Friday, February 18, 2011
Dénouement
I truly did not try very hard to Parlay Voo Frawn-Sayz while I was in Maroc, but there is a word I remember from my days doing theater that works perfectly to end this blog:
“Dénouement”, English definition:
The final resolution or clarification of a dramatic or narrative plot.
The events following the climax of a drama or novel in which such a resolution or clarification takes place.
The outcome of a sequence of events; the end result.
[French dénouement, from Old French desnouement, an untying, from desnouer, to undo : des-, de- + nouer, to tie (from Latin nōdāre , from nōdus, knot).]
So, as we sally forth into “real life” there are always things that get left behind.
Eg: Innocence
Naïveté
Pieces of great aspirations and grand dreams
And the idea that we are immortal
My girlfriend Wendy Sue said, “Hey, welcome home and thanks for, you know, freeing Egypt!” She’s hilarious.
There is a lot to be said for witnessing history, and retrospect is great for turning a remembrance of abject fear into a prettier emotion, but here is what is real and true:
I cannot pretend any more.
Myth: I thought by wearing a wedding band and having a “faux fiancée” that I would be immune to the perils of being a piece of meat in a Muslim world. Wrong, it’s nothing more complicated than white meat or dark meat on the menu and men get to choose. If they are willing to pay.
Myth: Being truthful and honest with others gets the same respect returned to you. Wrong, reciprocation is to be praised, but not expected.
Truth: Life is precious and you damn well better be enjoying it.
Truth: If it hurts, you’re doin’ it wrong.
I wish only the best to my friends Anthony and Bob with their marriage plans with their beautiful Moroccan women. Hope is eternal.
“If it is to be,
It is up to me.”
This is a quote from my BFF, Michelle Gallagher Ricca.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Everyone loves a "Happy Ending"
Monday, Phase 2
8PM- After luxuriating in a wonderfully fragrant bath of citrusy Verbena toiletries, we shared a fabulous gourmet Greek meal with our new BFF and war-time compatriot, Polly on the top floor of the Sofitel of Greek salads, stuffed squid, moussaka and some fabulous mushroom provencale side dish, which we all agreed won. And Ouzo, of course.
Feelings were jubilant and grateful as we recounted how very fortunate we 3 were, literally plucked to be #’s 68, 69 & 70 out of thousands. Then there was the good fortune of going to Athens instead of farther east to Bahrain. We agreed to exchange photos and keep in touch with Polly from opposite coasts and she gets credit for most of these photos on the blog on Egypt. My camera is back in Tampa with Chris, where I will be in a week. Thanks to Walker Travel, I got to fly directly back to Maroc via Gatwick from Athens, so I spent an extra night in the hotel we had already booked for him with Chris that was not planned. And I got a Boots, the Chemist fix at Duty-Free!!!!
Important lessons learned:
1. The power of 3 way exceeds the power of 2
2. Never cheap out on your hotel
3. You CAN open a beer bottle with an eyelash curler
4. The police are not always there to protect you
5. Sometimes having a bomb in the trunk is a good thing
6. There is no such thing as packing too light
7. And my favorite - If you’re going to be dumb, you gotta be tough (Thank you, Mead!)
The Power of 3
Still Monday, the day of escape
Noonish - The first plane evacuated out was supposed to be filled with diplomats and their families and was going to Bahrain, but they had space for 3 of us wankers on it, we were told at this point. We probably weren’t close enough to the front of the lines to have even made it onto plane#2, but we heard them ask for a family of 3 from the front table that were processing folks in. We yelled to them that we weren’t related, but we were a threesome (which threesome? I ask you!) and they said to come on down!!!
So we were plucked out of the seething masses because obviously, they DID know who we were and sent inside to wait some more, albeit in big, overstuffed leather chairs. With the destination now known, or so we thought, I enlisted the help of Walker Travel and Jim began the search for our onward journey.
