Nigel Robertson | Painter | Draughtsman

For some reason I am unable to sleep in this city during the night time. From what I hear its the pattern of the people. Most Egyptians are up most of the night, and then sleep in until the late morning. I don’t know if its true or not, but thats the rumor. I had Coffee at noon, and left Bekkah’s apartment at 1:30pm I went and got a much needed chinese massage from around the corner, and then went into this awesome Bedouin Trader’s shop which has all kinds of awesome things like oriental rugs from all over the middle east, jewlery, antiques, various trinkets, and decorations, traditional egyptian clothing, and much more. I could fill two pages with things that I saw there, and its all pretty amazing stuff. I dont have the room in my luggage to bring everything back, but I wish I did. It was fun to look around.

After getting back to the apartment, I went up on the roof and attempted to paint the sunset. It moves quickly and was very difficuly to capture. I started too late un-fortunately, but I shall try again tomorrow. I managed to be out during the citywide prayer. It plays on megaphones throughout the city and its one of the most facinating things to hear. The whole big picture of this place is quite amazing, and I would like to make a large painting about cairo, but I wont be able to do it here. I am guessing I will have to resort to photograph reference of the people and the details that I have captured. Everyone is extremely nice here, and I don’t think I would be bothered on the street very much, but I don’t really want to chance it. Aside from that its too much information to paint here. In this case if I were to make a painting that captures the essence of cairo it would have to be done from memory and photo reference, but not actually copied from photos. I feel that meerly just copying a photo would not come close at all to a compsition that was designed from memory.

After painting I came back to the apartment, and bekkah was wearing these super tight black spandex looking pants, that remind me of a girl from Florence Academy that I shared a studio with, who wore the same exact pants. Of course I have to give her shit for it. It was fun how it escalated. I give her but a few spanks, and she obviously likes it, and tries to retaliate by punching me, and pinching me. I let her punch me in the chest as hard as she could possibly punch, but it was uneffective. I kept telling her to punch me harder and harder, but every time I just laughed. It was good fun. The best part when playing with a woman like this is to get up and walk away, and what naturally happens in their brain is they want to play more. It’s this giving and taking away that drives them crazy. And its alot of fun. I reccomend to the men who are reading this to try it. Its a great way to get out bad emotions, and level the playing field if things have gone sour between the couple. I showed my battle scars that she left me and she is very very gratified. I haven’t seen her smile like that. She is definitely a bit sadistic. Not all girls are but she definitely is.

Tomorrow is wednesday, and I go back to Italy thrusday. I cant wait. I also cant wait to get out of here because its so easy to spend money here because there truthfully is alot of great things here to spend money on. And its all fairly inexpensive, which puts you in the mindset of “I can get this too!” and “I can get that also! Its only 30 Egyptian Pounds!” (Five American dollars)

The easiest way to convert money is just to divide the Egyptian pound price by 6. You instantly get the rough price in American dollars. I would have never came here if Bekkah didn’t make this wild decision to move her to teach english and get under paid. She keeps getting mad at me because I keep saying “thats only like eight dollars” or “thats only ten dollars.” She gets paid in Egyptian pounds so she really has to ration her money. She gets paid by the day, and usually she is at home at night grading papers, so she isn’t making much. I would roughly esimate $30.00 per day? Im not sure. She is embarrassed to tell me it seems.

I have been stuck in Bekkah’s apartment for the past two days. The first day, John took the only set of keys, so If I left I would be locked out with no way to get in, and no way to get a hold of anybody. They arrive finally, and we all immediately take a taxi to the Fallucas which are egyptian sail boats that cruise on the nile. Its 60 egyptian per person. About ten dollars. It was a beautiful sunset, but there was no wind to take the boat anywhere. So we awkwardly sat, in the same place. Luckily John and Sophia are commedians, and can bullshit for hours. For me and Bekkah it was terrible.

