We're celebrating Indenpendence Day in Cairo and then we leave for Sweden!

That’s it. I think I’ve got everything. I’ve got one large suitcase with some clothes, shoes and gifts, and the boys' little kids' suitcases packed, and I have a backpack with everything from tickets and passports to little Incredible Hulk men and crayons in it; I’m ready to fly!

We’re going to the Independence Day celebrations today from 5-9 pm. In order for all of us to go, I had to get a guest pass because I don’t have an American passport. Only American or Canadian passport holders or immediate family members of an American passport holder with a guest pass will be admitted to the celebrations. It was only possible to get guest passes at a special place at a certain time, and it just so happened that this was while Courtney was in Turkey. Without knowing if it was going to be possible, the boys and I went to the special place, and August and William basically showed the lady their American passports, pointed to me and said “this is our mom and we would like to bring her to the 4th of July celebrations!” I had no problem getting a guest pass this way; the lady in fact explained that it was not uncommon for one of the parents to have a different nationality, and as cute as can be, it now says on my guest pass that my sponsor is a certain Mr. August Wilhelm Walter Fugate.

After the celebrations are over, we go home to catch only a couple of hours of sleep, because at 3 am, a car is coming to pick up the boys and myself to go to the airport. We are leaving for Sweden! We’ll spend the first week travelling around visiting family and friends, and the next two weeks hanging out at my mom’s house in Skane in the very south of Sweden; clean air and water, lots of forest and lakes, jogging on long winding roads that take you through patches of forests, past yellow rape seed fields and huge horse farms, Swedish grocery stores and clothing stores, wet, cool summer rain, Ingmar Bergman on television, and the reliable homogenized Swedes, probably still talking about what went wrong in the Euro soccer cup 2008. I can’t wait! Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are going to have to do, because our Lufthansa flight from Cairo only takes us as far as Frankfurt, where we have to wait for a different flight to take us to Copenhagen. This particular flight departs exactly eight (8!) hours after our plane from Cairo arrives, which means my tired little 4th of July angels and I will be spending our Saturday trying to kill eight hours at Frankfurt airport. Wish me luck!

Since we’ll be travelling around a lot, and since my mom is not exactly a technological wonder, I’m not sure how much internet I’ll have access to, if any at all over the next three weeks. I’ll be pack posting for sure though once we’ve arrived safely in the States, so if you don’t hear from me sooner – I’ll ‘see’ you again in three weeks!