Trek Update: God has Delivered us into Egypt

Somehow, despite misleading information from the airline people, we managed to get 8 stand-by seats on an overbooked plane to France.

From there, we got to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris with about 45 minutes to spare before our flight to Cairo. My little map of the airport suggested that it would take us 45 minutes to get to our terminal. Just when we got to gate A77 and it looked like that might not be the case, we find out that our plane has changed gates. By this time, I don't really know or care when anything is happening. We just keep moving forward by whatever means necessary. We ended up on this shuttle, and just when it looked like it was the shuttle to no where, this island of an airport terminal suddenly appears. Something about how there's construction going on. We got on the plane, and discovered that our little tv screens in the seats in front of us showed a live video feed from outside the plane. As we came into Cairo, all the buildings below us looked like how the earth cracks when it's dry, only more rectangular.

We made it, even if we had to all run for every flight. Thankyou for your prayers.

Summary of Airlines:

Continental: -2 stars

I think they owe us some tickets.

Nobody actually knows what's going on, but all are willing to ask their supervisors who aren't there. Some good has come from this

though: After all the difficulty, we had no problem blaming Continental for all ensuing problems. Charles said, "I even blame Continental for the fact that women have to wear veils!"

(Disclaimer: ok, ok. There were some very nice helpful people in Continental. But only some.)

Delta: +3 HP

Delta did a lot of work to clean up the mess thrown on their collective lap when Continental transferred us to them. And by 'Delta' I mean 'Desmond, O,' (According to his name/ID tag). You should call your local Delta Airline and tell them to give that man a raise. Or at least some candy or a nice fruit basket. Desmond O can wield two phones, a computer, and a live conversation with blistering efficiency.

Air France: + 2 Fromage of Awesome

Fromage (Cheese) is one of the only words in French I know. But we got some on the plane. They fed us. They fed us good food. With little cheese things. Twice. And gave us blankets. I think I got more sleep and food from 2 flights on Air France than in 2 days of U.S. airports.

And, thank you to the InterVarsity staff member who brought us Chinese food in the JFK Airport. It was more than enough.

We spent our first two nights at a Christian retreat center.

At night (long after 10:0pm) children ran around and yelled outside.

In the morning, (still dark) we were surrounded by chirping birds. At 4:00am, we all woke to the call to prayer. One of the Pillars of Islam is to pray 5 times a day. At 4:00am, there are overwhelming loudspeaker announcements throughout the city and a prayer sung in Arabic. We could hear the prayer echoing in the distance from the other loudspeaker stations. It was startling the first night, but I think we're used to it now. We're also in a different location, and the announcements are a bit quieter here.

The kids are awesome. They were playing in a soccer court. They don't have space for a field, but there is a smooth surface with goals set up at each end. Our Arabic is extremely lacking, but I feel aided by experience in a rather universal language: futbol. So much fun.

There are classes at the center, and we flooded their free time with a bunch of Americans. There was one kid named Tony who spoke English pretty well. He and the other kids crowded around Ted who knew more Arabic phrases than the rest of us. I was kind of sad to leave my soccer buddies.

And this computer is about to run out of batteries, so I will finish the story of our first week in Egypt later.

Insha'allah

God willing,

-Tracy

P.S. Hacky Sack:

Last week's full hack count: 6 in the JFK Airport (Brian, Ted, Tracy)