We didn’t even say a word to eachother the entire time and I didn’t sit anywhere near her. I the thought of her changing into the person she is now makes me sick and angry. We sit dead in the water for what seemed like an eternity, full of wierdness. Another boat towed us out toward the middle of the Nile, and again we just sat. Going nowhere. Still in site of the TGIFridays. Finally he flips the sail, and instantly it catches wind, and we cruise back to the dock. We all pay the man and tip him. We catch a cab to an American restaurant, called Lucilles. I had a cheeseburger and A milk shake. It was pretty legit American food. I approved.
After eating, we walked for a while down the street. I saw a Seven-11, and Baskin Robins, and other random American Franchises. It was fairly entertaining. All the sudden we felt something cold and wet hitting us from above. It felt dirty, but it was in fact rain! The girls were over joyed. Screaming during prayer, disrespecting the locals. They gave the girls dirty looks. The ladies shopped a little bit, and got a few things for school like pens. John Bought Sophia a hair drier. After all of that we caught a cab back to the apartment. We got an extremely old cab driver, who had never driven in the rain before. It was chaos. He literally would just stop in the middle of the road, absolutely terrified of the rain. Finally we make it back. I spent the first night on her uncomfortable couch, and Ill be spending this night in the same place. I stayed up till about two writing this, and chatting to Vicente on Facebook. Everyone thinks I am having a wonderful time here in Cairo. All I want to do is leave. I wish I could fly.
I would spend the next day in the same place typing away. Reminiscing about everything. Recalling every minute detail of the trip. Being sure to include all the most important things. All I have to eat the entire day is coffee, water, orange juice, yogurt, pita bread, and hummous.

The next morning we wake up and have breakfast and coffee. For some reason there is no such thing as filtering anyting properly in egypt. Everyting has grounds in it. Coffee or tea it doesn’t matter, its always going to have sludge. I cant stand that. Whatever. Ill deal with it. We meet our tour guide in the entrance of the hotel, and he’s an egyptologist named Samir. His brilliance would continue to unfold throughout the day. We get into the van and begin to drive, and strangely the streets are empty and looked much cleaner. I saw people even sweeping up trash downtown. What a surprise!

There is a foggyness throughout the city in the morning. It looked almost like a warzone from the trash burning. I used to say that fresno is a glorified clean third world country. And now I am eating those words. I was so incredibly wrong. Driving out of the city to the pyramids really showed that to me clearly.

Samir was a fantastic, knowlegeable tour guide, and egyptologist. We went to the oldest of the pyramids first, checked them out. It was pretty cool, and an already much needed break from the city. Am I lame or what. I was already pretty burnt out of egypt by the time I went to bed the night before. I really don’t like this place, but I liked this trip to the pyramids until we got to the Giza pyramid. Ill get into that later.

According to Samir the pyramids were all built by humans. Many people say that aliens made them, but he believed that they were made by humans. Each block in a pyramid weigh’s about…

2500 pounds so building them was no easy task. Another thing is the stones to build the pyramids come from the other side of cairo. This is quite unreal that they could manage that. I asked him how many people lived in ancient Egypt and he said that there was about a million people living in cairo. Now it has multiplied to 17 million. Imagine that. There was too much information to even recollect it all. But it was interesting. Its too bad the good things have to take up so little space in this story. At least I took lots of photos. You’ll get the picture.
One of the main points about the pyramids. They are all massive graves. They are all about death. Its incredibly morbid in a way. There is no other function for the pyramids other than a passageway to the afterlife. Death in egypt seems the always tapping on your shoulder. I have never felt so close to death in my life. Its an eerie feeling.
For lunch we had an awesome Egyptian dish called Koshary, which is blend of a whole bunch of things: Macaroni, lentils,beans, chickpeas, spaghetti’s, some tomato sauce, and various other things. It was extremely tasty. The condiments on the table that go in the Koshary was this awesome garlic juice, which was made of garlic, vinegar, water, and lemon if im not mistaken. Also there was a super spicy chili oil. I killed that bowl of Koshary. Glad I took a picture of it. I wouldn’t mind trying to remake it when I get back to Florence or the States. It was very tasty.