4PM - As it turned out, we got on the 2nd plane out, which was going in the right direction to Athens. (Sorry, Walker Travel!) As soon as we had passed through the security check and entered the terminal, organization had gone straight down the tubes because we were now in the charge of the Egyptians. On the way to board the Lotus Air charter somewhat worn but precious Airbus 220 which carried 170 of us, we saw that the crowd of people who had showed up expecting to get airlifted out had probably doubled again.
Then, what should open up for the 3M’s but 3 seats in the exit row with extra legroom! No-one was complaining (especially not us) and they fed us very well, which was a good thing because many people had spent the previous night at Cairo airport without food supplies, water or even toilet paper. Apparently, the Japanese embassy had impressed travelers the night before as one of the few countries who actually showed up with the supplies their stranded citizens needed. A cheer went up when we took off “Thank you for choosing Lotus Air” got a good laugh, and more applause when we landed in Athens a few hours later, right after sunset.
7PM - We were greeted by the ambassador to Greece at the bottom of the stairs as we deplaned, shepherded through the paperwork and baggage claim detail and assisted into discounted rooms at the beautiful Sofitel hotel across the street by a very organized team of US embassy folks, one of whom said she felt like they were in a play. They were all excited when our plane (the first!) landed and she wanted to say “OK, places, everyone!”
We were interviewed as we exited baggage claim “for the embassy”, which I’m sure gave Chris the idea of giving an interview to ABC news “film at 11” when he got home to Tampa. Hopefully, it’s still on WTSP's website at:Tanks for the memories
Monday
Cell, but no internet. Curfew moved back to begin at 3PM. So much for our 3:15 flight on Thurs.
Polly arranged to leave before 8AM lifting of previous night’s curfew (smartest move ever) with her favorite driver and guide, Mohammed, to whom she bequeathed her excess bag full of goodies. She was told by the task force that we were allowed 1 checked and 1 carry-on each for the evac. She had been on a 3-week trip. Was it genetic imperative that they didn’t bother to tell Chris that?
Polly was most worried about the cab ride to the airport, even before we realized that the cab was fueled by a tank of benzene in the trunk.
Besides the obvious, this left little room for suitcases and the cab was full with 5 bodies (Mohammed and the cab driver, plus the 3M’s), so her big, purple American bag had to be tied to the roof. On the bright side, gas stations had been closed for days and we happily scurried past many long lines of cars waiting for fuel that morning. Insallah.
Despite being marked as tourists, we cleverly travelled with headscarf disguises (!)
 |
| At least they were good fun - I think I know what I'll be for Halloween |
9AM- pulled up to Terminal 4, out of which no commercial flights ran. Maybe 150-200 people were there waiting inside and out of the small terminal.
10:30 - American state dept employees (good little border collies that they are) arrived with bullhorns and began the process of herding us into lines and into categories- diplomatic status, US citizens and non-US nationals, telling us more about the luggage limitations and that we would each have to sign promissory notes to pay back the govt. for these flights the amount of a normal one-way ticket to our destination, which we were told was either going to be Athens, Istanbul or some city in Cypress. No animals allowed. By now there are at least 1000 of us, with more buses arriving at an alarming rate.
Polly had to jettison about 15 pounds of weight from her big American bag, but luckily our little bags could expand and still be less than 44 pounds to handle her overflow. Asian Americans near us were very, VERY popular with their luggage scales. We were standing outside in the sun at this time, still euphoric.
Then we won the lottery.
Polly
“Resilience: the ability of humans to not merely survive trauma and stress, but to bounce back and be happy and productive”
What IS that smell?
Even when the 3 of us were smoking “sheesha” out of beautiful hookahs on the lanai (gotta love the outstanding photo op) and spending time with other interesting folks, the spookiness of hearing and smelling gunfire, taking cover where possible and camping out in the hotel farthest from the windows after calculating possible bullet “tajectories”, I was doing some drain circling of my own. I was going into resignation that we were stuck and I was becoming inactive. Chris, my hero, was instinctively doing just the opposite. His energy was up and he was thinking back on the words the embassy used “not starting today“, so right after midnight on a brand new day, he called the task force and was answered on the first ring by a concerned human. She registered us for the evac and told us to be at the special VIP terminal at Cairo airport that day, Monday the 31st, no later than 11AM to be ready to board military transport to undisclosed, safe European cities. You’d have loved to see the scene of Chris elatedly jumping around. We called and woke up Polly, who was happy to be woken for such great news. She signed up and we pledged to stick together for the ordeal, officially forging our status as the 3 muskateers.
