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Thursday
Apr162009

Reflections on Egypt, travel and all

Home from Egypt and mostly over jet lag. Tonight, my third night home, I hope to stay awake all the way to 9PM - my regular bed time and then sleep until 5:30AM. Maybe.

Still catching up at work and at home. But a few scattered observations...

  • My upgrade streak held up pretty well. I was upgraded to first from Minneapolis to Amsterdam, got into the business lounge at Schipol, and was upgraded from Amsterdam to Cairo. On boarding the cruise ship in Luxor, we found out that our regular cabin wasn't yet ready and were talked into taking one of the two suites instead. Tough decision. I was upgraded on the way home from Cairo to Amsterdam but gave the LWW the seat. Then my luck ran out. I couldn't talk both the LWW and me into the business lounge in Amsterdam and there were no upgrades to Minneapolis. But it was a good run while it lasted.
  • My second workshop at the conference wound up being changed. Even though both the NESA folks and I brought routers, we found that the conference rooms didn't have wired ethernet ports - only wireless. Oh, and the hotel was charging, get this, $65 a day for conference goer for wireless access. So we switched to a different workshop. The conference was really fun. Something about working with international teachers I really like. It must be their toughness and love of diversity and adversity.
  • When I work with international audiences I always worry that I am too America-centric. That was particularly true with my keynote about the Net Generation - most of the research is on American kids. But I did find an interesting news story. It seems that one of the biggest strike organizations in Egypt has about 66,000 members - and it was all organized by young people - using FaceBook. Really, really.

  • I really want to love Egypt, but I still find it a tough country in which to travel. The ubiquitous requests for "baksheesh" (small tips for any service), the abysmal traffic, the constant dust, and in-your-face souvenir touts gets really wearing after a short time. Lining the exits of most tourist attractions are lines of trinket shops and just walking by them is like running the gauntlet.
    • No pressure. mister.
    • No charge for looking.
    • You remember me?
    • Buy something nice for your daughter. (I guess flattering to the LWW, but insulting to me.)
    • You name the price!
    • I pay you to look.
    • Everything free.
    • And the ever popular -  standing right in your path, thrusting the t-shirt, gallabaya, scarf, whatever at you. A polite word or two of Arabic (la shukran - no thanks), worked the best at turning these tireless salesmen away
  • Even a few words of Arabic show that you are not a completely naive tourist. Learn some before you go. One of the great Arabic words is "inshallah." Translation: "If God wills it." It's a great way to say "no" without being rude. "Will you come back to my shop?" Reply - "Inshallah."
  • After many long years, people in other countries again smile when you say you are from America. "Obama, number one!" Yup. And I hope he lives up to the hype - for all the world's sake.
  • Lane markings on highways are a waste of paint in the Middle East. As one tour guide described it: "In America you have freedom of speech; in Egypt we have freedom of streets." Cairo is a city that should hold two million people, actually contains 20 million, and hosts 2 million cars. Rush hour is 24/7.
  • Even after weeding out the duplicates and fuzzies, I still have over 300 photos from this trip. Picture of a felucca anyone?
  • Yes, even after 20 years, the Pyramids, Karnak, and Abu Simbel are all still standing, and much as I remembered them. The main changes seem to be in tourist infrastructure - nicer walkways, flooring, lighting, security, and booths for the souvenir dudes. OK, I suppose, but it felt at lot more Disney and a less Indiana Jones.
  • I'd recommend Sonesta Cruises. Ours was top notch (and I am not just saying that because of the room upgrade.) Excellent service, good food, great side trips and guides ... all well done. Not the cheapest cruise line going, but hey, how many times does one go to Egypt? The LWW was pleased.

 

  • While on the cruise, I read Geoff Ryman's fascinating book The King's Last Song - alternating contemporary and historical fiction set in Cambodia (my next trip.) A little cognitive dissonance is good for the soul. I finished it before the end of the cruise, but picked up a collection of Nobel prize winning Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz's short stories at a book store. He is an acquired taste, I guess.
  • While Jeff Utecht at the Thinking Stick is celebrating the "Culture of Availability," I was just thinking how nice being away from e-mail and RSS feeds and blogging and such was for a week. Hurray for the "Culture of Unavailability." Yes, there was (slow) Internet on the boat, but I used it only once. When I got home, I simply clicked on "Mark all as read" in GoogleReader. And felt OK about it. But go, Jeff, go.

Happy to have gone. Happy to be home. Back to thinking about libraries and schools and serious matters soon... Egypt is an amazing place and everyone should go - once anyway.

The problem with a broad brimmed hat is that you have to flip up the front when you take a picture and you often forget to flip it back down thus creating a lovely "gomer" look.