Next stop was the Great Pyramids of Giza. These were the newer pyramids if im not mistaken. My nerves were shot at this point. There were people everywhere riding camels and horses. Even groups of kids on horses. When we got there I saw a horse fall, and the rider fell off as well, and he whipped the horse across its face several times. I did not like to see that at all. It disgusted me. In fact I continued to see the people around here abusing their camels and horses. Im not an animal rights activist, and I love to eat meat, but I don’t believe that any living creature should treated this way. Im surprised I didn’t see a horse or a camel break its leg.
So we get our tickets to enter the parimiter of the Great Pyramids and im walking in and this guy grabs my hat off my head, and another guy sticks this arab hat on my head. Im just like seriously what the fuck. I gotta go. I get surrounded by these guys. One of them grabs my camera and takes my picture. I actually ran off before getting my camera back.
Surprisingly they followed me and gave me my camera back. That was incredibly nice of them don’t you think? Still I was a bit traumatized that things could change from mellow, to fucked up so quickly. It made me feel very powerless, and shitty. I was unable to concentrate the rest of the time at the great pyramids.

We find out that the Freemasons wanted to have a ritual that day at the pyramids, so there were tons of people protesting the Masonic meeting, and they were all hanging around the pyramids afterwards. I have no idea how they got all their camels and horses inside by the pyramids, but it was rediculously annoying, and distracting. I was trying to listen to all the awesome things that Samir had to say but it was a lost cause. I couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. What a shame because the rest of the things that he told us earlier was really awesome. We talked about Horus and Set. And how “Jesus” was in fact modeled exactly after “Horus,” and that “Set” is the model for the modern day “christian Satan.” The guy knows a whole lot more about ancient civlization than most people today. I do believe that there is something out there more advanced than us most definitely. My philosophies are not really something I want to get into during all of this, but I do have some things to say about religion later.
After looking around the Great Pyramid and seeing more camels screaming from being forced to kneel on stone in obvious discomfort. Samir has a friend who owns a few camels, and they swear that he is good to them. He tells us “My family eats the camels.” What? I say to my self. Samir quickly corrects him “The camels feed his family. So he is good to them.” Thats what I thought he meant. So we walk a little bit where Samir’s friend has the camels waiting. I get my own camel who is named “Mickey Mouse”
The camels kneel for us and we each start to climb up on the saddles. These camel saddles only have one stirrup, which I found strange. The tourism police by the other pyramids had two stirrups. It was difficult to ride the camel with only one.

We begin the ride, and the landscape here was beautiful. Camels are such tall creatures. I felt like my head was at least ten feet up off the ground. It reminded me of when I was a kid going snowboarding with my Dad, and I would hit the huge jumps at Sierra Summit and flying ten feet off the top of the jump. The camel felt the same but different. It was suspended air time. we saw the sphinx in all its glory. Napoleon the first used to use it for target practice. The Pyramids are so huge they you need a fisheye lens to capture it all. The camel’s owner lets Bekkah lead us. My camel is attatched to her camel. We pass over some rough terrain, and Mickey slipped a couple times but never fell, or even came close. It was a nice camel ride. Bekkah’s butt looked good on that camel saddle. I probably stared at that ass more than I looked at the pyramids. Maybe not. I think thats just an exageration.
John and Sophia are both on the same camel, and that camel seemed to be pretty pissed off that it had to carry to people, in fact all camels that I saw that had two or three people on its back seemed to be pissed off about having such a workload. Their camel didn’t want to kneel down to let them off, and Sophia clearly wanted to get off for some reason I wont say. Bekkah told me why, but I wont say it here. (lol)

We are now off our camels, and each of us pays the camel’s owner 60 egyptian pounds 50 for the camel, and 10 for the tip. Its about 10 us dollars. I think it was very worth it! Now we are heading into the chaos from the sand that surrounds the pyramids. Sophia and John are constantly cracking jokes, which takes alot of the stress of this place off. I don’t know how I would have done if they weren’t with us.

