Today was the best day of my year so far, which is impressive considering how phenomenal and frenzied 2008 has been... The exact details of why this was the best day of my year are not ripe enough to expose, but let's just say that on the taksi ride back from wast-elbalad, where I had spent an evening of good conversation with 3 of my LE volunteers at el-Horreyya, the driver played several BobMarley songs that captured my soul precisely.

To return where prior posts left off... After my misadventures in Menia and a couple weeks in Cairo, I ventured to the southSinai for week of... rejuvenation?

[ sharm ]

The nostalgia of sharm was a bit sharper than than the nostalgia of Cairo, but luckily I was distracted by a good friend and great diving. Hands down the highlight of Sharm was swimming with two playful mantaRays and an absolutely fantastic (read: my first) whaleShark with Eloise, Hadaba's resident cat-lover.

[ dahab ]

Dahab was, like Nice, another mini-vacation in solitude. I had never felt quite so alone and simultaneously so OK with it. I spent my first afternoon in Dahab snorkling at the Lagoon and somewhere between seeing familiar fishy faces and growing exhausted in the afternoon heat, I fell into a quiet stupor that lasted nearly my entire visit. Since arriving to Dahab the aforementioned 'unpacking' feeling has only grown more intense and more exhilarating. I actually feel like I am healing and repairing for the first time. Forgive this terribly mawkish metaphor, but I feel like my soul is a garden and these past few weeks I have completely uprooted it and slowly started to re-arrange the save-able seeds and bulbs and remove the necessary weeds or unsalvageable stems... I didn't even know I had so much tangled up inside me... I feel tremendously strong, balanced and like I don't have any loose ends left to tie up. It feels good to know what I want and that I am slowly (ok, snail-paced-ly) moving towards it.

The Dahab highlight: The 31 minutes between exiting the Chimney at Bells and crossing over the saddle into the Blue Hole. This is apparently where my soul feels the most alive.

An Autobiographical Soundtrack

[ Morning ] Gotta Get Up – Nilsson
[ Noon ] Come Around – M.I.A featuring Timbaland
[ Night ] Burning Man – Third Eye Blind

[ DC ] Malegria – Manu Chao
[ Cairo ] Crazy – Gnarls Barkley
[Milano] Thirty-Three – Smashing Pumpkins

[ On Love ] Ghost of York – Tall as Lions
[ On Betrayal ] Skeleton Key - Margot and the Nuclear So-So's
[ On Disappointment ] Paperbag – Fiona Apple
[ On Heartbreak ] The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice
[ On Regret ] In God’s Hands – Nelly Furtado
[On Happiness ] Sunshowers – M.I.A.
[ On Fun ] F.C. Internazionale Theme
[ On Hope ] Never Ending Song of Love – Delaney & Bonnie

[ The Only Advice I Can Offer ] Fast As You Can – Fiona Apple
[ The Part of Me that Will Never Change ] The Future Freaks Me Out – Motion City Soundtrack
[ On Work Ethic ] Sympathique – Pink Martini
[ Modus Operandi ] Paper Planes – M.I.A.

[ All My Emotions in 4 Minutes and 54 Seconds ] Max-a-million – Marc Streitenfeld

I'm disgruntled that muxtape.com won't let me compile a version of this because they are all mp4s, hence the links to youtube.com instead.

Since Nice, I’ve popped back thru Milan and now find myself in Egypt.

[ cairo ]

Returning to Cairo is a sensational bombardment. The taksi ride from the airport alone made memories of the full-fabulous-crazy-chaotic-surreal-serene year I spent here flood my mind: Certain streets, buildings, shops, even parking lots seemed to hold some nostalgic meaning as I drove passed them… It was overwhelming, almost depressing, but in a beautiful way. Taking the exit for Shari3 Mar’uf, however, I was confirmedly depressed by the inescapable sensation of elapsed time. No matter how similar the streets, it is undeniable that things – and I – have changed. As I laid in bed and heard the Adzan around 4a, it was also undeniable that I really love being here, quirks, occasional inconveniences and all.

My time in Cairo has been pretty low-key. It's absolutely fantastic to see Aly and Mohamed again. Refreshing to be staying with Edefe. Lots of excitement with the LE summer program, including my first trip to Menia and some cool connections with other Cairo-based NGOs (check out the Egypt Pilot Program Blog for more about Learning Enterprises).

