Tada! Last night we touched down in Cairo, Egypt. It was an interesting flight over here. We left at about 3:30pm and spent like three hours in the air. Going from Budapest, Hungary to Cairo, Egypt can be compared to jumping from Ruslan's Closet to the girl's room upstairs. Everyone in Budapest has this heavy spirit of oppression on them. They never smile, even when you smile at them, and don't really want to talk. Everything is hard: people, buildings, hard water, transportation, choking air, and cold weather. There is a lot of room for God to soften Budapest, and a lot of work to be done. I'll tell you about the difference in Egypt in a second.
I noticed the difference in Egyptians back in Budapest. We flew Egyptair. The rules were you couldn't bring more than 20kg of luggage. Me and Ruseball (we got tongue-tied one time while trying to say Ruslan's fooseball table, and came up with the name "Ruseball". It stuck, poor guy) didn't have any trouble staying under that limit.....the 7 girls traveling with us on the other hand.....completely different story. Some weighed over 26kg, which is about 13 pounds of clothes over the limit. You know how many clothes it takes to get 13 pounds? I dont know if I even own that many clothes. (Note to self: buy more clothes). They are supposed to charge you 2,600ft, which is about $12 for every kg over the limit you are. They just smiled and didn't charge us anything. Completely surprised me.
We sat there in the terminal and watched as a snowstorm hit Budapest. It was like a blizzard, more snow than I have ever seen fall. Budapest got blanketed while we were leaving. Perfect timing, we got to watch the snow through the glass walls, but never had to walk through it. YAY! We were welcomed onto the plane by about 37 different people, whose only job was to say, "Welcome" apparently.
We were seated in the same area, and I was seated by myself. WOOHOO. I had a window seat with two empty seats on my left. Praise the Lord. We had to wait a little bit while the airline people took this big machine and sprayed all the ice off the wings. A few of the girls didn't particularly like my comments about them spraying gasoline on the outside of the plane to melt the ice. I thought it was funny though. After about five minutes of me explaining to them about how we were probably going to die in the plane because of the blizzard, we climbed towards the clouds and I watched the last of Budapest sink away while I listened to Benny and the Jets on my iPod. I couldn't help but notice how dark, and almost dead Budapest looked. It was dusk, almost dark, and there were very few lights on outside the city, tons and tons of cube communist buildings with no lights on. The clouds eventually blanketed my view of the city and I watched the sun set into the bed of clouds. I got the better side of the plane. It wasn't long before the girls realized they could move into the empty seats next to me, and in about 5 min Steph was sprawled out on the two seats next to me. I love the many roles I play in this team, especially "Nick the Airplane Pillow".
A few hours later we begin our descent into Cairo. Pitch black outside with no clouds. The city was breathtaking. The moon had taken the place of the sun, and I saw something I had never seen before. I kept catching a glimpse of something really bright and rather large in the city below me every once in a while. I couldn't figure out what it was. It just looked like big flashes of bright light, brighter than any of the street lights or cars. It was keeping up with the plane also. I finally realized what it was as it passed over the Nile. The reflection of the moon....I had seen it on lakes and such, but never from that far up. It was so large in the reflection!! It was bigger than a whole city block. The little flashes I kept seeing were reflections of the moon as it passed over flat buildings and water. Breathtaking.
After we touched down and got off the plane we all boarded this little shuttle on the runway, which took us, literally, about 30 yards to the building. lol. Then again, more and more Egyptians just standing there with smiles on their faces, welcoming us to Egypt. They people here seem pretty friendly. Completely different than Budapest.
Hmm...ya know...its nice and warm here and sunny and everyone is outside and im not, so Im gonna go do some things and write more when everyone is in bed tonight.
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