Our driver arrives amongst the chaos around us and we get in. The entire tour cost all four of us about 1,400 egyptian. WHich is about 60 us dollars each, plus the cost of entry to each pyramid. I think it was very worth it. I had a great time, and I wish Giza wasn’t so traumatic.

The plane is now circling cairo planning its approach. I can see patches of sand, and massive groups of same shaped buildings. It looks somewhat sketchy from here already. I see green patches of farm land and palm trees. I spot the River Nile. Its massive. Cairo is massive. It has a population of 17 million. And it is apparent from the sky. The buildings are too large to spot the people, or the trash around them. The freeways look like normal freeways from the sky. I notice plumes of black smoke rising from random places all over the city, but I am unable to tell what they are. Smog gives the city an added sense of vastness. The haze on the skyline is either sand or smog, perhaps both.

As the plane approaches the runway I see that every building, every car, every thing that can collect dust has dust on it. The pilot lands the plane effortlessly, and stops like a the professional swiss pilot that I imagine him to be. The plane taxi’s around the runway to our final stopping point. What is surprising to me is there are many caucasian people on my plane with me, and everyone looks very educated. Most seem to be europeans of some sort. Most of them dont seem to care to look out the windows, unlike me who is plastered to the window. I felt bad for the guy next to me who had the window seat. He spoke german most of the time for some reason. I think he didn’t want to talk to me. Fine by me. He spoke english when the flight attendant told him “only english.” People in other countries often times try not to speak any english, but understand it perfectly.
The plane parks, and everyone grabs their things. Get most of the way through the tunnel when I realize that I forgot my easel in the plane so I run back and fight through the wrong direction of the crowd to get it. I finally retrieve it. That easel is my best friend next to my computer, andiPhone. Sad but true. Don’t judge me. I know the easel should be first.

Everything at this point is fairly clean and pristine. I tell myself “this isn’t any worse than any other airport…” I see a sign of Barack Obama with a quote “American children need to learn to be more like the children in Egypt!” I tell myself “I really want to know why he said that, or if thats even true.” I continue walking toward the “Exit & Baggage Claim” following the signs. Its quite a stretch to reach the baggage claim, and as I walk up I see my 25 kilo luggage making its way around the conveyor belt. I snatch it up and continue to passport control.

When you enter Egypt, you have to convert egyptian pounds right away. As well as filling out a card saying your name, where you were born and what you are doing in cairo. It took me three tries to figure this all out. The guy at the counter could have just told me the first time. Maybe he likes wasting peoples time. Next is customs. The Customs Police asks me if I have anything to claim, I tell him “I dont think so, I just have clothes, and my paints..” at this point he cuts me off and says “okay go ahead.” But the truth is I have a plenty of things they could tax me like crazy for. I guess I escaped that one.

I spot Bekkah’s red glowing hair right away, and jam up to her and give her a big long bear hug. We exchange hello’s and she welcomes me to Egypt. I was really happy to see her. We walk to the front of the airport, and upon stepping out I see the mess of traffic fighting their way through traffic. The drivers are constant honking. I notice the coat of dirt over everything. I smell the air. I already do not like it here. She calls the hotel taxi, and he arrives within a few minutes. Its a tad rough looking. The driver is extremely polite and nice. Luggage goes into the trunk and we are off. I reach for my seat belt, and Bekkah laughs “you dont wear seatbelts in Cairo!” Im like “Fuck that noise!” I continue to put it on as the taxi continues to accelerate, honking its horn the entire time. The seatbelt is stuck. Typical scumbag seatbelt. I take firm hold of the “Oh Shit Handle” and get my camera out and turn it on.

