Writings from the plane

I wrote this on my iPad while I was on the way here, figured I would post it on here.

Aug 26, 2010 3:18 AM

Well, I'm currently on the plane to Cairo, somewhere east of Newfoundland and it looks like due south of the tip of Greenland. We've been in the air for about three hours (out of 12). I'll tell you I'm a lot calmer now that I'm on my way than I was twelve hours ago. I'm really confusing my sleep schedule right now though, because right now it's 3:15 in the morning back home, but it's 10am in Cairo and so I cant decide if I want to sleep or not. It seems like I'm going with no, since I am still awake. Hopefully I'll be able to stay up until at least like ten tonight so I can sorta fix my sleep schedule because my body is so confused right now. Our current ETA is 5:54 pm (and varies by up to a half hour each time I look), which is about 2 and a half hours later than we were supposed to get there, and I'm expecting some pretty bad traffic because it'll be after sunset and it's Ramadan right now... About half of this plane is headed to AUC, which is exciting, I've already met a dozen people who seem really nice and I'm not even there yet. I've also had two separate people try to help me with my Arabic when they saw me studying on the plane, so so far hospitality is getting an A++. I'll probably write more when I get there, but I think this is all for now.

Aug 26, 2010 3:24 PM

I'm looking out the window at Rome right now (that time stamp is Cairo time, it's 8:24 back home right now). Our EYA is 6:06, approx. 2 hours 40 minutes from now(!!) hopefully they'll be serving breakfast soon, because the Nilla Wafers I've been munching on since dinner (at 2 am) just aren't quite cutting it. Dinner was actually pretty delicious, though, I had the chicken (other option: beef, they're not very descriptive), and it was surprisingly tender and was served with sweet potato cooked surprisingly well and zucchini that was a little undercooked for my liking but still very delicious (this opinion may be skewed by my hunger). In addition there was a square of colby Jack cheese (my favorite), a couple of club crackers, and a brownie that was AMAZING. It's strange, all the displays on the airplane TVs are in English and Arabic, and all of the announcements, too. I haven't really heard any Arabic since May, so it's probably a good thing that I'm getting slowly reoriented to it. Oh, I slept from about 4am to maybe 7:30, which is better than I was expecting, so hopefully I'll be able to actually stay up tonight to get time zone oriented.