Spring Break in the Hospital?

No joke, I'm in the hospital right now. Somewhere in Chicago. I won't get more specific because I'm not sure how legit this is, but basically an old friend is on call tonight and rather than send me back to her heatless apartment alone she suggested I stay in the student dorm room with her. So here I sit, dressed in scrubs to "blend in" hanging out while she's off responding to a Code Yellow page in the emergency room.

Sorry if that's not very exciting, but that's sorta what my spring break has been like this year. No beaches, no snowy mountains, no lazy mornings sleeping in. And if you know me, you know how much I love not waking up before noon. But don't get me wrong, I've been having a lot of fun. My Aunt in Minnesota drove down to Nashville for the week, so I flew to Chicago where she picked me up so we could make the journey together. Every five seconds she'd point out another hawk perched on a fence or tree next to the highway just waiting for a little field mouse to come out to play. I was also forced to consume multiple raspberry "concrete mixers" from Culver's, a more extensive fast food restaurant I had never heard of before, as well as several pounds of bacon, pork chops, and the best steaks ever once we arrived in Nashville. If my Aunt wasn't so against flying she'd cure world hunger using the combination of bacon and peer pressure alone.

Coming to Nashville is always a bit of a homecoming. Remarkably almost all of my high school friends are still in the area. Plus with amazing family friends that let my Aunt and me invade their house everytime we're there, it's starting to feel ironically a bit more like home now that we finally sold our home. Which has been torn down. People always apologize when I say that like there's been a death in the family. For us, it was a bit more like finally purging a bad disease. But like most of my recent trips to Nashville, this one still included logging the requisite hours sorting through boxes of old stuff. Starting at 7am. Did I mention my Aunt was a morning person?

Now I'm back in Chicago for the weekend before returning to Ann Arbor. Hopefully I'll finally get a few chances to sleep in. Assuming of course the pager doesn't go off...

DC in a Day

I woke up in my room, and I fell asleep that same night in my room. Just like any other day, right? Only difference was I spent the entire time in Washington, DC. If you’re a seasoned business traveler this won’t seem that exciting or strange to you. But this was the first time I’d ever taken an entire round trip flight in one day.

Do I recommend it? Nope. If airlines were reliably on time, and if the Detroit airport wasn’t a high risk for bad weather, then maybe it would be fine. But they aren’t and it is. I wanted a ticket that would give me plenty of buffer time before my 2pm interview. That meant waking up at 4am to arrive in DC by 8. Dressed in a suit (with an extra pair of panty hose), I felt naked going to the airport with just my purse.

Other than the fact that I was exhausted from only having four hours of sleep and my stomach was in knots from drinking too much coffee without enough food, I actually had a great morning. I was able to get some work done and catch up with an old friend from college who lent me his fancy leather portfolio. I still can’t bring myself to buy one. I fully admit that I wanted one for this interview, but all it does is say, “I’m willing to spend big bucks to make me look professional.” Since when was a leather portfolio the standard by which we judge somebody’s professionalism? Kind of like when people insist that fancy resume paper really makes a difference. If I were on a hiring committee, those applicants would have a straight track to the garbage can.

DC is an incredible city. The metro takes you to and from the airport in ten minutes. And there’s no long shuttle from the airport to the metro either, you cross the street and there it is. It really does make business travel a snap. And if I had more confidence that there’d be no delays, I easily could have arrived at noon and made it to the firm in plenty of time. And the firm, well it was incredible. But I don’t want to jinx things because I still haven’t heard back. With any luck though this summer I’ll be posting about a return trip.

Topeka, Twelve Years Later

"I haven't been to Kansas in twelve years," I remarked to the woman next to me on the plane as we landed.

"You're in Missouri," she smiled politely back.

Yes, I know Kansas City is in Missouri. But just because Topeka's airport stopped serving commercial airlines a while ago doesn't change the final destination of my trip. Markell met me at the airport, we picked up our rental car, and off we went.

