Bucharest Airport

This is being written off line as I can't find free Internet access in Bucharest airport. The plane flight was not very nice as the difference in pressure hurt my ears big time since I caught cold. I was really afraid to turn deaf. As soon as I arrived I noticed that all women in the area are so white with blond hair tending to be white as well. Extreme white was not sexy at all.

As I reached the transit desk, leading to the departure halls, a beautiful lady officer stopped me, and informed me that I have to wait for some official from TAROM to come and check my boarding pass, and that my current boarding pass is not good for the flight. During this a male officer (like the old good ones in Egypt) came to me, with suspicious looks in his eyes, maybe just because i am from the middle east. He asked me politely to give him my passport and about my destination. He then started checking every page of the passport to see if I was forging my photo, then he checked every single visa I've got to see if it is forged. He then asked me to wait in my place and he took my passport and went to check it. In a long 10 minutes he was back with my passport with all the frustration in his own eyes, because he was not successful to stop me!!

I was then informed by the nice lady officer that I have to wait here till the TAROM official arrives. That was for 30 minutes after which the arrogant TAROM bitch arrived. Reminded me of the black widows working for some companies or the airport in Egypt. (Why they look similar). An aggressive look, a frown, little talk, and a look that would say you son of a bitch!!

After a while I was allowed to get my boarding pass and pass by the gate only to find a small airport that is much less elaborate than the Cairo airport. Eastern beauties were everywhere, but were not really tempting to me. They were just cheap!!

I tried to figure out what currency do these people use and how much of a Euro or a GBP is their currency but I couldn't get this info. Some shops were selling things in USD or Euros, others were selling in RON (the Romanian currency). Anyways I was not really very interested in buying anything so I went to the smoking zone to smoke a good Egyptian Marlboro then here I am sitting next to Gate 4 waiting for my connection flight to London, expecting a tough entry clearance as usual.

Cairo Airport

Currently I am staying at "The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf" in Cairo Airport Terminal1 (elmatar el adeem) waiting for my plane. The flight is scheduled at 4:00 am i.e. 1:15 hours from now.

On a wide screen infront of me are the breaking news of assassinating benazir bhutto.

I was lucky to find this electricity outlet for my mobile and more lucky to find the mobinil wifi to be working and for free.

will be flying to bucharest (as I am using the romanian airlines). Then will have transit for 3 hours or little less (or maybe more) then another plane to london. Heathrow.

Inspite of the very bad bad flu that attacked me yesterday night, and despite my bad mood of this, I am still feeling excited to this trip. I hope it goes well.

I was expecting the officer in the airport to stall me for half an hour because of the similarity of my name to other people who are wanted, but he looked at my passport, found lots of check ins and check outs, then decided that he doesn't need to stall me anymore. They usually leave me go easily when i am leaving the country, but never when i am coming back in. I just hope things go well this time. :)

The Survival Trip

Long ago back in 2003, it was my first visit to Europe. I didn't know yet that airlines were cheaper than land vehicles.

Western Europe

I was in Hamburg, Germany, and I wanted to visit the UK over the weekend, so I decided to get into some bus that was going there.

I looked at the map and found that the bus would go west to Belgium then a little bit to the left to Calais, France, then via the Channell Tunell to Dover, UK.

I didn't know that this was named the survival trip by people who know it; The bus headed south along Germany till it reached Frankfurt, then to the left, into France, then back to the north to Belgium, only to go again to the west to France once more till it reached Calais. The reason was to load the bus. It started almost empty and went allover western europe to collect people!!

The unforgettable trip took me 16 hours!!

The Unexpected Rain

Those of you who are reading my blog for a long time now, might remember the article I wrote some several years ago, titled "It's raining in Cairo". Since that time, it only rained twice. Usually it boils down to some water dropplets over some regions.

Today was an exceptional day. Thunder, lightning, and real rain was the case. I don't believe that this has happened in Cairo for the last decade. I might be wrong.

Of course, Cairo is not prepared for this. Streets got flooded. People panicked. Some put on winter clothes, although the weather is hot :). For us, Egyptians, rains are tightly correlated with winter, and cold weather. The first effect always goes to traffic.

What makes this weird is that there are no rains in Alexandria, which means that this is not coming from the Sea. In the mean time, news are talking about the rise in the water level of the river Nile. Could it be the case? Well, if so, then this might be a new phenomenon. I will try to follow up and update as I find something.

The Hard Times!

We live in hard times.

The social market economy is being replaced by a global market economy, and the marketing guys rule the world. As a consequence, you have to be fast and flexible to survive.

It's a renaissance of Darwinism.

