Back in Cairo (for a few days)...

So, I arrived back in Cairo late last night (well actually at 4am this morning) and will be here for a couple of days interviewing people for Makkah/Mecca (I never know how to write it!!). Since we arrived so late and I live on the other side of town from the airport, I slept at our sister hotel, which I've eaten at a lot, but never stayed at. I didn't really notice last night since I was so tired, but the rooms are really um...modern. Today we have the day off so I'm catching up on emails and laundry (well, the hotel is catching up on my laundry...)

I definitely thought Morocco was more interesting and fun than Tunisia, I don't know if it's because the team in Morocco was bigger and we saw and did more in Marrakech, or if Tunis is just more of a low-key city, but the pace there just seemed a little slower (and kind of boring!!). Here are a few pics taken on a walk last night before heading to the airport (the sunset was beautiful) as well as one of us in Marrakech, drinking cappuccinos and writing out employment contracts by the pool (see, we do work a little!)

I don't know if I mentioned it, since the plan seems to be constantly changing, but it sounds like Team Makkah '08 (...the GM wants to get us golf-shirts and matching luggage...) will be on the road recruiting for most of the next month. After Cairo, we're tentatively scheduled to go to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, and then after that, to India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines. As you can probably tell from some of my last posts, I haven't been super happy to be in Cairo the last little while, so this is certainly a welcome change! If you told me a year ago that I'd be living across the world and traveling with really great people to all these places I'd never dreamed of going (for free!), I wouldn't have believed it for a second! I'm pretty lucky, I think!

Not so lucky, however, is the fact that somewhere on my travels I developed a really bad allergic reaction to a soap or something and have been itching like crazy the last few days...the worst part is that it's on my inner thigh- not exactly a convenient place to scratch in public, especially when you are interviewing people all day!!! It got so bad that I had to see the hotel doctor in Tunis, who gave me a shot (they looooove giving injections for even the smallest things in this part of the world..), some cream and some antihistamines to take. It made it stop for a while, but now it's back and I am going crazy!!

Okay, it's almost 4pm and I'm still in a bathrobe, so I should try to accomplish something today, but I hope all the dads out there had a great father's day, especially Tim, who is celebrating his very first one!!
xo C

What day is it again?

So, we're in Tunis now which is the capital of Tunisia- I have completely lost track of what day it is, and my computer, my watch and my blackberry are all on different timezones so I have to keep asking people what time it is. I didn't have time to do any research before I left, so I was coming here totally blind, but am pleasantly surprised- it's clean and the people are nice, and our hotel is right on the lake (lake tunis maybe??!). There are less of us on this trip so the extra-curricular activities have been much tamer (thankfully!!). Tonight we went to a traditional Tunisian restaurant, the food was okay, but was pretty much the same as the Moroccan food we had a few days ago- lots of couscous and meat.

I am pretty tired (we interviewed over 200 people today), but I will just quickly tell you the highlights of Marrakech: I had a lot of fun with the other two Canadian girls, Jen and Kelly (who both work at our hotel in Dubai), and we quickly learned that travelling with Saudi men is a very interesting experience. (The whole trip was sort of like the beginning to a bad joke.... "Three Canadians, two Saudis and a Jordanian go to marrakech...") Let me explain... In Egypt, things are quite different to canada, but Saudi is a whole other ballgame. The HRD (who is 32) was telling us about his wife, and I asked how old she is... "seventeen" he said and I started laughing, but realized quickly that he was serious...oops...they've been married over a year and they have a baby already, so you can do the math. The GM brought his wife with him, and when I mentioned to another team member that she seemed sort of young to be the mother of the teenage kids he'd referred to earlier, I found out that she was one of three wives (Muslims can have up to 4 at a time AND it's pretty common to marry your first cousins). I think she is his "traveling wife".....

The other thing about Saudi men is that they are uber-chivalrous...we were not allowed to pay for, or carry, a single thing on this entire trip.....even though the HRD is probably a foot shorter than me and 25lbs less {see photo}, he still insisted on carrying my bags all though the airport and won't let me carry my own interview binder. It even happened today with a STAPLER...they are pretty heavy you know!

Anyway, the guys had both been to Marrakech before and wanted to show us everything, so each night we had a different "surprise" planned for us.. one night it was a traditional dinner and dancing/horseriding show, another time we went to a big public market (where I made friends with that snake)....but my personal favourite was one night when they told us to meet them in the lobby and wear shorts... we didn't know what we were doing, but they took us to the hotel spa. As soon as we walked in, the spa attendant led Jen, Kelly and I into a small changeroom and sort of gestured to some flipflops on the floor- we all took off our shoes, but could tell from her face that she wanted us to take off more... apparently we were only allowed to wear bikini bottoms and NOTHING ELSE....since I had only met the girls the day before, there was a lot of nervous giggling, but we figured "when in rome..." so we stripped down. We were then led into a dark steamy room where a different woman shoved each of us onto a marble bench and proceeded to rub a sticky transparent gel (that smelled like fish ) all over us (and my girl wasn't shy with the rubbing..IF you know what I mean!)... then all three left without a word! After the initial awkwardness of being almost naked with new co-workers passed, we started to relax and chat....after about 15 minutes the women came back and shoved us into the shower. we rinsed off and then they took these rough mitts and scrubbed the heck out of us....dead skin was flying everywhere--- it was disgusting! Then we rinsed off again and they put something green on us, then another rinse and a black mud went on. After we were done we all felt really soft and exfoliated, but the process was pretty funny. Apparently Moroccan women do this weekly.

