snow in BC, eh!?

So......I heard a rumour that BC got a little snow recently... I thought you might like to see what I was up to on my day off today....

(it's okay, you'll be laughing at ME in a few months when it's 45C here...)

C

settled...sort of...

As you know, my weekend is fri/sat, so I spent most of today trying to get the apartment organized....and...and.....I FINALLY set up my bike!!!! I was reluctant to take it out of the case until I knew I was somewhere a little more permanent just in case I couldn't take it apart again (it took Cam @ Fort St Cycles about an hour to do it and he's got a lot more experience than I do!)... but anyway it's set up now, and I even assembled the windtrainer...(all by my self!)-- thankfully when he was here, Gus bought me a little toolkit, because I needed a screwdriver  and I thought all I had was allen keys until I remembered Gus' gift (thanks Gus!!!!). I put it in front of the tv so I can ride while I'm watching one of the 5 english channels and catching up on such syndicated 90's favourites as: Blossom, Ellen and Sabrina the teenage Witch.

 Speaking of tv shows  {....actually I can't believe I'm writing this}... but one new show I've become hooked on lately is "Hannah Montana" on the Disney chanel... I don't remember it in Canada (maybe because I only paid for basic cable) but it stars Billy Ray Cyrus (yes, the achey breaky heart guy!) and his real life daughter, Miley, who, on the show, has a secret, double life as a teenaged country music star- the family moved from Tennessee to California and you can just imagine the hi-jinx and hilarity that ensues!! Yes, it is as bad as it sounds, but for some reason it cracks me up....Okay, now you know my secret.

I don't think I can really say anything to recover from that, so I'm just going to post a couple of pics of my new pad. The bedrooms are still a mess, so this is the living room.

Hope you all have a great weekend! xoxo C

land of pharoahs, sand and OTC antibiotics...

So, there's a flu/cold going around the hotel, and it's starting to hit Stephanie and me. We went to the pharmacy in the mall attached to the hotel and asked the "pharmacist" what we should use-- she asked us to describe our symptoms, disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared with a few packages... one of them was antibiotics...no prescription or anything! Apparently I can get OTC Viagara here as well, so just send me your orders ;)

Muhammed Ali Mosque and the Citadel

So, I finally moved into my new apartment- since I've been in cairo I've logged about 55 hotel nights so I am VERY glad to have my own place again! It was especially annoying since word got out at the hotel about which company we worked for, so we had people approaching us all the time about their applications, openly, in front of their leaders and co-workers. It was actually rather uncomfortable...

Once my place is set up I'll post some pictures, but it's a bit of a mess right now.... so I'll post some pics from a few weeks ago when Moses, Stephanie and I went to the citadel and the mosque of  Muhammed Ali and the Citadel.  

Work is getting busier and busier- we've got most of the leaders in place now, and we'll have line staff joining us in about 

a month. It's getting hotter here now too, yesterday it was up to 33C, which is but a glimpse of what's to come this summer....speaking of summer, I think I'll be back in Victoria for a visit in June :)

I'm eating fresh dates so I better go or I'll get the macbook all sticky.... miss you all!

C

Adventures on the Sinai Peninsula...

So, this weekend I escaped from cairo and explored a little bit of the rest of egypt. A group of us (initially 10 but for one reason or another -including a broken foot and a bad case of the flu- it ended up only being 5) rented a van and headed to the Sinai Peninsula... for those of you who aren't up on your Egyptian geography- the sinai is the part that sticks out into the red sea, between mainland egypt and saudi arabia... it also borders Jordan and Israel (or Palestine, depending on who you ask!). We left right after work on Thursday and drove straight to Mt. Sinai- we got there about 2:30am and started climbing. We reached the top at around 5:15am, about 20 minutes before sunrise. The climb wasn't too bad, but definitely hard work (sort of like the Grouse grind, but longer and more drawn out...), but the view from the top was definitely worth the effort- the scenery was unreal- sort of like a cross between Utah and mars (not that I've been there...). On the way up, we passsed two "camel stations" -apparently a lot of people can't walk up all the way so they can ride a camel instead- since it was dark, the first one took us by surprise, suddenly we were confronted with a really strong camely smell- I don't know if you've ever smelled a goat in heat (those of you who worked at camp with me will remember Tarva) and a lot of strange noises... once our eyes adjusted the light (or lack thereof) we noticed there were camels EVERYWHERE...thankfully they were friendly...and if you look past the smell, they are actually pretty cute. We had been warned to dress warmly, but it's hard to really believe it will be that cold when the temperature at the bottom is about 25C in the middle of the night, but they were right! It was absolutely freezing at the top- I could hardly get my fingers moving enough to take a photo of the sunrise. We finally made it to the bottom of the mountain at about 8am, covered in dust, stinking of camels and completely exhausted. At the base of the mountain there is a famous monestery called St. Catherine's, but the day we were there, it was only open between 11am-12pm, so we decided not to wait.