We are driving down what appears to be a main freeway. Everything is going by so quickly that I cant even manage to capture everything. I wish I had a better camera at this point. And I kick myself the entire trip for not having picked up a faster camera. This old camera is slow, but it takes decent pictures. And it has a decent zoom. The entire trip I think I captured maybe two percent of what I wish I could have captured. I wish I had a camera in my right eye, that I could shoot pictures with with brain impulses for this trip. I draw and paint mainly with my left eye. Which is part of the reason I am taking the time to write all of this down. I don’t think anything can express the feelings that I have experienced like words at this point.
The things I instantly notice, are groups of three to five kids riding motorcycles with no helmets, on the freeway. No one wears helmets on scooters, or motorcycles or anything. I don’t think helmets even exist. I saw family of six riding a motorcycle. Dad was driving with a baby in his lap, two boys inbetween the mother and the dad. The mother is sitting side saddle with a baby in her lap. Thats six human beings on one motorcycle.
As I mentioned before, no one wears seatbelts. I saw a truck with a massive pile of junk. I dont know what it was, but the pile of junk was almost larger than the entire truck itself. And there was a young man riding on top of the pile of junk, aparently texting with two hands, not holding on to anything. “WTF” I say to myself. I turn to Bekkah “Oh my god Did you see that?” Her reply was “Thats typical for cairo, get used to it.” My god I think to myself. Sure enough the entire way we see things like that. Twenty person family packed into a mini van, babies in their arms. Nine people in an old Peugeot, trucks carrying loads of what appears to be trash, or recycling materials, or animals. I think we saw goats in the back of a truck. We saw a camel in a van I remember correctly. Various conditions of taxis appearing to be racing eachother. There were all sorts of strange vehicles racing down this freeway. I could smell the burning air, and trash.

One of the most eeriest of things were the Mosques, and their towers pointing up high towards the sky. The seem to be everywhere here.
We get off the freeway and into the streets of Downtown Cairo. We are barraged with various odors, the faint smell of flavored sheesha, piss, schwarma, and trash. I see the feral dogs and cats Bekkah spoke of. They are digging through the trash that fills the streets in front of abandoned buildings and the gutters.
The reason why there is so much trash everywhere in cairo is because on trash day everyone puts their garbage bags out on the streets, and the dogs have learned how to open the bags, and dig through it for food, so naturally it gets everywhere. The trash bags get picked up, but they do not pick everything thoroughly because its too much to deal with.

Finally we arrive at the hotel windsor. There is a pointless metal detector in the doorway that goes off each time someone goes through it. It looks like something out of Indiana Jones. We get to the desk. Bekkah has already checked in and put her things in the room. We greet the people at the front desk they are very polite. She gets the key from the man at the desk and we head up to the third floor.

Our room is #31 Its a fairly nice room. The beds are shit. But at least its a safe bed. I feel good in that room. It has nice mouldings and beautiful white pearly wall paper that has designs on them that resembel the Pitti Palace in Florence. I unwind from the long day for a minute. Sophia arrives and greets me hello. She is tall and thin. She has a nice gesture to her, and wears all black. I like her personality. Her boyfriend from portland is also visiting. He’s a realy cool tattoo’d up guy who even has tattoo’s on his head. He is quite a character. Him and Sophia are hillarious together. They click, and feed off eachothers energies. Bekkah and I have never done that. We usually sit in akward silens. She seems to have much worse social anxiety, and on top of that she has little interest in paintings, and am not really into literature. I like reading on the internet. The smell of a book full of words puts me to sleep. Sorry Bekkah. Obviously we aren’t ever going to work out. Plus you’re a moody bitch. Sophia is always quick to take the piss out of something, anything, or anyone. I love it. Its hillarious.
We all head down to the lounge, and once again it looks like something out of Indiana Jones. There are pictures staggered amongst animal horns mounted to wooden placards. The light fixtures are extremely old and the wood is stained black. The furniture is all very old and made out of various things like barrels. It had a nice vibe. We ordered Sakkara Egyptian beers and hummous, and other snacks, and got to talking. I mentioned I have been into painting landscapes. And she said “oh yeah you can take a bunch of pictures and paint them! I hastily responded with “Fuck photos! Photos are for babies!” She hastily replied “Oh so you are one of those faggy painters that brings their easel outside and paints?” Instantly I responded “Fuck you!” I thought it was pretty funny. The beers cost 24 egpytian pounds, which is about four us dollars. For Bekkah that is a lot of money, 24 egpytian pounds. I still wonder why she would take a job that pays jack shit.

