Purchasing A Car, Flying With An Infant And Carseat, And Where Is The Egyptian Common Sense People?

Lately I’ve been super mentally stressed, so I’ve kinda been dreading sitting down to write a post on my blog. The process of going through all these negative emotions have been a little scary! When you feel like your brain already is about to explode with emotions… But I decided to put my big girl panties on and write a post! Sometimes it’s actually a bit therapeutic for me… Instead of punching some idiot in the face and knocking all his teeth out, I go home and write about it… Hahaha, yeah I know I would feel much better punching the person but in the long run it might not be such a good idea… I mean i will probably be in this country for a while which means getting arrested might jeopardise that…

So I thought I would summarize a few of the insane/crazy recent events that have happened…

We recently got a new car! Hooray, but yeah it was a huuuge battle… As I mentioned in a previous post we’ve spent the last two years trying to get a new car… The amount of problems and issues we had made me want to double-check if maybe we didn’t order a Lamborghini instead of a normal car! But anyways we ended up at Audi, waiting for our car… We ordered it last summer around August. We were told it would be four-month delivery, because we wanted a white car with beige leather seats… and this is not ‘normal Egyptian’ colours so they would have to make a special order and ship the car over when it was finished! No problem, we would wait… Four months pass and still no car… Lets just get one thing straight that NOT ONE SINGLE TIME did Audi EVER call us to update us on where the car was.. We called each time, which is also known as customer service Egyptian style… You want something, You have to beg for it, even if you are paying for it… SO we called and all this bla bla bla bla came out of the sales womans mouth… She claimed that the car had been sent and was on the boat on its way to Egypt… Okey so when will it be here… Oh I can’t tell you this, maybe a few weeks!? Okey lets recap here…YOU said it was on the boat… Now at school we learnt that you could calculate estimates according to distance and speed of an object travelling… I assume this boat is travelling and not docked somewhere, and this ship will probably have an itinerary, I mean the ship is not going to float freely in the wide oceans to see where life takes it!? Anyways a few weeks passed and she told us that at the end of March it should be here… End of March arrives and we still have no car… So my husband goes to Audi.. He is shown the email stating that the car is on the ship.. YOU know the ship that will get here when it gets here… SO she still couldn’t answer when exactly… THEN the car arrives in Alexandria… Okey so how long before we can drive the car… Ummm im not sure, about a week… WAIT, we are talking about Alexandria that is in the North of Egypt, THREE hours away right? I’m thinking I WALK to go get the car and drive it back myself if its going to take a week to get it to Cairo.. Are they going to stop at every petrol station along the way for a cup of tea? So two weeks later the car arrives from the other side of the world, also know as Alexandria… So now we have our car in the same city… Buuut this is Egypt, it’s not as easy as one, two, three… I mean you’ve only been waiting for nearly 7 months for a car you ordered.. Lets take it easy and not rush here! So Audi calls and the car is here, buuut the car is now 10000 LE more expensive, because the exchange rate of the dollar is up…. Yepp, people Im being completely serious… We ordered and bought a car last August and was told a price in dollars.. Now this price of the car is more because of the exchange rate and they are MISSING money… That is some amazing timing… Why don’t you just wait to give us the car when the dollar is worth nothing… We have been waiting like little angels not complaining that its taking 4 months longer than expected and then you slap us in the face with some weird exchange thing… SO of course we had to pay… Then my husband goes to check out the car… The woman goes to show my husband the features and realises that the car in front of her is a newer model than what was supposed to have been ordered and has several options we didn’t order such as camera and parking sensors… She checks her papers and realises that they made the WRONG order… YEPP, and the idiot award goes to Audi… They had ordered the full option version of the car we wanted… The car was white with beige leather seats BUT had options for over 50000 LE that we had not budgeted for… So now the dilemma is we have a car that we had waited nearly 7 months for, in the correct colours, BUT with all these options we had not ordered… No more cars are being ordered due to the problems with dollars in the Egyptian market, so that car was on the last shipment to Egypt… So what is the solution? I mean it’s not our fault that they made a huge mistake and couldn’t fill out the order form correctly… this is their ONLY job and they can’t even do it correctly! HOW do you order a car with options for over 50000 LE when this is not what the customer orders… Now Audi had an amazing solution to the problem… Okey so we made a huge mistake by ordering the wrong edition of the car, but its in the colours that YOU want, so lets say you just pay the 50000 LE extra and we will give you the car… OH WOW, that is soooo freaking generous of you Audi! YOU make us wait for 4 months to order a car, then it is another 3 months late, then we have to pay 10000 LE extra due to dollar exchange rate and now you want us to JUST pay 50000 LE more and we can HAVE the car, even though the mistake was YOURS! Dealer of the year obviously does not go to Audi…After a lot of back and forth we ended up getting the car… BUT it did take another two weeks to get all the stamps and paper work done before we could drive it… We now have a car that I want to hug and kiss every time I see it because I just can’t believe it really is here, with us… I mean it nearly took longer to order this car than to conceive, grow a baby and then give birth!