The other thing I will always remember is when the guys wanted to take a horse drawn carriage from the market to the restaurant...the driver didn't really know the way so he took a wrong turn (or maybe it was actually the way he intended to go....) and we ended up going down this super-narrow pedestrian alley...there was seriously no more than 6 inches on each side of the carriage...people were yelling and honking and had to flatten themselves against the walls of the alley..... but we were just cracking up because there was nothing else we could do! {this picture is not the alley, but it's about the same size!} Needless to say, it was a pretty fun 4 days...and it is just the beginning- it sounds like I will be having some more adventures with them over the next month.

Jeez, this was going to be a short post..... I should go, but before I do, I have to send congratulations to our amazing Canadian triathletes who competed in the worlds in Vancouver last weekend. In particular, our own Victorian triathlon sensation, Kirsten Sweetland- she didn't have the race she had hoped for (this picture breaks my heart) because of a terrible pain in her foot, but like a trooper, she finished the race anyway, and found out afterwards that the reason for the pain was a stress fracture in her heel! Most people would have stopped because of the pain, but not this tough cookie- she should be SO proud of her amazing tenacity and passion. She'll still get to go to Beijing with the team for support as an alternate and you can be sure that this isn't the last we've seen of her! Good on'ya Kirsten, hold your head high- you are a superstar :)

Okay, I'm really going now, but I hope you're all doing well. Over and out from CatinTunis.

xoxo C

More Morocco pics...

Wow, the last 4 days in Marrakech went really quickly! Now we're sitting in the Casablanca airport waiting for our delayed flight to Tunis, so I thought I'd post some more pictures. As you can see, the HRD and GM really know how to make the most of their time- we were kept busy every second we were there- I think I've seen and done and eaten more (and slept less!) in the last few days than I have in the last year! (yes, that is a snake around my neck -some dude in the market put it there- and then wanted money afterwards- and those are rose petals in the toilet!) It's good though, I don't know when I'll be back, so if I hadn't seen some local culture I definitely would have regretted it...maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, and for the rest of my life! {sorry, I couldn't resist!!}

Although it probably looks like all we did was sightseeing, we actually had 3 solid days of interviews and we met about 400 people all together and made offers to some great candidates to join the team in Makkah. I promise I will write a real post soon, we've had some pretty interesting and amusing experiences over the last few days but to do them justice I really need more time.

Hope you're all doing well, I should write some work emails now, but I miss you all and I'll write an update from Tunis as soon as I can find some more free wireless.

xo C

Marvelous Morocco!

So, I've been in Marrakech for about 30 hours, and so far I love it- the scenery is beautiful, the air is clean and and the weather is perfect (about 25C). I was a bit worried that we'd be so busy interviewing that we wouldn't be able to see anything, but the GM and the HRD from Mecca have us doing, seeing and EATING so many things that it's almost as if hiring 1000 people for the hotel's opening in 2 months is an inconvenient side activity that occasionally gets in the way of our sightseeing. We've already done and seen a ton of things, but it's after midnight and I'm exhausted and we have another 200 people to interview tomorrow so, for now, I'll post some pictures and try to write a longer post tomorrow.

Miss you all, over and out from the 'kech. xoxo C

PS: please try to focus on the interesting sights and activities in the photos, not how fat I am now. thanks, the management.

lazy Saturday...

So it's almost 4pm and I am still in my pjs. Any motivation I had when I woke up this morning to accomplish anything was killed by the heat. Actually, I just checked the weather network and it's only 34C, but with the humidity apparently it "feels like 37"- I actually think it feels waaaay hotter than that- my laundry dried in about 20 seconds when I hung it outside.

The weekend is almost over, which I would usually not be happy about, but I only have one day of work at the hotel and then I fly to Casablanca on monday morning. yay!

The weekend went quickly- yesterday was spent sleeping and shopping- I had to get some blouses etc since we're wearing "business casual" while recruiting, which, for women, is not as easy as it sounds- for men it's fine, they can just take of their tie and jacket- but for us it's a tough balance- there is a science to doing it properly, one I have yet to master. I also got my haircut yesterday- I was planning to wait till I got back to Victoria and go to my usual hairdresser, Christine, but since I'm now not sure when I'll be back, I decided to just do it here. I actually went back to the same place that gave me the Farrah Fawcett layers, because it's easy to get to and you don't need an appointment, but I got a different stylist this time and using a little of the arabic that I know, and a lot of charades... I made it VERY clear to her that I didn't want any thing on the front of my head to be cut. She seemed to understand and all in all the whole thing went pretty smoothly. I even got a discount for being a Cairo resident- ( one of the few times I've been happy to live in Cairo!!!! ) and an employee discount, so the whole thing was less than $20. sweet.