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Reader Comments (8)

Doug, I completely understand your enjoyment of being somewhat out of touch. It was interesting to read Jeff Utecht articulate the expectations for the Culture of Availability. This non-stop reachability is precisely why I refuse to buy a cell phone. As a school teacher, it is overwhelming to me to think of having a cell phone so that a parent or student or administrator can always reach me. It would make me feel like a nurse on call. I need some downtime. I think the ubiquitousness of all this mindblowing technology is that it makes the pace of daily living feel so breathless. There is never not something to do, some new stimulus to respond to. Never mind actually thinking about the stimulus first, the premium often is placed on how quickly you can respond, not on how much you have thought about it. Not having a cell phone, not being so accessible, gives me time to reflect and be with my husband, to read, to pet my cat, to go lie down outside in the spring sunshine. The only downside, and I will admit it is significant, is that I feel left out of some of my friends' loops. They communicate so much with others through Facebook, cell phone, etc. that they don't contact me as much. I am not in their IM world, their cell phone list. When we talk we have a great time, but the infrastructure is not in place for us to automatically contact each other. I think this is because we tend to call or contact people more and more in this country when there is a little downtime, driving, sitting in the airport, etc. Time is not blocked out as much anymore for just talking. That would be too seen perhaps as "time-consuming," too single-tasking, too, dare I say, time-wasting and inefficient? Has all this mobile technology and social networking made old-fashioned phone calls seem too..., well, inefficient? Since when was it a good idea for friendship to hinge on efficiency? Something has gone a little haywire I think.

April 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterHeather S

Thanks for the link to the three minute TED video on the Culture of Availability...I share; therefore I am...Let's make technologies which make people more human, not less. Something like this blog. Great to read about your experiences after a rejuvenating rest.

April 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterPaul C.

Glad to have you back safely, Gomer.

April 17, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterteacherninja

Great post & pics, Doug. I wonder if your encounter in Egypt with the lack of technology and connectedness is such a bad thing. We have become addicted to our RSS's and have become our own aggregators! The monuments behind you stood the test of time, but our tech trinkets are nearly obsolete within 6 months. They left behind monuments and cave paintings. What will happen to our blogs? But then, like you, I would be glad to be back home so I could start tweeting again.

April 17, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterBob L.

Okay I've finally had my Blue Skunk fix. That was such a LONG break form the blog! I was beginning to exhibit feelings of withdrawal, breaking from my reader once to physically visit the Blue Skunk page, just to make sure my reader wasn't broken. (When I used to use Bloglines, it did quit updating some blogs for no apparent reason...) It was nice to see a thorough summary of the break and its festivities, and I'm glad you and LWW had a good time. But I am quite bugged that you would mark all as read! While I confess I have done this before, I usually skim the school LMS blogs before clearing my reader, which by the way is where the Blue Skunk resides. I read them and then my local flavor (SC colleagues) blogs before clearing the reader entirely. It hurts to know I have been casually disregarded. I'm reeling from the knowledge, and so hope to encourage you to go back and at least visit my blog to see what has been missed. : )

Just kidding. Im glad you had a really good time. Generally if it was important enough to be in the reader in the first place, it will come back again, so eventually you'll catch up. But still, i suddenly feel so...unimportant. Welcome home, Rest up for your next international extravaganza.

Hi Heather,

Go ahead and get a cell phone. The trick is to give no one your number. Only use it to harass others!

Thanks for your thoughtful comments,

Doug

Thanks, Paul. My little travel quips don't hold a candle to your thoughtful expositions at quoteflections, however.

Doug

Hi Ninja,

Hat jealousy is unbecoming!

But thanks,

Doug

Hi Bob,

I am sensing more and more people yearning for "less" connectedness rather than more. Have we reached the point where we will carve out times of silence and reflection as we have worked for connectivity?

Doug

HI Cathy,

Well, it's nice to be back. I do feel a bit odd about marking all as read. But know you are in some very good company when I whacked a week's worth of reading.

All the best,

Doug

April 19, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDoug Johnson

welcome back and i would say you might see Egypt a different way when staying abit longer so you get to know more about people who live just away from these tourists' spotting areas

October 10, 2009 | Unregistered Commenterasamie

Shukran, Ahmed.

I agree that one cannot learn much about any country only as a tourist. One needs to stay for a longer period of time and make friends. When I retire, my hope is to be able to spend a few months in a different country each year when the state of Minnesota is wrapped in freezing temperatures. I'd love to spend a few months in Aswan! (Cairo is too big for my tastes!)

Thanks again for commenting and all the best,

Doug

October 11, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterDoug Johnson

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