What a unique translation :)

Unique constraint violated = تم انتهاك القيد الفريد

Girls are like apples - hehehe

----------------------Girls----------------------
---------------are like apples----------------
----------on trees. The best ones----------
--------are at the top of the tree.----------
------The boys don't want to reach--------
-----for the good ones because they-----
--are afraid of falling and getting hurt.--
Instead, they just get the rotten apples-
--from the ground that aren't as good,--
-but easy. So the apples at the top think
-something is wrong with them, when in
----reality, they're amazing. They just----
-----have to wait for the right boy to-----
--------come along, the one who's--------
------------- brave enough to---------------
------------------climb all---------------------
----------------- the way---------------------
-----------------to the top-------------------
----------------of the tree.------------------

Sefty frest

Eshnine eat oil.
Lubber Bad.
Kaffar Bad.
One Day Go.
One Day Fix.
One Day Go.
Sefty Frest, Sefty Frest.


Ok, folks here is the story :)
I recall my friend Kohail telling me a story about this technician responsible for vehicles and their safety in that big big company.
When they took this old car to him, and he checked on this car, the former phrases were what he said.

Eshnine eat oil = means Engine eats oil, and this is the transliteration from arabic which means that the engine is leaking oil.
Lubber bad = means the tires are bad (they are made of rubber, this is also a transliteration)
Kaffar bad = Cover bad, and cover here means the hood, and he wanted to say that the whole mechanical parts of the car need maintenance.
One Day Go, One Day Fix, One Day Go = he says the car will take three days to be fixed a day to send it somewhere, then another day to get fixed there, then a third day to get it back.

Then he says his everyday motto: Sefty Frest, Sefty Frest = Safety First, Safety Firs

The Monkeys perception.

I am sitting on my desk working hard, just to find an english collegue
who is conducting some training here to be sitting to the cubicle next
to mine. My attention was not that aware of him till he started to
talk on the phone. I was first fascinated with the accent, trying hard
to pick up as much words as I can in a hard attempts to fix some of
mine.

Fortunately the handsets here are very good that I could hear the
other party, it was his little little daughter.

After some basic chat between a father and his daughter, I realized
that the little girl's perception was that her dad is in this country
with camels and monkeys!!!

So the father, deceiving his daughter, was just asserting that he was
there in this store with monkeys sold !!!

He then started talking to his wife, mentioning that unexpectedly
found 5 storeys shopping mall he just visited!!

I have no comment!!
--
Sincerely yours;
Mohamad A. Charaf.

I wonder

I wonder why is it that some idiots get a life out of superficial jobs, while other people struggle with sophistications just to prove that they deserve their salaries!!!

The horizon tells it all

alexandria_wallpaper, originally uploaded by sharaf_m.

I was urged to abandon Alexandria years ago, seeking the hard earned paycheck in Cairo, which is an every day scenario for alexandrians, living in a cerntralized country like Egypt where every aspect of life -well the bare necessities for most of us- is only found in the Capital.

Having to go to Alexandria every weekend to restore my dignity and self respect there, I turned to lose the feeling of home. I couldn't be so sure whether I am a native proud Alexandrian, or accept the fact that my official Address is in one of the most polluted cities in the world, Cairo.


This time it was a nice quiet friday in Alexandria, on the great Lord's month of february, with all the features of an adorable winter in sweet Alexandria, my home town.

My mom decided to visit her sister after the Prayers and I had to be driving -well it makes sense to drive my family on my day off in return for the years of suffering they had had to raise me up- although I really don't feel well going there because of the biter memories I have of this house, my aunt's husband's continous fights with everyone. I was not an exception.

Going up the 80 year's old notorious elevator that has been a major cause of lots of accidents I was really worried about my mom and sister, they would not bear to fall down the 8 levels we were climbing!! well neither would I survive as well, but I don't care about me, not anymore.

We reached the door of the appartment, and my sister rushed to ring the bell, and after a while that was as usual not acceptablly long, here comes my aunt with her slow steps and vague look to open the door for us, and again there was the usual odor of some food that is being cooked, and it smelled!!

Reaching this limit I was really as frustrated and depressed as most of you who are reading this right now :)

Well, now comes the bright side of the story, It happens that a virtue of my aunt's place is that it is located directly on the sea, the generous furious sea of Alexandria, with this nice balcony that allowed me to escape everything for a while, well a little while.

Looking at the infinity and tracing the horizon to the right and left is not only good for your sight, it is also one heal for your soul. Now look for a little while at the photo above, that was captured with my mobile phone, and imagine that Antonio Vivaldi is playing his four seasons in the background, and see yourself standing at this location with a cozy coat and a steaming hot mug of cafe mocha, while you are lighting a marlboro*.... Well I was there!!

It was a perfect mood to wipe out most of the burdens of life, and the stress of being an alien in my very own homeland. A mood to make me forget for a while that my own personal stuff are not safely located because my grandmother is most probably ditching them somewhere in this very moment. A mood to give me the freedom of virtual mobility in the vast space to cure the feeling of restriction with no decent means of transportation in Cairo, and losing 16 percent of my life in a low grade raptured disk proviking bus.

One needs a horizon for a very little while, every once in a while.

* They say that smoking kills, well, we are gonna die anyways.