I had about an hour between landing in Washington D.C. and taking off to fly to Frankfurt. It would've been tight, but I could have made it. Instead, an armrest was found broken on the United plane, so we waited for an hour for the mechanics to come and wrap a sign around the seat that read: Do not sit. After that, I of course missed my connection to Frankfurt, and United Airlines wouldn't pay for the hotel in which I had to stay because they re-routed and blamed the air traffic controllers, and not mechanical defect. Owing to an armrest, my trip extended by a day and was more expensive.
There are two morals to this story:
First: If you have stock in United Airlines, sell it.
Second: Watch this clip and laugh at me.
Monday, June 29, 2009
It's just a vibe I get...
So I'm in the Frankfurt airport wearing green cargo pants, a pink UT Longhorns Swimming shirt, and tennis shoes and the whole time I am looking rather non-Arab. A lady approaches me and pointing to a bathroom, asks me in Arabic, "Is this bathroom for ladies?" I replied that it was, she thanked me, and I told her she was welcome, all in Arabic.
How did she know that I would understand her?
How did she know that I would understand her?
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Adventures Everywhere! (Or buying my phone back at a "reasonable" price)
Good golly Miss Molly.
I just had an adventure and it's only my first day. This wasn't the kind I normally choose to have. So I'm writing this to you, but I'm probably going to cut and paste it word-for-word onto a new blog about my Egyptian Adventures. Just know that you got it first.
So I get in at 2AM and out of the airport at 3AM. We take a taxi home, and I try to get some sleep but to no avail, jet lag has me in its unmerciful grips. So I try to get through the day, and right when I'm about to go to sleep one of the supervisors comes to see me. He has a phone number I'm supposed to call, which I do. The man on the other line says a phone was left in his cab. He drives to the gate and shows me, and there it is, my American phone, I didn't even know it was missing. He wants me to pay to get it back, so I respectfully declined and walked away (the phone won't work here, and the battery had already worn out, and it was to be canceled in a couple of weeks). He takes it to the Tourist Police and then calls again. I don't care much, but the supervisors are worried that it could be planted at the scene of a crime and I'll be the fall guy, so we go to pick it up. After getting yelled at a lot, the offer for my phone goes down from 50LE to 30LE. I say 20LE, and the Tourist Police in charge says to pay him 25LE and call it a night. One of my supervisors was helping me the whole time, and he was upset with the man until we paid him.
At that point, he turned to me and said, "You were lucky to have lost it in the cab of a good taxi driver. He could have really tried to mess you up. This is an example of a good Egyptian taxi driver."
I couldn't believe it. I thought my head was going to explode from how ridiculous that sounded. Then I just thought of the culture, and it all sort of started to make sense. These Egyptians have the whole forgiveness thing down. The conflict was over, and my supervisor was already forgiving the man and praising him, when I was thinking that a good man would have just given me my phone back free of charge.
There's a lesson to every adventure!
I just had an adventure and it's only my first day. This wasn't the kind I normally choose to have. So I'm writing this to you, but I'm probably going to cut and paste it word-for-word onto a new blog about my Egyptian Adventures. Just know that you got it first.
So I get in at 2AM and out of the airport at 3AM. We take a taxi home, and I try to get some sleep but to no avail, jet lag has me in its unmerciful grips. So I try to get through the day, and right when I'm about to go to sleep one of the supervisors comes to see me. He has a phone number I'm supposed to call, which I do. The man on the other line says a phone was left in his cab. He drives to the gate and shows me, and there it is, my American phone, I didn't even know it was missing. He wants me to pay to get it back, so I respectfully declined and walked away (the phone won't work here, and the battery had already worn out, and it was to be canceled in a couple of weeks). He takes it to the Tourist Police and then calls again. I don't care much, but the supervisors are worried that it could be planted at the scene of a crime and I'll be the fall guy, so we go to pick it up. After getting yelled at a lot, the offer for my phone goes down from 50LE to 30LE. I say 20LE, and the Tourist Police in charge says to pay him 25LE and call it a night. One of my supervisors was helping me the whole time, and he was upset with the man until we paid him.
At that point, he turned to me and said, "You were lucky to have lost it in the cab of a good taxi driver. He could have really tried to mess you up. This is an example of a good Egyptian taxi driver."
I couldn't believe it. I thought my head was going to explode from how ridiculous that sounded. Then I just thought of the culture, and it all sort of started to make sense. These Egyptians have the whole forgiveness thing down. The conflict was over, and my supervisor was already forgiving the man and praising him, when I was thinking that a good man would have just given me my phone back free of charge.
There's a lesson to every adventure!
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