On a happier note I just thought I would leave you with two of the highlights from my last trip to Norway. Like usual I had a ticket with a stamp for a free upgrade, and I had a ticket for my son. His ticket was infant and is therefore supposed to sit on my lap. Now im checking in and the guy at the check-in counter says you have to pay for an upgrade! SHOCK AND HORROR! I go through the exact same procedure every SINGLE FREAKING TIME… I’m like a broken record: No I don’t have to pay as it states on the stamp, it is free if there is a seat available…. Oh okey, sorry I see that now?!?! I have no idea what he couldn’t see before, or maybe it was my super pissed-off face that scared him into suddenly seeing and understanding the stamp?! Who knows but he said no problem, he would upgrade me… Oh I’m sorry but you have to pay for an upgrade for your son… WOW, WOW, you NEVER bore me with your CRAZY comments and ideas to making extra money EGYPTAIR! Now I honestly don’t know what you want me to say to this.. I have my 6 month old son, who is supposed to sit on my LAP, and you just stated that my ticket will be upgraded, which means he will sit on my lap in business… NOPE, sorry but your son has an economy ticket… OKEY… My son doesn’t have a seat, he has MY FREAKING LAP…. YOU UNDERSTAND, MY LEGS… He will sit on MY LEGS, not a seat, and when MY LEGS are in business class, he will also be in business class, ON MY LAP! No, your son has an economy ticket and you have to pay to upgrade it… BUT my son will not sit on a business class seat, nor will he eat food… He will just be looking at the business class seats and breathing the business class air, do I have to pay 100 Dollars for this? He calls over the manager on duty and explains the problem… The manager (who upgraded me last time, two weeks before, without any problems, WITH MY SON) claims that my son will be seated in economy if I don’t upgrade his ticket aswell… Whose lap will MY SON be sitting on in economy then? Can I choose anyone I want or will you place him where you want? I mean my head was about to FREAKING explode… It’s ABSOLUTELY impossible for me to wrap my head around the fact that I can be upgraded but then have to pay 100 Dollars for my son to be able to sit on my lap and not someone elses lap in economy.. COMMON SENSE PEOPLE, WHERE HAS IT GONE?? UGH I was so frustrated I didn’t even want to slap him in the face incase I would get catch his extreme stupidity disease.. I just left and my husband called the captain of the aircraft who met me at the door and seated BOTH ME and MY SON in business…

Dont worry the frustration doesn’t end there! I always travel with the car seat. I got one that is airline approved… So like it says in the manual I placed the car seat rear-facing on the chair next to the window and secured it with the seat belt and secured my son with his seatbelt inside the chair. The flight attendant comes and says I cannot use the car seat in this aircraft… It is only for cars… I informed her that this car seat is airline approved… So she then said okey but you cannot have it on the chair during take-off and landing… EXCUSE me the reason I bring this chair is because I NEVER get a seatbelt for my son when flying with Egyptair… They actually don’t have seatbelts for children available onboard… So I bring my car seat to make sure he is safely fastened during the whole flight… I don’t want to hold him during turbulence, I will not be held responsible for holding my son tightly enough during any emergency… I am a mother, NOT a seatbelt… Anyways I explained that its safer for me to secure him in this chair than holding him with my hands… Anyone with common sense would understand that! She said: okey but you cannot have it rear-facing, you must turn it around…. She turned the car seat around and tried to fasten the seatbelt from the chair on it.. It obviously didn’t work because that it not how you fasten it… The car seat has a specific place for the seatbelt to fit, and it is not designed to be forward-facing… So she said one moment… She left and the head of the flight attendants came over. She said: you cannot have this car seat on the chair while take-off and landing, so you must hold your son and then when we are airborne you may put him in it… Awww thank you that’s very nice of you, you have completely misunderstood the reason I have the car seat with me… It’s for safety reasons DURING TAKE-OFF and LANDING.. Not because I want somewhere to put him during the flight so I can play candy crush?! I mean the flight attendants are there for your safety, THE PASSENGERS… So they are telling me I can’t use the airline approved car seat and instead I have to be a HUMAN SEATBELT for my son… I honestly didn’t know what to say… She took my son out of the car seat and handed him to me, told me to hold him and put the car seat on the floor in front of the chair beside me… I don’t know whether to be angry or feel sorry for them, that these flight attendants don’t understand how important safety of the passengers is… And they are basically there to make sure everyone follows the safety rules, but yet THEY don’t follow the rules… HOW am I a better seatbelt for my son that a car seat? Common sense again, lost, gone out the window, to never return…

UGH I now have a massive headache, and actually don’t feel better… So here are a few pics from a recent trip to Ain Soukhna and some pics of the little one.

Follow me on Snapchat for more pics: femieshecairo