(Above) With i ragazzi at Mu2attam Hills, in the midst of shouting Italian curse words and making wishes on rocks being tossed off the cliff. Meeting in Menia with Samia and Yvette, on an fantastic little house boat that practically functions as their third office. Edefe, having recently finished her MA dissertation, over Italian food at the Semiramsis.

[ menia ]

I think Menia might be Egypt’s best kept secret. The Cornish there is easily the most beautiful in the country. The people are particularly lovely. It’s like a cleaner downtown Cairo with less traffic. The one kink in my quick visit was that en route home, Farek, my odd but loyal driver’s car broke down. We sat in the Sahara in late-afternoon heat for hours, seizing the opportunity to unravel unnecessary details of our lives to one another and swap as many jokes and riddles as we know. About 2-and-half Sodoku puzzles into the Desert Adventure from Hell, the kindest man in the world (who, by the way, was wearing the sexiest galabayya I’ve seen) gave me a frozen Pepsi bottle of water and I am since that moment SURE that good men DO exist and they might all be Egyptian. A few more Soduku puzzles later we finally caught a lift back to Cairo, hilariously being tugged behind a flatbed truck by a rope which broke and needed to be re-tied approximately every 40 minutes. About 9 hours later, we were deliriously happy, shouting praises to God, to see the the silhouettes of the Pyramids at Giza in the distance: Al-Haram, alhamdulila, Al-Haram!!

Ok. I’ve had several requests to update my blog more frequently. I’m not sure how I feel about blogging at all at the moment, but nevertheless I’ll try to send something interesting out into the internet void for my readers (a.k.a.: My dad, brothers, and maybe jennPan and bMurray.)

It’s somehow June. Life since March, minus the beautiful birth of my first and fabulous niece, seems like an opaque haze with only fleeting moments of feeling alive. Nevertheless, these past few weeks have left me feeling like a weary but contented traveler unpacking and organizing baggage after a long and winding trip. Where to begin?

[ milano ]

For the first time, in my entire life, my little Treo360 jingled and reminded me that I was expected to be returning, as promised, to someone or somewhere and I was actually doing it. This alone felt fantastic. The familiarity of Malpensa, as familiarity with any other airport, brought me an interesting mix of travel-addicted comfort, slight depression, and beautiful nostalgia. My time in Milan can be summed up in three probably exaggerated and subjective statements:

1. Italian has forged ahead of Arabic as the world’s most beautiful language. Che lingua bellisima!
2. FC INTER is the world’s most fantastic football team. Bravo Inter, winners of this year Scudetto. Siamo noi i championi dell’Italia…
3. My short life experience has led me to believe that the worst of men might be Italian, Catholic, or simply named Alessandro Bellati.

[ nice ]

I escaped to Southern France for an extremely brief time. Despite the short, short, short duration of the visit, it was a most relaxing little adventure. When my dad travels to new places he seems to measure their worth by his ability to live there. For example, the clean streets and efficient street cars in combination with beautiful terrain and his highschool Spanish, lead him to remark, ‘yea, we could live here’ of Tenerife , Isole Canaria confirming that he likes this place. I certainly felt like my father’s daughter upon whisphering to myself, “Oh yea, I could do this place. I could do this place for a while. Maybe forever.” Nice is, without competition, the most lovely city I have ever visited. I was a bit nervous upon arrival having not booked a hotel only to find limited availability due to the Grand Prix in neighborly Monte Carlo the same week, but I wound up staying in this fresh, funky hotel on Via Durante: 30 Euro got me an impressively comfortable king-sized bed, two balconies, bright orange walls, and the sound of the waves in the distance. I was momentarily in bliss.

The only flaw of Nice is the prevalence of loud American accents at cafes. I remember one particularly obnoxious man visiting his daughter studying abroad who inadvertently informed everyone in the café of his preference for wheat baguettes, feelings towards this year’s election and own study abroad experience in Spain. Boisterous tourists aside, the people of Nice are warm and inviting and completely break the Parisian stereotype of French people being arrogant assholes and the Provencial stereotype of French people being incomprehensible oddities. The beach is marvelous.