مطَفَحتِش من نيلها؟

I am back from my trip! WOW, there are no words that can describe how amazing it was.

TOEOG stands for: the Trip Of the Extra Ordinary Gentlemen

We traveled approximately 3250KM in 12 days and spending time in around 27 cities and passing by uncountable number of other cities
Starting from Cairo – Egypt passing by Jordan – Syria – Lebanon then Syria and Jordan again and going back to Cairo.

Apart from the ferry boat part, i can say the trip was flawless, specially the Neweiba part.

Let the story begins , it all started by me and the group of the extraordinary leaving Cairo on the 29th and heading to Taba.

Sleeping on the beach and charging for a long exciting day.

We then headed to Neweiba to catch the ferry, according to my information (which i got from the ticketing office) there are 2 ferries each day, one is fast and takes 1 hour and leaves at 11:00am and the other is slower takes 3 hours and leaves between 3:00 and 4:00pm. Both ferries are runned by the Arab Bridge Maritime Transport company (I HATE YOU F*^#@$ BASTARDS!) the worst transport company in the world, if you tried it, you will NEVER complain about EgyptAir, they are heaven in comparison.

Let’s have a quote from their website and see how the reality is: “Speed of transition from one country to the other in less than an hour and distinguished service in unique, enjoyable and safe trips“

We arrived at 10:30am, finishing the procedures and thinking that we are so late, only to discover that the ferry won’t leave at 11:00, instead it will leave at 1:00pm.

So it was ok, we waited, in the most filthy and un-humane room you could ever imagine, while the weather was unberably hot.

It was 1:00pm, and we started to ask when we will board, and no one really knew, at first, i was getting responses like “in an hour” or so, but then i didn’t get any response at all, no one have any clue what the hell is going on exactly.

It was 4:00pm and no one really knew if there even will be a ferry today or not.

We were all really tired, depressed and started to lose hope, but at 6:30 they opened the boarding gates, to families only, as they are unbeleivably dumb, they sell tickets which are valid for 6 months, so they don’t know how many passenger is going to board the ship.

And since they only have a limited number of seats allowed, they have to sacrifice with persons who don’t have kids or women and make them wait to the next day.

Luckily, they considered us as a family, as there were girls, they wouldn’t let me in, until one of the girls confirmed that i am her “husbndad” so they let me pass.

So, you’d normally think that 8 hours of waiting is more than enough, but hey! did you forget about my bad luck and Karma? We only went to the boat at 6:30pm, then they found out that even after preventing the singles from boarding, they’re still short on seats, so we were at the “raseef” just next to the ferry boat, and the whole crowd arguing\fighting with the crew and employees all demanding to board.

Long story short, we ended up on the ferry boat, but again, it was around 7:00 or 7:30pm, we the ferry boat didn’t move until 9:30-10:00pm, arriving to Aqaba after 1 hour 15 minutes, all *DEAD* tired from more than 12 hours of waiting.

Do you think the horror story just ends here? nope!!!
we get our luggage and then head to the passports section to get ours stamped and leave (our plan to attend Petra Night was demolished, all what we wished for by that time was a shower and a bed). There was people on the other side (Aqaba to Neweiba) who seemed to be living in the ports for days waiting for their turn in the ferry, which scared me ALOT!

Only to be greeted by the officer who has our passports and notifying us that we are not allowed to enter the Jordanian lands! My jaw fell to the ground, while am half asleep and asked why, only to discover that “الرعايا المصريين بيسببوا مشاكل وبيهربوا وأن الأردن فيها عمالة زايدة…وفيما معناه كدة يعنى مش ناقصين” So since we had a Visa to enter Lebanon, they would transfer us to the Syrian borders (يرحلونا للجدود السورية) and they started the transfer procedures.

Offcourse i couldn’t believe what am hearing! because just when i thought it couldn’t get worse than spending 14hours waiting for the ferry, they wouldn’t grant us entry to Jordan and we have to spend more hours traveling to Damascus-Syria!

We found a soldier (أيوة عسكرى….العساكر هناك بتلبس نضيف,بتعرف تقرأ وتكتب وعندها مخ و كدة) and we explained the situation to him, that we are all doctors and engineers and we are coming to Jordan for tourism, we already have HR letters from our companies and that we have enough cash money, the guy *ACTUALLY* listened to us, and went to speak to his superior officer (the guy who refused to give us an entry VISA), the officer let us again into his office, looked at our papers and he understood that we look decent and can’t be coming to escape in Jordan, we’re just a bunch of crazy Egyptians.