On my desk rests a family photo we took from our last trip to Kansas. We're out standing by the duck ponds on a cold fall day, our dad in a jacket three times heavier than necessary because his little toes were always cold, our mother and her insanely large owl glasses, Markell in a shade of purple they stopped making during Prince's heyday, I'm rocking my favorite green suede jacket, and Pauline still looks like an imp. Which of course means its around 1996 give or take a fashion season or two, not like it would have changed anything for us anyways.

This time around, it was just me and Markell. She's now old enough to rent a car, and I'm finally taller than she is. Like many last minute trips, our reason fell on the sad side of the coin and not the happy. Let's just say it has not been a good year for uncles. But at the same time, our trip was long over due and I was very excited to finally see our aunt after a several year gap. We passed the time cracking jokes and sharing old family stories. Our Aunt had a stash of old family photos we dusted off from the basement and got good practice with the family tree. Ethel? No, Doris. Is that Joe's first wife? Nope, his sister Ida.

Deep in the pile was a letter from my father two weeks after I was born announcing my arrival to his sister, along with two photos of a red-faced baby not too keen on opening her eyes just yet. Jean reads it out loud, after pointing out that he had to correct the spelling of my name because he too thought it should be Francis. He describes me as a "quiet, placid, and serene baby--" at which point Markell bursts out laughing. "That's the first and last time you've ever been called that!" Thanks Markell. But Jean chuckles and says to let her finish the sentence, "--no doubt she is up to something."

And I suppose I still am.

We forget sometimes to call or write. We forget birthdays and anniversaries and other important dates. We forget to visit while we still can. And to top it all off, what finally gets us to buy the plane ticket is news that what we forgot to do can't be done anymore. Only then do we drop everything and remember.

Here's to remembering more often.

Lewis of Arabia

The beauty of siblings is that they write blogs you can steal from.

Pauline covered our trip to the White Desert pretty well in two posts. Check them out.

Lewis of Arabia (part 1)
http://paulinelucy.blogspot.com/2008/01/lewis-of-arabia-part-i.html

Lewis of Arabia (part 2)
http://paulinelucy.blogspot.com/2008/01/lewis-of-arabia-part-ii.html

She's even mastered the art of posting pictures!

I'm still getting there.

Happy New Year!

I liked 2007 a lot, but I'm willing to give 2008 a fair shot. At least I got to beat most of my friends to it, seeing as Cairo is seven hours ahead of the east coast at the moment. We spent it in Pauline's apartment with some friends and some wine, purchased of course from one of the few stores in Cairo that sells alcohol. Appropriately, it's named Drinkie's. They deliver.

I have also been rewarded for my sisterly looks. Pauline's neighborhood kiosk man did not charge us for the bottle of mango juice I had picked out. A gift for me, he said. Food seems to be regularly rained upon visitors as a welcome gesture. The downstairs neighbor fed us a dish called Fetah when we first arrived, consisting of ram, rice and tomato sauce. The ram, naturally, had been living in the courtyard up until Eid al-Kbir, the holiday commemorating Abraham's sacrifice. I'll let you put two and two together.

The food here is incredible. We ate at a delicious Lebanese restaurant on Markell's last night, a full feast of hummus, babaganoush, and grilled lamb and chicken skewers. I've had Koshri at least six times, a wonderful (and insanely cheap) form of fast food. Macaroni, lentils, rice, thin noodles, chickpeas, fried onions and tomato sauce all in a big bowl (that is called small when we order because the actual big bowl could cure world hunger). Followed by a tub of rice pudding and call me stuffed.

Only two more days and then on to Tel Aviv. I don't know if I'm ready for another round of school just yet, or the foot of snow that's waiting for me back at home, but I am looking forward to pedestrians having the right of way and air that isn't the equivalent of smoking twenty cigarettes a day. Call me crazy, but I like my lungs.

The Desert in December

It's been one week since I arrived in Tel Aviv, and at the same time it feels like so much more and so much less. Just yesterday I was studying for exams (shudder), but we've also managed to do so much here in just a short period of time.

