I'm Leeeeavin' On a Jetplane...

After a day and a half of flying we made it to Cairo. The flights were very good and surprisingly not boring. The longest flight from Washington to Vienna went through the night. I was able to sleep a little but didn’t feel the need to sleep more.
The plane had a very cool personal entertainment system. Each passenger has their own LCD screen built into the headrest of the seat in front of them and each seat is also equipped with a remote control/game controller. From the screen’s menu you had options to either view interactive info about the flight, choose a movie, play a game, go shopping, or view the on board cameras. The interactive flight info was interesting and depressing all at the same time. The screen would show a map of the world and then draw a red line with a plane-a la Indiana Jones-and trace how far the plane had gone. It would also show you the air speed of the plane, the temperature outside, how many miles we had gone and so on. Neat stuff. The on board camera gave you an option to view from the pilots perspective or what was below the plane. The below option didn’t work but the pilot cam was neat when we landed. Out of the haze you could see the runway, and track our landing and taxi all the way to the terminal. During the rest of the flight you could choose from 8 different movies and shows at any time. Their were also games built in like solitaire, chess, and others. You could even call from seat to seat. I tried to call Dad, but he never answered.

I slept like a rock on the 3 hour flight from Vienna to Cairo. I had a window seat and was hoping to see some cool stuff as we flew over the country but there was a really unusual haze that limited the viewing distance to around 400 meters (that’s about 1 and half football fields for all you Americans out there).

The drive through Cairo to our hotel was nuts. I don’t think I’ll get mad at anyone ever again for cutting me off (okay, truth be told – I probably will…) but you have to have nerve to drive in this stuff. The best way to describe it is to call it a big ol game of chicken. Who will flinch first? The 10 ton bus, the motor cycle or the blind guy crossing all 6 lanes (lanes is a figurative word) of traffic. Yes, there was a blind guy trying to cross 6 lanes of traffic.

Our hotel is very nice though there is one computer with internet access for the whole hotel. Luckily I was able to hack in and use my own. If you see my name on Fox News pay no attention…We had a good buffet and I picked up some souvenir Coke bottles for only 36 Egyptian pounds.

Tomorrow we are going to see the Pyramids of Giza so there should be some cool pics up tomorrow night.