So he called his superior (it was midnight by then!!!! 12:00am), woke him up and told him our story, can you believe that he was not punished by his superior for waking him up! instead, the guy told him to grant us access to Jordan!!!!

I actually couldn’t belive myself! If i was told that story, i COULD NEVER believe that an Arab governoment would do something like that!

Anyway, we finished our paperwork, and headed outside, offcourse, not like Egypt, most cities sleep at 10:00pm, so there was no way for us to find a Taxi to take us to Petra, where we had an hotel reservation.

I found a guard on the entrance and asked him where could i find a Taxi now, he told me i can’t, but then he found me dead tired and desperate after all that happened to us, so he called a Taxi driver who is a friend of his, and asked him to come pick us and take us where we want!!!!!

الأردنيين (الأردنيين بجد, مش الفلسطنيين) أكتر ناس جدعان قابلتهم فى حياتى….بجد هما دول بتوع الكرم و النخوة و الشهامة و الحاجات الحلوة دى إللى بنسمع عنها فى القصص

We finally arrived to Petra at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, woke up the receptionist, got our rooms, took a shower and fell asleep!

So, why مطفحتش من نيلها؟ i could really accept the fact that the US, Europe and many other countries are more advanced, more organized, respect their people and provide decent, non humiliating means of living, but to see that in Lebanon(which is supposedly in war), Syria (which has severe international problems and is even poorer than Egypt) and Jordan(who doesn’t have any major industries or agriculture, doesn’t have water etc) to be THAT MUCH BETTER, it’s really disappointing.

• المعاملة الزبالة الزبالة الزبالة الحقيرة إللى إتعاملنا بيها فى ميناء نويبع…ولا قطيع الغنم
• الفرق بين معاملة الضباط الأردنيين والمصريين
• الفرق بين العساكر!!!مفيش وجه مقارنة أصلا
• إزاى الناس كويسة و مش بتستغلك,,مع أنك سائح…على عكس ما أحنا بنعمل معاهم تماما
• نظافة الطرق و الشوارع
• المحافظة على قوانين المرور…التاكسى وقف فى إشارة حمراء فى وسط الصحراء الساعة 2 بالليل…مكنش فى سلعوة معدية…مع ذلك وقف برضو
• إزاى المصريين بيحبوا ياخدوا على قفاهم…وساكتين عادى….على رأى محمد صبحى:”شعبناجميل يتسرق و يصفق” يصفق يعنى يسقف يا جاهل ياللى مفهمتش…أيوة أنت

Next, Episode 1—-> Petra, the Turkish Bath how to be clean!, Jerash, Transportation in Jordan and my beloved Damascus!

This is the saudi version of my 2 cents.

I will just pinpoint a few things i noticed during my few days stay here in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia:

• Fun means: Drive in the car, go to “tahleya” st. and drink a coffee or coke
• Entertainment consists of ONLY the following two items: “eating” and “shopping”
• Being cool means: doing crazy acts with your car, driving a quad(a.k.a Beach buggy) or having a distinguished license plate
• Petrol is cheaper than water
• It is not gay to: have long silky hair under your “shema3′ “, holding hands (with other male) and chewing gums 
• Its very acceptable to sit bare feet at work, restaurants and public places
• It is also acceptable to touch your feets in public, and maybe even eat and shake hands
• Traffic is very organized, or so i thought until the traffic light was not working….let me tell you, it’s far worse than traffic in Cairo…HUGE mess
• Single men cannot go to the mall
• All restaurants have 2 sections, one for singles and one for families, you cant go to families section if you’re single, even if the single section is full.
• You cannot eat/shop or do anything during prayer times.
• If you’re already eating, you either go wait outside, or get locked inside.
• Internet is censored and monitored, many websites are blocked
• It is normal to get random messages on your mobile from bluetooth if you’re in a public place
• There are 2 types of photo shops…. “Women photoshop – مركز تصوير نسائى” and “Male photoshop – مركز تصوير رجالى”
• Even beggars have cars, its ok to find someone asking for money from his Hyundai Accent car
• There is actually a difference between “لبن” and “حليب”
• Its okay to be rude (am still not sure if thats the way they speak, or they actually mean it)

Just to be clear, matchmaker is “الخاطبة” i thought “صانعة الكبريت” would just be hilarious for the title