Cairo Airport is a no-fly zone
Sunday
 |
| Tank across the street from our hotel made us feel safe, until it moved out on Sunday |
Sunday
Back to no internet. Our link to the outside world, the business center had a “closed” sign, directing us to the harried front desk personnel. Cell phone was working, though. Curfew is now 2 hours earlier- at 4PM. Still no ability to get info on our Egypt Air flight, but curfew time is obviously headed in the wrong direction for a 6:55PM scheduled departure the following day. We received a crucial nugget of info from our Welsh friends' daughter who was able to get up on Egypt Air.com that our flight was nowhere in evidence, not cancelled, but just like it didn’t exist.
With Jim’s help, once we knew that Royal Air Maroc was tripling fares for earlier flights out, we went ahead and booked partially refundable flights to Casablanca for Thursday at 3:15PM, earlier than curfew, we thought. Chris would have missed his BA flight back across the pond by 2 days. Jim later heard the news bulletin that the US was rescuing stranded Americans with emergency evacuation flights, which was great news in any event because the horror stories of Cairo airport were surfacing. Here is what was on the web about it a couple of days later:
Day 2 in BFE
 |
| Who said we didn't get to see the pyramids? |
But this is a “smart phone”
Saturday morning dawned and Voila! – Internet and cell service were up – for part of the day, that is.
So even though my fabulous Droid “Global” phone wasn’t so fabulous out of the country because Verizon doesn’t have agreements with the strong networks over here, we were able to get e-mail messages out to loved ones from the hotel business center, which was just the beginning of much unexpected Cha-Ching.
After a fabulous buffet breakfast and some perfect opportunities to rehearse for when I’m a little old lady stealing Sweet-n-lows, we ventured out the hotel entrance for a quick look-see to observe the tank and heavy equipment lorries that had been stationed across the street and next to the Pyramids, which were now officially closed. How do you close a pyramid, you might ask? It was a moot point because our hotel security weren’t letting anyone out, period. Police were nowhere in evidence. The sounds were of heavy equipment on the move and occasional gunfire, but no sirens at all. Reports of damage done to the Egyptian museum artifacts were contradicted by tales of young Egyptians linking arms under the tanks that were guarding the museum to protect the priceless items that are their most important legacy.
The criteria we heard about by word-of-mouth were that no flights were taking off after curfew. Attempts to get through to Egypt Air by phone or internet were unsuccessful. We were able to contact the American embassy, who was routing calls to consular officers at their homes, since the embassy was already on lock-down. Their wisdom was to wait and call back on Monday, the day of our scheduled flight out at 18:55, to see if the curfew had been lifted. OK, we still had a few beers left. We could do that.
I had almost forgotten that I now had cell service, but luckily Jim Walker called from his home in England because he hadn’t heard back from us. He was the perfect accidental travel agent, trying to find the best route out for us- also unable to get to Egypt Air to even see if our flight was still scheduled and having to navigate the price gougers (thanks, Royal Air Maroc).
The hotel staff had to stay over at work because of the curfew. All 3 of the restaurants there and the poolside bar and grill were still open. Front desk staff was showing signs of stress, but were still able to smile. They handled all of us whiny babies and drama queens with charm and tact.
Curfew was still 18:00 on Saturday, and we went to dinner at the hotel’s Tex-Mex (yes, imagine it!) restaurant with our new friends John and Chris from Wales and met Bryan and Joy from Boston, in the UK.
We were asked to sit in the back of the dining room, away from the windows. The whole thing felt a bit like a hurricane party, but it was going on for days.
