DAY 1 8am Sat 12 June - end of Sun 13 June

Well, it has been about 28 hours since I left home... and since then I have travelled half way around the world. After leaving Auckland Airport, the first stop was Singapore, where I had a nearly 4 hour layover. Time for a little duty free shopping, visiting the butterfly gardens (though being night time there wasn't much activity at all - though there was a cute little gecko feeding on the pineapple that was left out for the butterflies), and making the most of Changi Airport's free internet access. I'd stayed awake for the entire flight from NZ, as it got into Singapore at about 10.30pm NZ time, so the flight from Singapore to Dubai was mainly for sleeping - not that it really counts as sleeping - it was more like doze for half an hour, wake up for a bit, doze again, wake up, rinse and repeat. Then there was an hour and a half wait in Dubai, where we weren't even allowed to leave the plane. The flight was reasonably empty from Dubai to Cairo, so I managed to move back one row and make the most of an empty row of seats to sleep about two thirds of the flight to Cairo.
Once in Cairo, it was a waiting game... first off waiting for the plane to even make it to the gate, and then waiting for the luggage. There wasn't much of a wait for immigration however. So that rates Cairo ahead of Istanbul and LA as far as I am concerned.
Walking out through the crowds in the arrivals area, I finally spotted Mohamed stuck outside (they weren't letting people in).
Driving out to Maryanne's, I realised that not much here has really changed in the last two years. Oh there has been a lot of change to look at I'm sure if you are familiar with the place, but in terms of just how things generally go around here there is no change - the never ending construction, the general craziness of the roads - the little things that make Egypt Egypt. And as the title of the blog states, things in Egypt are rather random - Egypt does random very well!
There were some things I had forgotten about as well that came back quickly enough - just the look of the sand and realising how dry it was. We have finally come out of the drought at our place back in NZ, but even at our driest most people over there could not understand how a society could flourish in an area even drier than that - maybe it would be better understood over in Australia where they too make a living off dry desert areas.
The other thing was the reminder that we're not in Kansas anymore Toto... Egypt is first and foremost a military state. Just driving down the road from the airport, the watch towers and large concrete walls brought that back. It is something that is no longer that noticeable at the airport itself any more however. I remember my first trip over to Egypt, and the shock of seeing with guards with guns at the airport. Okay, the cops at NZ airports have guns, but not machine guns!
Speaking of construction, over here it is on a scale that we never see in NZ, and personally I hope we never see it. There are huge areas cleared ready to be built on, and also there seems to be something of the mentality from "Field of Dreams"... "You build it, they will come!". There was a Mercedes dealership built in the middle of nowhere, but just a little further along there were all these houses being built, closer and closer to the dealership.
Now I am back at the farm and all set up in the guest house, but oh so tired... and it isn't even 9am. Got to say 'Hi' to Mona, who is looking after the farm while Maryanne is over in the US. Checked e-mails and went out to see horses. Unfortunately Maryanne has a few horses with Strangles at the moment. You get to see some interesting?!? diseases over here. Strangles outbreaks occur so infrequently back home in NZ, and as for Equine Influenza - we don't get that at all. Got to watch the vet treating some of the horses, which consisted of draining the large abscess that had formed. Certainly not something that you would want to see if you were at all squeamish!
After the vet left Mona headed off to do some stuff, and I was left at the farm wondering what to do. I was soo tired due to the travelling, but I didn't want to head off to bed too soon - best way to beat jet lag is to stay up till a regular bed time local time. Unfortunately that was over 10 hours away. I knew if I stopped to read a book that I would probably end up falling asleep as well, I had to be doing something active, even if I did feel absolutely shattered, so I decided to head over to see if Morad was home.
Tried the back gate at the farm, but it was locked, so out the front gate, past the disney house and down towards the next road over, only to find out that in the last two years a gate had been installed... so much for that idea. So I walked up through the village only to be stopped by some of the local kids who wanted their photos taken. At first I said I didn't have a camera, because I wasn't actually thinking obviously, but they reminded me that I had a camera on the cellphone, so the next quarter of an hour was spent taking photos of the kids, as more and more of them turned up to have their photos taken.
I finally escaped from there and headed up to the 'main' road, and along to Morad's place. Took a little while to track him down once I was there, but once I did it was good to catch up with him again. We had a good chat before one of his friends, Danny turned up, and then we hopped in Danny's car and went out to Shoubramont to treat some horses.
Driving through Egypt, you'll notice that despite the law, most people still don't bother to buckle up, or they still talk on the cellphone. Which makes it kind of offputting when you are sitting in a car were you can't actually use the seatbelt.. even more so when all of a sudden out of no where, the two in the front seat buckle up - I asked whether I had anything to be nervous about - lol... Though with the state of the driving over here, one should be nervous whenever one hops in a car... you may trust the driver, it's all the other lunatics out there on the road - lol
Instead of heading back to Morad's we had a quick stop at Maryanne's so I could pick up my laptop. Back at Morad's I showed him and Danny the video of the Kumeu Santa Parade, and after Danny had gone I had to show him the two short clips of Lee on NZ Television - from the TV programmes Radar's Patch and Hitched.
He then decided it would be a good idea if we sat down to watch the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (I had bought over my extended edition for him to watch. Three quarters of the way through the first DVD I fell asleep - oops - so much for staying awake till a respectable bed time. Though it was just a doze until the movie ended and Morad's cell phone went off.
More dozing off through the second DVD of the Fellowship of the Rings - oh well, I think I'd done extraordinarily well to stay up for that long after the long trip from NZ. The next two DVD's were rather interrupted with people arriving and phone calls. After the second video of the Two Towers had finished, I decided I had to call it a night - I needed a decent night's sleep to knock the jetlag on the head and start the holiday off on the right foot - just as well because as I was leaving more people arrived. One of whom was nice enough to drop me off at Maryanne's front gate. Then Maryanne's dogs mobbed me - I relented in the end and instead of just having Buffy, who is the guest house dog, I ended up with Buffy, Terra, Geo, Pixel and Ginger joining me on the bed... just as well it is a large bed, and they are just little rat terriers!