Abdou (my driver) doesn't know it, but we're in a fight right now- this week he insulted me twice!

A few days ago, he asked me why I wasn't married yet, I told him because I'm waiting for the right person, and he said "but miss catherine, you old." Thanks Abdou, thats really nice of you. THEN, yesterday, I got in the car wearing a tank top and he squeezed my arm and said "ohh miss catherine big!" I shot him a dirty look and he said "number one time I look you (trans: when I first met you..), you small {and held up his pinky finger}... now you bigger... Egyptian food good for miss catherine!!" I think he was trying to pay me a compliment since egyptian men like woman with some meat on their bones, but I did NOT take it that way. I was going to make him a soft rock cd today, but now I don't think I'm going to... (He likes soft rock almost as much as he likes Michael Jackson and the Dixie chicks).

Last night a few of us had dinner at the hotel in Heliopolis- I had bruschetta that was really good and sea bass that was not so much... good conversation though.

Okay I should get my fat, old, unmarried self into the shower and actually try to get something done before the day is over, but don't forget about the triathlon tomorrow in Vancouver- if you're there, go down and cheer for our Canadian elites, and if not, you can still follow the live tricast online.

over and out, C

Wanted: Muslim men

So, I found out yesterday that I'm off to Morocco and then Tunisia on a recruiting trip in search of Muslim men to work in our new hotel in Mecca. I'm pretty excited since I've never been to either place!

I'm sure you are all much more knowledgeable about North African geography than I am (I had to check to see where exactly I was going!) but here's a map just in case. I'll be in Casablanca for 4 days and Tunis for 2. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have a lot of time for sightseeing as we have to hire about 1000 people in the next month which means A LOT of interviewing. I leave on Monday morning, so if you need anything from there, let me know!

C

Getting hot...

Ugh, so, it's 10:15pm and 30 degrees in my apartment right now, and it's supposed to be 40 degrees tomorrow. Yes, yes, I know, it's a "dry heat", but it's still frickin' hot!! I am really not made for this weather. I'm trying to stay cool by pumping the A/C and trying to distract myself by watching the OC on one of the 5 english satelite channels I get.

Apart from always being too hot, what else has been happening lately? Well, on Sunday we had a team of government inspectors come to decide whether we got our operating permit, so starting at 7:30am, we split up into teams to get the rooms ready, I ended up making beds with a guy from sales ... since neither of us had ever worked in HK before, I think we were the least successful bedmakers there- plus it was about 35C since the A/C wasn't working in the rooms, thankfully the inspectors weren't checking for technique!! We don't know yet if we got the permit, but it seemed pretty positive so we're crossing our fingers.

It seems like most of the ex-pats suddenly and simultaneously hit some sort of invisible wall and the majority of our time lately is spent scheming about how we can escape from Cairo for a few days here and there, I think we're off to Soukhna again this weekend, although London was definitely thrown around too. These pictures are the ones I said I'd post from last weekend in Soukhna, I finally got them to load properly...

What else...oh, last night I had the best sushi I've ever had here, which was a refreshing change-- and to top it off, nobody was sick afterwards, which is always the sign of a successful dining experience here.

Besides that, I have been trying to make it to the gym every morning, which has been making me feel a little better- but as I've said before, it's really hard to be active here, in Victoria, I went from walking everywhere, to Cairo where you have to drive every single place you go (actually not even drive, but be driven)- and I am really noticing a difference. The physical change (which is about 10lbs-- seriously, I'm like monica in the fat suit in friends!) is obviously upsetting, but even worse is the way I feel mentally, it is a real struggle to force myself to leave the house in the evenings....I think part of it is the heat, but I can't remember ever feeling this unhealthy.

On a more positive note, it sounds like I will be helping with recruitment for our new hotel in Mecca for the next few weeks so it'll be nice to get out of cairo for a little while and see some places I've never been. I don't know exactly when and where yet, but it could be as early as next week.

One last thing- this weekend, Vancouver is hosting the BG triathlon World Championships- if you are in Vancouver on Sunday you should definitely try to check it out- the best triathletes from all over the world will be competing, including Victoria's own Simon Whitfield (aka, "my boyfriend"....although I think it might be over between us as I heard he doesn't like fat girls...) and teen sensation, Kirsten Sweetland. Simon already has a an Olympic spot, but if Kirsten places in the top 8, she'll be going to Beijing too! So if you can make it, get out there and cheer for our canadians, and if not then at least send some good vibes on sunday. I will be!!

Okay off to bed, hope you're all doing well.

xoxo C