She says she loves it here. I dont get why. Mainly because this place is terrifying for me, but at the same time, Florence was pretty scary at first for me too, but only during the initial cab ride to my hotel because the cab driver would look at me more than the road to tell me about the girls. That was the only time I was scared in Florence. Cairo on the otherhand, what scares me most is the traffic. I have been hit by two cars in my lifetime. Im lucky to even be here in Cairo. I don’t like getting anywhere near speeding cars, and this place requires you to cross through some sketchy traffic. For me its not fun at all. The cars wont hit you, because somehow they pay good attention, even though they are constantly multitasking while driving. Another one of Bekkah and Sophia’s habits is walking in the street with the cars. Screw that. Seriously. I prefer the sidewalk. I had my leg broken in half from a car. I dont like them Sohpia, Bekkahs roomate that one of her taxi drivers was skyping and smoking a cigarette and barely looking at the road once. I have no idea how that is possible, but I don’t like the thought of people doing that, and me crossing the street.
At this time Bekkah is being nice to me. Not really any akward (keyword) moments yet. Things seem good. We finish up in the lounge and go back to the hotel room, and I give Bekkah a few things from Florence. She is surprised that I brought anything because I told her “I wasn’t bring shit, so don’t get your hopes up.” I was kidding. Maybe im too nice, because I think I may have brought her too much.

The plan is to go to the market. The market in downtown cairo, has a labrynth of stores selling all sorts of things, things that I dont even know the names to. Trinkets perhaps? Little pyramid sculptures and things. Egyptian statues. We passed people that we drinking this dark syrup like drink, and I asked Sophia what was that? She responded ” Its disgusting! It tastes like hot minty cum!” Shocking indeed. The other thing John and I noticed was the severe amount of homosexual behavior in this country. You constantly see the young boys, and teenagers, and men grab assing and hugging and walking arm in arm, walking around with their arms over their shoulders. You would get in a fight with them or stabbed if you told one of them that they acted like they are gay, so we decided to refer to that behavior is “George Michaels” Throughout the entire trip we have been noticing people behaving extremely “George”
In the markets everyone is trying to sell something. Everyone is trying to make a pound. There are restaurants and cafe’s. People sitting out side are smoking sheesha, out of large elaborate hooka’s. Everyone is very nice and spots the fact that we are American, and everyone is offering to show you something. The strange thing is we just plowed through everything and barely even looked at anything. It was like an obstacle course of avoiding sales people. The funny thing was everyone was very nice and polite. No one really getting in the way like sales people in Italy do. And if we did talk to someone they were very polite and nice.
We went to a coffee house, I don’t remember the name at all, but this particular coffee house has not closed its doors in 200 years. I had a mint chai tea. Nothing incredible since I used to work at a tea house about five years ago. I’m a tea snob. I’m not going to lie.

As we sit there, sales people, one after the other comes up and tries selling us things. It was stupid. Then this larger lady comes up to us, holding this hideous baby, begging for money saying “I have a daughter! Please please! Anything! I have a daughter” while she shoves the baby in our faces. Bekkah’s response was hillarious “Get that thing out of my face! It has GERMS and its disgusting!!!” Next was my turn to get the baby shoved in my face. All I have to say is that it was terrible. She put that damn thing an inch away from my face. It could have drooled into my eye. It seemed like that thing was in my face for an eternity.
We eventually got the baby out of my face, and started walking around the market place. One thing for sure is: I hate malls, I hate shopping. I hate people trying to sell me trinkets. You get alot of that on this side of the world, and in europe. Especially in Rome and Florence.

