We Made It!

We're here and we're alive. Ish. It's 3:30 in the morning and Booker is up for the day. I can forgive him though because he slept for 8 hours (in a row!) on our New York to Cairo flight. I set my alarm in Tucson Thursday morning for 4:30 a.m. and got to my parents house in Cairo around 6 p.m. on Friday. I got about 2 hours of fitful sleep somewhere in there. It was a bear of a trip made worse by the fact that Ike just. would. not. sleep.

At one point, I had finally got him to sleep and snuggled up on his dog bed on the ground in front of me. Not five minutes later the flight attendant came around to inform me that it's "against the rules to sleep on the ground. Any airline. Any ground. Even on Quantas." Even on Quantas, what the!?! I paused for a moment, deciding if I wanted to react as rage-filled and indignant sleep deprived mother or as emotional and unstable sleep deprived mother. She must have seen what was coming, because that witchy flight attendant decided to let sleeping Ike's lie. I nearly cried tears of relief.

Other than that, we made it. Our luggage made it. I didn't cry once. And several of my fellow passengers (who all seemed to be elderly east coast tourists) even complimented me on how well behaved my children were. Which is the best compliment ever given how nervous and stressed I've been about this trip.

But that's enough about sleep and deprivation. It feels good to be here. I've missed my family terribly. After I stumbled off to bed, Chris built an elaborate fort in Booker's room and put him to bed inside of it. When Ike woke up last night at 11:30 thinking it was time to get up, my dad spent an hour (hours? I've lost all track of time) quietly convincing him that it was still the middle of the night. And I got several hours of glorious uninterrupted sleep in an actual bed thanks to them.

From my brief (only 45 minutes!) ride from the airport, my impression is that Cairo is the same place. I was surprised that I recognized many areas and was able to orient myself once we got to my parents neighborhood. Zamalek appears to be the same except that a little cupcake shop has opened up. Man, cupcakes must by popular if they've made it all the way to Egypt. You better believe I want to find out what an Egyptian cupcake tastes like. Perhaps the culture shock will be a little less intense this time. As we drove home, I thought to myself, "Of course we are driving in the middle of two lanes, alarmingly weaving in and out of traffic and occasionally blaring a police siren. This is Cairo."

Anyways, off to read my book until the sun rises. I'm glad to be on vacation.