So, I have a cousin, living in the US, he’s been there for like 4-5 years, he comes a few days per year.
This year, he’s coming for 14 days, with 1 target to achieve, according to his mom’s(my aunt) desire, “Finding a girl to marry!”
Off course, him living abroad did not leave any chance to any of his previous contacts in Egypt to remain in place. And with no doubt, his parents would not agree on getting married to an American girl or something!!! (and i guess he too doesn’t like the idea)

So the optimum solution my aunt found, was to call every woman in the family and assign her the task of finding a “good” girl for her son. Do you the search algorithm called the “Tree“? Where every node has one or more nodes under it, etc etc

 

So in the example above, my aunt would be considered node “S” and the other nodes are the rest of the womans in the family, off course, according to the example above, my mom have several nodes under her, so she started to assign the tasks of looking to her sisters and others and finally………to ME!!!!!

So my mom comes to me and says: “Remember this girl X you met at Y?”, Me:”Yes, What about her?”, Mom: “She had an older sister, right?, Me: “Yes, she got married 2 weeks ago” (i knew what she’s thinking of ) Mom: “But she had ANOTHER older sister too, right?”

Not to get into so much details or the argues i had with my mom, she called the girl’s mother and we ended up with her mother agreeing that the girl could go out with her sister (my friend) me and my cousin in a “non official” outing so they could meet each other.

Not to mention, that during the period my cousin was here for, he had seen\visited 50% of Cairene girls (the Cairenes are the people from Cairo), he was not interested in any of them.

So we went out, Me, my cousin, my other cousin and his fiancee, my other cousin and her 2 kids (I have 22 cousins ), the girl and her sister (my friend)… we all went to Pause Cafe in the Airport (Do not go there on a thursday or friday, i thought it’ll be empty, coz you know! it’s in the airport!!!! who would go out there???but no it’s VERY crowded and noisy) we ended up not hearing each other.

But!!! my cousin liked the girl and wanted to see her again, later on while speaking to her sister and asking how it goes, i discovered that the girl doesn’t know anything about the subject, and she thought it’s a normal outing (or so i was told )

After a few “come on lets go out today” “no, let’s make it another am tired” between me and the girl, we ended up going out again, this time everyone knows about the subject and it’s only me, my cousin, the girl and her sister (yea, you know, my friend ) Things looking good, and we go out again the next day.

So you might think “ok, what’s wrong with that?” the thing is IT IS BORING and makes me feel primitive and wasting my time (well, i love my cousin though and I’d do all what i can to help him)….imagine you’re sitting down with 2 people trying to get to know each other in the shortest time possible so they can make a decision that will affect their life forever.
While you and your friend, are bored to death trying to waste time in any stupid conversation, for 3 consecutive days, for at least 5 hours per day.

So now i feel like am “el 7′atba – الخاطبة” and 3amal awafa2 rasen fel 7alal….
I AM NOT DOING THIS AGAIN!!!! DO NOT ASK ME TO DO IT! EVER!!!
AND IF AM GETTING MARRIED ANYTIME (NOT SOON!) IT DEFINITELY WON’T BE LIKE THAT!i can’t do this to anyone

ah! about my cousin and the girl, they will keep seeing each other as long as he’s staying here, will talk while he’s there and they’ll see how things goes, he could be coming again soon, you know

This has been happening to me for quite a long time now, and I am sure it happens to each and every single one of you.

• A lot of work
• Problems and stress in your family
• Very unstable social life, you barely go out or see\call your friends, the maximum you do is poke them on Facebook
• Bored to death
• Nothing new to do, except browsing, working and going to el 2ahwa if you have time
• Calls and problems from previous work
• Many people (mostly friends) asking favors and weird things that they need you to do for them
• Something must happen to ruin your day (e.g. fall in a hole in the ground, see a dead dog\cat in the middle of the street, your car gets hit, a government bus blowing dust right into your window etc etc)
• You never have enough time to finish what you intended to finish
• You always run out of money after a week – 10 days
• You can’t find any valuable meaning for your life

I tried many times to plan my day and my way of life, i thought of a lot of ways to improve it, i put plans for work, social life, spiritual life, family and entertainment.

But i never succeeded in achieving all what i’ve planned, maybe this is because am a bad manager?maybe i lack time management skills? or maybe am not capable of doing this!

Am not depressed, but am not happy either.