Arrival in Egypt

Yesterday I arrived in Egypt after a relatively smooth trip. I flew from Greenville/Spartanburg to Washington, D.C., to Frankfurt to Cairo and arrived in the afternoon. I was greeted just past the gate at the airport by a gentleman from the travel department at NAMRU-3 (my office, more on that later). He quickly took my passport, obtained my visa, ushered me through passport control and found a cart for my luggage. Then we stood by baggage claim and waited. And waited. And waited. My bags were stuck in D.C. They would come on a flight that night and be delivered the next morning. I called this morning. They were stuck in Frankfurt. They would come on a flight tonight and be delivered tomorrow morning. I am doubtful.

But, other than the missing luggage, life in Cairo is off to a good start. My apartment is very nice, with an open floorplan, comfortable furniture, fast internet, air conditioning and consistently hot water. The neighborhood is green and quiet and has a road filled with stores, restaurants and coffee shops nearby. I think I'll be perfectly comfortable here. I'm living with a Swedish girl who is working in the labs at NAMRU-3 (as I said, more later) and we are getting along well.

Now the really exciting part of these first days in Cairo has been the food. Last night, even though I was exhausted, I went to dinner with a group from work. There were actually sixteen of us, including epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, commanding officers and families. We went to a restaurant at the Italian school and the food was absolutely incredible. We sat down and within a few minutes plates and plates of stuffed tomatoes, olives, mozzarella, salami, fresh garlic bread, prosciutto, mushrooms, pizza and so much more! Just when I thought I was finished, waiters cleared the empty plates and set the tables with pasta bowls and soon six enormous plates of pesto gnocchi, spaghetti bolognese and spicy penne appeared. And after that there was even gelato and cappuccino. (The amount of space I've spent writing about this is probably a clear sign of how good it was!) I'll just quickly mention that this was followed by breakfast this morning of a fresh bagel with cream cheese and for dinner we're going to order Chinese delivery.

That's enough for now. I'll write more soon.