We got back in the van and drove about 2 hours to a resort town on the Red Sea called Sharm El Sheikh in time for a nap, lunch and some much needed R&R on the beach. Sharm is known worldwide for its scuba diving and I can see why- even standing in water up to my knees, I saw lots of amazing sealife- lots of little Nemos and an incredible foot long blue and yellow guy...one night was definitely not enough- a few of us are already planning a trip back. On the way home we even stopped at a real egyptian truck stop (pictured above). I will leave you with that and some other photos from the weekend...I think most of them are self explanatory.

I move into my new apartment tomorrow, just in time for my parents' visit in just about 10 days!

Bye for now everyone, I hope you're all well! xo C

The voice of the chicken...

This week has been busy...lots and lots of interviews. I saw the Kite Runner last night- I've heard the book is better, but the movie is also worth seeing. Sad. but hopeful at the same time. 

My favourite amusing moment this week was during an interview. I was interviewing a guy on the phone and a rooster kept crowing (this is actually common as a lot of people seem to have livestock living with them, even in the middle of the city) and the applicant finally said totally seriously... "Miss Catherine, I am very sorry for the voice of the chicken". I was laughing my head off (silently of course...)

Tomorrow I'm off to mt sinai and sharm el sheik... I'll give a report when I get back.

Hope you're all doing  well! miss you! C

Time flies when you're having....fun!???

So, somehow it's the first week in april already, which means I've been in cairo for almost 2.5 months!! Although the time went slowly at first, the last month and a bit has actually flown by and I realize (partly in spite of myself!) that I am actually really starting to like it here. I think my problem initially was that I was trying to impose Canadian/western ideals on a place that is so completely at odds with the way things work...well.... anywhere else actually! Once I started accepting this crazy city (and its inhabitants!) for what it is, and what it has to offer, things became much more fun! After re-reading some of my whiny culture-shock posts I decided to give myself a good talking to, which basically went like this: "okay self, if you wanted things to be exactly the same as they are at home, then you should have stayed there. You are here to learn and experience new things, so you'd better stop being such a baby and make the most of this experience." {I know, I can be a real jerk sometimes....} Of course some things still annoy the heck out of me, but I think now I just approach everything with a sense of humour and even the tough things become much more manageable......

Stuff at work is getting really exciting- the hotel is due to open in about a month and a half so our team is getting bigger every day- we have about 75% of the leadership team in place now (including Sparticus and Troy, two turtles belonging to one of our admin assistants) and our offices are getting pretty cramped....we usually work about 11 hours a day, but the team is great and things constantly happen that keep me amused, so it's usually fairly enjoyable. I thought I would share a few stories with you....

-We are still receiving about 200 resumes/day...going through them is often very entertaining...most of them come with a wallet sized picture that looks nothing like the real person and there are usually a few spelling mistakes- some of them a little worse than others... for example, our director of rooms had a fellow the other day whose resume proudly announced: " Manager, I sex people" (we think he managed 'six' people), but my personal fav is the resume where the "hobbies" section simply said: CHEESE

-In Egypt, hotels provide medical treatment for their employees on-site, of course this falls under the compensation and benefits umbrella, so I have been meeting with our hotel doctor (who happens to have a VERY impressive comb-over, it starts about an inch above his right ear and swooshes right over to the other side of his head!) to set up our medical clinic. He is also responsible for conducting the pre-employment medical checks for staff, so the other day Rachel and I met with him to talk about this process and I think he was trying to impress us with how thorough the examinations would be, because he started telling us about exactly which body parts he would examine and casually mentioned that "you can tell a lot from a man's testicles" .... of course we were both nodding along trying to look very serious and professional, but of course the second he left, we were both killing ourselves laughing....the whole scenario wasn't helped by the fact that every time he said the word "genitals", he gestured to his own!!!! Needless to say, this is now an office joke!

-Last weekend I ended up at a Coptic christian church with the architect from the hotel- it was his family's church so he was really excited about showing me everything. Then we got to a room where there was a picture of a really old guy with a white beard...he explained that this was the former priest at this church and he was much loved by everyone but sadly, he'd passed away in 2003... And then he explained that he was still there. "Yes," I said, smiling, "he'll always be in your hearts and memories..."

And he said, "no, no, he's right here!!"

and he pointed through a little piece of glass at about knee level, so I looked through, and there was a COFFIN!!!! um yeah..... I got out of there pretty quickly!

Those are only a few of the amusing things that happen every day.... if you want another perspective, you should visit a cairo post on this blog written by Chris, another recent BC hotel industry import...(lots of cool hotel articles there too!)

Okay my hour of net time is almost up so I should sign off, but I hope you're all doing well and having as many laughs as I am.

miss you all!!!!!

C