Home sweet home… I’m back Cairo!! It feels so weird coming back after 3 months. Id love to say nothing has changed, buuuuut lets not fool each other. There is now a curfew, a state of emergency has been issued, the are mini-wars being fought all over Cairo, and the army are controlling the streets at night. Apart from that nothing has changed!
The last week I have been chilling in London with my fiancée and his dad. Id love to say we were just chilling, but everyone knows that a trip to London includes ALOT of shopping, ALOT of walking and ALOT of eating! So this is exactly what we did and a few trips to the doctor’s office. Two days before we were leaving the shit (Excuse my french) started. Egypt is at a breaking point. Everyone was panicking, flights to Egypt were cancelled, the army started controlling the streets, there was a state of emergency and all foreign people were being flown out of Egypt… Going back to Egypt suddenly sounded really scary… My parents were not okey with me going back to a country that was on a verge of a war… THE WEDDING, all I was thinking about, all that went through my head was the wedding… all the money we had spent on the sweets, dress, suit, decoration, shoes, crystals, wedding bouquet… The last 6 months had been spent planning for the most important day of our life. In about 5 minutes all these plans were just a bunch of useless energy spent on something that was ruined.
It just makes me so angry I can’t even think about it… so lets talk about something fun! Egypt… it’s the funniest country in the world! So we fly back from London at night and arrive in Cairo at 4am. The curfew is due to finish at 6am. My fiancée had arranged for VIP treatment upon arrival. Immediately after we land he calls the company to double-check that there is someone waiting for us.
Idiot from company: I’m sorry we don’t have a reservation by the name of Mr Bahaa.
My fiancée(Bahaa): I have a reservation and I have paid the full amount, and I have the receipt. Send someone to come and get us.
Idiot: We don’t have any reservation under this name. When did you order, and who did u speak to? You have the receipt with you?
Bahaa: Just send someone to pick us up and we will discuss this later. I have a receipt and have paid, if you have made a mistake that is not my problem.
As soon as you enter Egyptian air space they start throwing shit your way.. All you have to do is learn a way of ducking from the shit thrown your way!
A guy was stood there waiting for us silently, in a shitty mood. He took us to the VIP lounge… Culture shock deluxe. We had been in the VIP lounge at Heathrow airport before our flight to Cairo. There was a cinema, spa, bedrooms and a free bar, with a buffet table full of delicious food. The sofas were clean and super comfortable and there was chill out music. The VIP lounge in Cairo was a few dirty sofas in a large hall. Blue dentist lights in the ceiling, a few old cakes on the buffet table, and a smelly woman sat smoking like a chimney. The tv was on suuper loud with ambulance sirens, Egyptians screaming in pain and dead bodies full of blood. A little culture shock did enter my body!
The idiot from the company had written the wrong date in the reservation, so he had stood the day before waiting for us… He said this in a super pissed off way like, WE stood WAITING for YOU for hours and YOU didn’t arrive.. Well sir, it takes an idiot to notice we are here today and could therefore not be here yesterday!? DUH, no need to get pissed off at us for a mistake YOU did MR!!!
We sat in the VIP lounge and the idiot from the company took our passport and receipt from the luggage tags. The VIP service they offer is that they pick us up from the aircraft, drive us to the VIP lounge. Then we wait there while they get our visa, stamp our passport and collect our luggage. YES THAT IS CORRECT! ONLY one country in the whole entire universe where you can GIVE your passport to someone else and they get your visa and get it stamped by the police for you!?? Insane but veery nice… No waiting in passport queue and not having to flirt with the police officer ONLY for him to stamp your passport as he is supposed to do..
AAAAH welcome back to EGYPT.. As im writing this I just had to throw my computer on the floor and run a mile… I had a cockroach strolling around my feet! Luckily my fiance mother is used to them, so she killed it…
So back to the story… The VIP idiot finished stamping our passports and we went through the ‘CREW ONLY’ exit?!?! I fly planes in my spare time so I consider myself crew… Then we went through to get the car. The VIP idiot had picked up all our suitcases so now we were just sat outside the airport waiting for my fiance to get his car…
I was sat staring at the luggage trolley and thought we suddenly had a lot of ugly cheap suitcases.. I counted but it was the correct amount. I then counted my two suitcases.. I counted to ONE and then couldn’t find my black Samsonite… Instead there was a LARGE ugly suitcase with 32 kg of shit from a guy called Hassan who lived in Heliopolis. Now honestly if this was a Louis Vuitton suitcase full of handbags and shoes, I would not have a problem keeping it… BUT my suitcase was full of wedding stuff and my beautiful clothes… I do not need some old guys large saggy dirty underwear and some ugly mens pants… So I decided to tell the VIP idiot so we could make sure we got MY suitcase and returned the ugly suitcase back to Mr. Hassan from Heliopolis.
The VIP idiot took the suitcase without saying sorry, claiming we were the stupid ones because we had not said anything until we had basically left the airport. MR VIP idiot, if you were not such an idiot you would have seen that the luggage tag you had and the luggage tag on this bag is NOT the same. My name is Augustsson from Norway and I do not have a suitcase with the name of MR Hassan from Heliopolis…
Me and the VIP idiot then had to go back inside through the police check and back into the baggage claim area. There the VIP idiot walked around shouting MR Hassan, I have your luggage. This SUUUUUUPER angry guy came up to him, grabbed it out of his hands and walked off, giving him a shitty look. Then we picked up my suitcase that was all alone taking rounds on the luggage rollercoaster!
Then back through the police check, where the police checked my passport, lifted the suitcase and asked: Only clothes inside this suitcase? Ummm no sir, I do not have 33kg of clothes in my suitcase. I have clothes, sweets, shoes- OKEY okey have a nice time… And off I went with my bag filled with cocaine! MUahahaha!
We left the airport with the correct suitcases at a time of curfew… but after the thought of losing my suitcase and having nearly taken home Mr Hassan’s suitcase the military tanks in the street did not concern me… They were super nice, told us to turn around and take a side street to the apartment. That was it… Very few cars in the street, hardly any people walking around.. It was very weird seeing the streets of Cairo so quiet and peaceful..
So I guess this means welcome back to Cairo, where the shit don’t stop! But who doesnt love some funny shit?!
Femieshe 