite excluded becuase of their poor english. during all the sessions we discuss things - not rocket science or anything just regular chat - and the only time where i felt like i was in a conference with people from 28 countries was at the party!
everyone gathering over drinks - getting drunk making a fool out of themselves and singing national songs out you sing in a football match and sharing drinking games.
so the party was really nice that day alot of fun.
the next day more sessions and we went to a market with really cool stuffz.
we went back for some session then went out again only to find all shops have shut - it was midnight i know but i didn't imagine things shut so early! and yesterday we stayed up till like 5 am chatting and dancing and having fun - not a big party just real simple.
i am having a really nice time it's amazing here. the weather is much better now - still no sun but not so foggy. i can see something out of my window finall :) it has stopped raining and we went out in the garden and had a really nice time.
today is the last day - will post later coz i gotta run.
luv

Day 3 and 4

more news
moved to a different room with 2 koreans and a chinese girl, not that i can tell the difference.
apparently they cannot tell the difference either. yesterday i stayed up chatting with a few dudes from the US and a dude from saudi arabia.
my group has alot of koreans and a few chinese people and me a french guy a girl from new zealand and a girl from ireland and a funny indian guy! he laughed so hard when i told him the only word i know in indian (gandu) haha
today we went to this demilitarized zone between north and south korea, it was really interesting but we got to know the stories from one perspective only. this was a very controversial visit as the UNESCO was not backing us up. we went as individuals and not as official participants of the festival becuase of this reason.
the thing is that in this zone where noone has set foot for 50 years it became sort of a national park with protected species of animals and so beautiful scenery.
out of the most terrible things like war you can get such great beauty. if the result of war was this beautiful place, it gets you thiking how beautiful the result of peace could be!
it's amazing how far the impact of WW2 is on people, from egypt and alamein and all the way till korea. it is sad to see that at the rate we're going we're heading towards and even worse future.
everyone here is thin!! my god i am like the fattest person in korea! i am certainly not going to shop here the sizes must be tiny. they are also quite short. among koreans i feel tall. then i get struck back to reality by standing next to benoit- a tall frnech guy with me in the group. ( and no mom i still have not muttered a single word of french). the sing is really low here i have to bend down. the place here is sooo different than anything i have ever seen.
sofar things are going really cool - the conference is nice and the people i have met are amazing. my main disapointment is that koreans cannot speak very good english and i cannot seem to find out more abut them becuase of this problem.
i found out i am staying in a city 3 hours away from seoul for the homestay with a girl who also speeks really really poor enlgish - i am glad i will see another side of the country.
the egyptian delegaions is fine, shady has made freinds with the mosqueetos. and all of us broke our glasses hehehe weird coincidence!
the city here is expensive.
still have not seen any sun ever since i arrived, it's raining and windy yet really hot. something my body is still not able to comprehend.
we are now listening to a presentation about an iranian girl who cycled around the world for the cause of peace. i think it is a horrific waste of time and energy yet a great demonstration of commitment. if i wanted peace i would try to make a difference not just a mere statement - and a statement that took 15 months!! again maybe she can convince me otherwise.that's it for this boradcast

Korea Day 1 and 2

Yep! even i do not believe it!
korea! i am there!
after 10hours of the fanciest flight i have ever been to we have landed in the airport, me shady samah ashraf and omar.
noone was waiting for us, shomething i thought was gona happen so we took the most friggin expensive bus on earth - 7 dollars for a bus ride.
anyway we arrived at the hotel at like 6:30 am and check-in time was at 12 so we left our bags and wandered around the city with a random guy from hong kong.
i followed the other egpytian dudes unpleasantly, the leader in me objected on every decision they made - coz it was blantly stupid- but my consolation is that i got to bitch around with shady! thank god for him
then we split up from andwent around keda, back at the hotel we checked in, i went to sleep and snored like a man till like 8ish.
woke up went out for burger then back to bed.
i share a room with a girl form india, a girl from the USA - can't i have enough of you people hahah- and a girl from new zealand, but sounds nothing like jen and tom or even psychopath dan for that matter. they are all real sweet, we change rooms again tomorrow.
it's foggy and rainiy now, haven't seen the sun for ages. humidity is okay, i am from alex afterall.
mom just to prove my point : my back pants WERE torn like i told you in our endles argument about it.
you have to bargain for everything here, and i am ashamed to say that i suck at it, but shady's real good. again thank god he's aorund. he's already made friends with half of the korean and non korean population in seoul.
hugs and kisses
louly

Airplanes for Breakfast

i woke up this morning to a noise of a plane very nearby
i thought it was crashing.
for 3 seconds i was actually scared!
i thought what if mubarak had died and some taliban wanabe took over.
it's a good thing i have a flight scheduled next week huh?
maybe one should book a ticket once a month just in case we wana get out of this place.
one thing i do know for sure, things could be much worse than they are now.
though we get chritisised and made fun of by every foreigner who sets foot here, we may not realize how lucky we are to be able to walk down the street without being forced by law to dress in a certain way or act in a certain way.
we're lucky that women go to uni, work as judges, emabasadors and ministers MPs.
we're lucky that women are free to divorce their horrible husbands, free to work for a living.
we can watch TV and have all the luxuries that people have all over - at least the basics.
so what if it is a little gray, dirty. so what if men masturbale whenever they see a female walking down the road and so what that you could go to prison without being charged.
i think it's me trying to convince myself it ain't that bad.
i keep remembering husein fahmy telling ahmed el sakka in the film mafia when he was asked how come he loves egypt so much depsite of all the bad stuffz
he asked him: do you love your mom - the asnwer was yes of course
is your mother the most beautiful sexiest woman on earth - the answer is NO
but you still love your mum, huh?
sadly the only way to live here is to keep remembering this every second, at least that's what i apparently think.