Our first day of Cairo was one of rest. We slept in, then walked from Pauline's apartment to the Egyptian museum. The museum can best be described as a giant warehouse of ancient artifacts, unceremoniously placed without labels in tall glass display cabinets. Everything is so nifty, like all of the items found in Tutankhamen's tomb, but you have a hard time appreciating it because the museum doesn't elevate it on a pedastel in a room with a lot of velvet ropes and guided paths.

The next day we woke up early because Pauline put together a great package trip to the white desert. Now that was incredible. Just follow the link, I'll post pictures of us later. Truly like walking on the surface of the moon. No matter that our jeep lost the capacity to start on a sand dune, since there was another jeep that could pull us until the engine jumped. We climbed a black mountain and a crystal mountain before stopping for the night. There, our guides put together a great camp fire dinner and protective shelter so we could sleep under the stars. Unbelievable. And unbelievably cold. But after all, it is still December even in the desert.

And then, on to Alexandria. Just a short trip by train this time. Somewhat of a relief not to be in a car, where the drivers (bus ones included) feel the need to turn off their lights several times as other cars approach at night for no clear reason. The sea is beautiful, and the new library with its nifty interior architecture and spacious desks for reading makes you forget how crowded the streets are outside.

Overall things have been smooth as butter, thanks largely to Pauline's amazing Arabic. She's saved several other tourists from defeat, reinstilled some small faith in the world's view on Americans, and only publicly shamed three people for being inappropriate to us on the streets. Not bad.

Christmas in Palestine

It was supposed to be Christmas in Bethlehem, but since Bethlehem is in the West Bank it really is the same thing. We did make it to Bethlehem but opted not to stay for the outdoor service since it was very crowded and a little cold. We still got to wander around the church and stick my hand in another holy hole. The first time was at where Jesus's cross was supposedly situated. There was no attempt to stop cameras inside the churches, so all of this is well documented by Pauline.

We then went back to Jerusalem to pick up our stuff. Pauline had sweet-talked a hostel she had stayed at previously to let us leave our backpacks there for the day. "No bombs, right?" the owner joked. He had remembered her from before, and wouldn't even let us pay for this service. We had spent the day wandering through the old city, the East side, the West side, and sipping mint tea at the American Colony hotel. The markets are awesome, filled with delicious bread goods and pomegranates the size of your head.

Once we had our bags, we made the trek back through the check point into Ramallah and hopped on another taxi to Birzeit. We stayed at Pauline's friend's apartment, which was across the street from a small Latin Orthodox church. We went to their service at 8:30pm, sang some unfamiliar Christmas carols, and laughed every few seconds as a loud explosion would go off from the back of the church. All the neighborhood kids were lighting noise fireworks in the parking lot. It sounded a bit like the 1812 overture was accompanying the priest.

Christmas morning was just like usual. Since we didn't have presents for our host, we wrapped up some fun household items for him to unwrap in the morning. A tradition in our family. Our tree was a fake potted rose plant that we decorated with some gold bracelets and cut out stars. After breakfast, we stopped by Pauline's host family so they could meet me. I wowed them with my ten words of Arabic Pauline had taught me, and they explained how Pauline was Um Nasser's tenth daughter. Her picture is framed on the window sill. We ate incredible olive oil and I tried pigeon for the first time. We also were sent off with a five pound bag of almonds. The family was incredibly kind, and totally in love with Pauline.

Pauline and I make it to the bus station only to realize there are no tickets left on the last bus to Eilat. Thankfully the bus driver lets us ride anyways, though I lost my seat half way to someone who actually purchased their ticket. Nothing like sitting on the floor with an AK-47 a foot from your face. I suppose that's better than when its barrel was bumping my leg. We had stopped along the way to pick up some members of the IDF who stood in the aisle for part of the ride.

But in the end, we made it to Cairo with no problems, if not with some stiff legs. Markell made it safely, and now the three of us are going to hit the town.