Writing from Cairo on Friday afternoon. I got to my flat last night and was able to wander the streets for awhile. Today was church in the morning, a good lunch out, and now a meal with the MCC'ers this afternoon.

Cairo reminds me of Phoenix, Arizona. At least what I remember of Phoenix from when I used to be there during Christmas time growing up. Dry with desert plants, some grass but not much. Polution isn't too bad so far. I'm wearing my contacts today and that's working out alright even though I only got about 6 hours of sleep last night. But I was so tired that I even slept through prayer call! *laugh* I'll hear it at some point!

Well, I have a pepsi here to enjoy, ,so I should disconnect. Internet cafes are cheap here, so sometime when I have an hour free I'll go and spend my 80 cents to use one! *laugh*

Well, we've made it to Frankfurt! All is well, except that some of the keys are in odd places on the keyboard! The y key is down by my left pinky and I keep messing up!

But thanks to the free Internet kiosks offered by Samsung, I'm able to write this.

It's 9am local time here and I'm not sure what time it feels like to me. Saw the Banger Sisters movie on the plane and slept a little bit. Now here until our 10:30am flight. To get out here to the kiosks, we had to go through Passport Control, so I now have a Germany stamp in my passport!

Not much else to report, really. Things are going well for now and it's just another 4 hours on the plane. Well, maybe. On the way here, there was a tailwind, so we cut nearly an hour off our flight time!

People are waiting to use the computer, so I probably should go now...

More in a few dazs.

And away we go...

Time for lunch and taking some bags over, then leaving at 1pm.

Until later....

-J

More pictures!

These are all that I took while in Akron, PA for Mennonite Central Committee orientation:

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290717627

Username: jpics
Password: easy

Alrighty...

I've scrapped using Yahoo for my pictures and I've gone back to Imagestation. You need to sign-in to see the pictures, but I've created a generic account that all of you should be able to use:

Username: jpics
Password: easy

So here are pictures from Rob's birthday party in January: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290721577

and from Halloween at Rob and Beth's: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4291151571

of New Year's with the Covel Family: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290720963

finally, of my good friend Andy, his wife Carrie, and their little boy Owen: http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290720987

Please let me know if you were able to get into the album and view the pics ok. I tried to test things to make sure, so it should be fine.

Free, free, free!!!! At least soon. It's just after lunch and we only have a couple of formal sessions left for this afternoon. Dinner is the last "planned event", then it's all packing, chatting, phone calls, laundry etc. for the evening.

My roommate leaves early Wed. morning, so I might get up then and make it a long day so that I can sleep on the plane.

UPDATE: I will not be having the month-long teaching course when I first get to Egypt. Not sure what I'll be doing, but we'll figure it out!

I'm leaving at 6pm on Wednesday. I had been procrastinating on checking, but I finally did.

Not sure what I'll be up to on Wednesday, as most people will be gone by that point. Maybe movies and web stuff during the day! We leave Philadelphia at 6pm, but with getting there a couple of hours early and around 2 hours travel time, it'll be early afternoon when we start out.

At 8am Thursday, I'll be in Frankfurt and then a 2 hour layover, then to Cairo about 3:30. If I can stay up through the evening, I'll have a good start on getting over the jetlag.

After the talent show, I said goodbye to the grandparents in our group, Nick and June. Such wonderful people! Tuesday will seem odd without having them here. I took more pictures and maybe Wednesday I'll post them!

Well, I was going to point you to some of my other pictures in my Yahoo briefcase, but it seems that you now have to pay them if you want people to be able to access those files. *grumble*

Any suggestions for good free places to upload pics and have them publically available?

So we had our talent show tonight. I decided to write a little something...

It's a game too -- name that tune!

Just sit right there and you'll hear these words,
Details of this small group
Beginning lives all ‘round the world
Now in this tiny town
Their leader she sure smiles a lot
The prez he knows all names
This motley crew is leaving soon for many things unknown
Many things unknown

The weather started getting cold
Like showers in the morn
If not for the heating in the flooring tiles
Their footsies would be cold
Their footsies would be cold

The group’s now set to leave this place
With new friends in mind
For Bangladesh, Rwanda too
Kentucky, and Brazil
To Egypt, Bolivia and Vietnam
And other places new

--it's the Gilligan's Island Theme Song-- *laugh*