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.
2:18
Day one has begun, and I'm still not packed... I just finished posting the initial bits to this little website. You can watch the map and keep track of where we are on a day to day basis. I started in a couple days ahead though. I am getting more excited as the night wears on and I am debating whether or not to go to sleep. We have to leave around 3:30 am - normally my bedtime.
So, I am going to go finish packing and prepare for a day of airports! Our route tomorrow (I mean today...is: Des Moines to Chicago to Washington to Vienna to Cairo.
Mickie bought me a really cool travel pillow, that should help.
A Shtickl of fluoride
Well, its t-minus 3 days before we leave for Israel. The trip should be awesome, and you can follow every step here. You will also get a preview of the new blog format. I am switching to WordPress when I get back - though the design will be different.
Mia went in on Monday for some tests due to recent uti's. It was a fairly stressful day as the sedatives didn't really work and she had a bad reaction coming out of one of them. The good thing though is that she doesn't seem to remember any of it. We don't have any results back yet, but pray that everything would be okay, or that they would find something and know how to treat it.
I just upgraded our home computer with 3 200 gb hard drives. CompUSA had an awesome sale this weekend where they were only 29.99 each. I now have almost a terabyte of storage at home. I am in the process of putting all of our media (dvd's, music, pictures) on one media drive that will be able to serve the entire house on our wireless network. There is some really cool free software called Media Portal that I think will do everything I want. So in the end we should be able to access any movie/cd/picture on any tv or laptop with just a couple clicks.
I was reading in Hebrews 1 and 2 yesterday and was really struck by how awesome Jesus is - God the Father calls him "My God", and "My Lord." And then in the midst of his glory and honor he calls us (humans - His creation) His own brothers - stop and think about the significance of the statement for 30 seconds or so. Incredible.
I've been watching a little of the Olympics but have been disappointed with the selection of things being shown. Maybe it's just my timing of tuning in, but it always seems like there is something that is unbearable to watch - like cross country skiing... Is there anything that makes you want poke your eyes out more than having to watch cross country skiing? Maybe - if you are forced to watch women's hockey. I would like to see some combination of sports - like the biathlon and ski-jumping. You could have the biathletes ski over to the ski jump and try and shoot the jumpers. I would also like to see a combination of NASCAR and luge. How cool would it be to go 3 wide in a turn going 90mph? Bump drafting would take on a whole new meaning.
Time for this post to end. See you in Israel.