About My Blog

I Spent six weeks in Egypt before spending a year in Germany. This blog covers the best summer of my life. If you are looking for my posts while I was in Germany ask me, and I'll be happy to share them but I have been asked not to share them publicly. Feel free to visit my brothers blog of his year in Germany or my new blog


Sunday, June 27, 2010

When I think back to my trip to South Korea last year I don't can't
remember what was so amazing. It was a great trip and the greatest
experience of my life but I can't remember why I was so thrilled.
Compared to the United States, South Korea could have been it's twin
(except the food of course) but now this is a different planet. I can
completely see why there is so much misunderstanding between the
United States and the Middle East, nothing is remotely similar.
Nothing remotely similar to Egypt can be found in the United States.
I fully enjoy and welcome these differences and I look forward to
adapting and becoming accustomed with the oddities that surround me.
I think a good place to start is the roads, I was in New York last
week and everyone there drives like a maniac but those people look
pedestrian compared to the gods of the road cleverly disguised as
Egyptians. Cars swerve and weave through traffic so as to accomodate
4 cars side by side by side by side in an already narrow 2 lane road.
It's like NASCAR meets bumper cars meets highschool track. While the
drivers are ridiculous it is also impressive to see the cars being
driven, I don't think anywhere but here there could be a brand new BMV
bumper to bumper with a knockoff d-car.

Aside from the brown, red, and sand colored scenery there are patches
of green lawns which look groomed as if for home and garden. I hav
never been to Los Angeles but I assume that this must be what it looks
like, the green grass seems just as out of place as we do. To
reinforce how much we don't fit in we get looks from everyone standing
on the street despite being in a semi-discreet bus. Guards,
policeman, or soldiers stand on the streets just like normal citizens
with one defining characteristic which sets them apart, their
automatic rifles hanging from their necks. I don't get unnerved
easily but I must say that I hope I never find out why they all must
have automatic rifles. In the US standard police weaponry is a
pistol, here it's an AK-47.

I don't want to be judgemental because al I have seen was what has
occured betwen the airport and our residence, but even as I sit here
and type I hear through megaphones what I'm sure terrifies many
American tourists, prayer (I'm assuming that is what is going on
anyway). And while that is so unlike anything in the United States it
is in a way peaceful and calming.

1 comment:

Heidi said...

Sounds like this is going to be an experience you had not imagined before. Hope you won't have to get in contact with any of those rifle-toting policemen!