Later that night, John and Chris (seated nearest the camera) witnessed a shooting from their window. A man in military uniform shot one warning shot in the air and then aimed the next shot at someone who was out of their view. Presumably it was a looter, but we never knew. It was reported as fact that Mubarek had pulled a Sadam trick and emptied out his prisons, provided the “escapees” with weapons and told them to go and loot. This was in order to prove that chaos would ensue without him as head of the government. Looters were picked up with ID’s saying they were the feared and dreaded plainclothes police, also.
How we got E-gypped out of a vacation
Trip of a lifetime
Chris came over to visit me in Maroc and I jumped on the possibility of having my favorite person in the world be my travel mate to see the treasures of Egypt! I had all but given up on going by myself while I was here, so imagine the excitement and thrill of it all for both of us. We caught the red-eye overnighting on Thursday, Jan 27th and planned to stay thru Monday, Jan 31st, knowing full well there were peaceful demonstrations happening in the wake of Tunisia’s uprising, but we weren’t too concerned because we assumed the media was just hyping it. Wrong!!!!
We had a fun flight over, covertly drinking libations we bought in the terminal and making fun of the way the female flight attendants on Egypt Air have to wear dumpy apron-frocks (can you say “subservient"?), whereas the male equivalents were spiffily dressed like pilots with epaulets and gold braid. We got just a little sleep, hit the ground running on Friday morning in the customs/ immigration (for Americans only- there is a visa you buy at the bank in the airport for $15. It’s printed in English with dollar signs. ) / leaving the terminal with your baggage dance that we had been warned was going to be ridiculous. Negotiating a cab was another melee, with even more snake oil salesmen than in Maroc. They told us it was a holiday and that traffic was going to be smooth sailing once away from the airport. Egyptians take Friday and Saturday as their weekend, as do many Arab countries. Exhaustion from many sleepless nights had set in, and all we wanted was an early check-in at our lovely hotel, le Meridien Pyramids, in Giza so we could get some sleep and be ready to do some serious sightseeing.
That was the one and only day we could have visited national monuments, it turns out. All were closed for the remainder of our stay. Unbeknownst to us, had we arrived later on that same day, we might have had to wait out the 6PM curfew at Cairo airport. Although they probably still had food, water and toilet paper there on that first day of chaos.
When you come to a revolution, make sure you stay in a 5-star hotel
We came to Egypt to witness the fall of a government where the opposition had no succession plan. The opinion of the Egyptians we talked to was that the army could step in and control the situation until the new government was formulated. They had absolute distrust of the police and they appeared to be relieved once police had disappeared from the streets. All they wanted was President Hosni Mubarek out at all costs. He had been in power for more than 30 years, and the “election” results were always so much of a landslide that they could not have been anything but rigged. The phrase “Beware the anger of a patient man” was one of the media buzzwords we heard a lot of. And the Egyptian people were very, very sweet and hospitable to us and very optimistic that the troubles would soon be over.
Before curfew and after a sumptuous late lunch around the pool, we struck out for supplies, OK- for water and beer specifically. We were treated to a cab ride down into a very, very poor village less than 5 minutes from our opulent hotel where we felt extremely out of place, but that didn’t stop us from negotiating our Stellas. And we learned a new skill:
So for the rest of that evening, we obeyed the 6PM curfew, listened to events, coming to realize that there had been no internet or cell phone service that day, which meant no banks, credit cards or ATM’s were working. Even the on-site bank had a teller sitting there with nothing to do. All of the front desk staff was helpful, but harried and completely unsure of how to advise us, saying “this has never happened here before”. Reality notwithstanding, we got info from the concierge on all of the fabulous tours we were going to take in the following days (as if), ate snacks, drank beer and watched movies in our room with the balcony overlooking the Giza pyramids. Never mind that it was only one story higher than and right next to the security wall, so it also overlooked the street beside the hotel, which was complete squalor at ground level. As you may be already deducing, we were within striking distance from outside our safe haven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)