We catch a cab from the market, and back to the hotel. On the way back I see more sights that I continue to find un-believeable. George Michaels, Hooded women with children crossing fast moving streets carrying babies. Albino people. Mass amounts of people crammed into vans. There are people riding motorcycles and scooters everywhere, all without helmets. I never saw a single person wearing a helmet the entire time. The amount of people crossing the street though insanely fast traffic is staggering. Im surprised we havent seen anyone get it. Earlier I saw Bekkah come within a hairline of being taken out by a fast moving minivan. Someone yelled “Bitch!” out of from the van. It was not cool. In my head I was like “fuck this place.”
The taxi got a little lost on the way to the hotel and eventually found it. We had some pizza and beverage and went to our rooms. Bekkah was pretty nice to me this night and we went to bed on good terms. Sadly this would be the last time we went to bed on good terms. She walked around in front of me in her underwear, and even showed me her butt, and how nice it has been getting from all the stairs that she has to climb. I got to give it a squeeze and a slap. She enjoyed my approval. I enjoyed the peace with eachother. Its a shame it couldn’t continue for much longer.
I slept badly that night. I must have fell asleep around 3:00 or four. I kept waking up in cold sweats. Freezing and soaking wet. I don’t remember dreaming or anything. My jaw has been killing me the entire time because I think I have been grinding my teeth at night.

I began my journey to Cairo from Switzerland on the 9th of November. My route I took was surprisingly the cheapest I could possibly find. I took the train from Frick, to Basel, and then a bus from the Basel train station, to the Basel Airport. From the Airport I took a flight with Easyjet to Rome. I had to check in to my flight to Cairo at 5:00 in the morning, so I had some time to kill in Rome.
I hopped on the leonardo express which is the train that goes from the Fiumacino Airport to Roma Termini, the main train station in Rome. I decided I wanted to try and see the Galleria Moderna Nazionale in Villa Borghese (a huge park in Rome with two museums and lots of things to do. The locals like it alot aparently) So I had to ride the Metro from Roma Termini on line A to Flaminio which is one stop past the Spanish Steps. Its a famous place and you see it in movies whenever Rome is in a movie. Thats how I remember how to get there. I got on the wrong line somehow, and had to get off and hop on the metro the opposite direction. Time was ticking away for me to get to the museum and I had a feeling I wouldn’t make it.

I get on the right direction and off at Flaminio like I was supposed to. I start booking it to the Moderna, as I come over the hill in front of the Moderna, I see its massive wooden doors closed. I was too late. So I sit on the steps for a while. Rethink my game plan. I decided to take the scenic route back through Rome to the train station. I go past the absinthe store to see if they have anything good. But sadly its all crap.

I was also looking for a Sexy Pope Calander for Bekkahs roomate sophia, I must have stopped at every place that had calenders and post cards, but no luck. I went by Piazza Republica, and the Colloseum, and hung out there for a while. After that I ran into an internet point, and checked facebook and email and what not for about a half hour, and resumed my trek back to Roma Termini Train Station. I came across a big clean Kebab Shop, got a Kebab that was only 3.50 euro. Finished the last bit of my journey to Roma Termini, and boarded the Leonardo Express back to the airport. It was about 9:00pm at this time. I could not get a hostel because of my flight to Cairo begins boarding at 5:00am I purchased some internet time at the airport, and entertained myself until about 2:00am at that time I could only find cruddy metal chairs to sit in. They were terribly uncomfortable, and my laptop was running out of power quickly. Luckily there is a 24 hour cafe that had a couple power outlets for me to use, so I worked on some music and messed around on the internet, and ate a couple awesome canolli. The canolli was only a euro each. Thats quite a steal for being in an airport. I noticed there was a soft bench in the back of the cafe, and jumped on it with a quickness, I rested there until about 4:30am got another coffee, and cannoli, brushed my teeth, and checked my luggage in for the flight to Cairo. I was getting nervous at this point. The flight took off at 6:10am and landed in Zurich Switzerland. Yes. I had to go to rome for pretty much no reason. I still enjoyed it, even though the museum was closed when I got there. Rome is an amazing city.

I had an hour layover in switzerland. Flying over switzerland is even awesome too. I was sad to be leaving it again. Especially while just flying into Cairo. As soon as the plane leaves Zurich I doze off, coming in and out of sleep. occasionally looking out the window to see what is out there. Swiss Airlines Jet’s usually have a few cameras mounted outside of the plane, so I was able to scope the land below out. It kept getting eerier and eerier.