Moving on...

This family has relocated to a new country. To continue following our adventures, go to the new blog.

A family of five in Cairo, Egypt - The End

What would you do if you suddenly only had a little over a week left in Cairo, Egypt? Where would you go? What would you want to see?

Most people we know that left had a final photo shoot by the pyramids, and visited the Khan for a bit of departure shopping, Coptic Cairo, or other favorite sites one last time.

I wanted to take pictures by the pyramids, but we were sick, and the packers were coming, and we had to run errands, go into campus to get forms filled out, and sort through our apartment. Add the kids and everything else, we decided to just do what we felt was right. We played tennis one last time with our tennis buddies, had a couple of dinners with good friends, went on a felucca on the Nile, toasting to future success in champagne I had saved for I don’t even know any more, and had drinks at the Maadi House. The kids played with their friends until pretty much the moment we left for the airport, having given away most of their toys and a lot of clothes to local boys around the neighborhood. We were all sad to leave, but our departure as far as such go, was pleasant; it was a good farewell.

Good Bye Cairo. Good Bye AUC. Good Bye friends in Cairo. Good Bye three years of calls to prayer, Eids, Ramadan and iftar, mummies, Pharaohs, trips, sand, pyramids, tombs, coral reefs, the Nile, head scarves, Mustafa the Pianoman, Khaled, Ahmed, Muhammed, Waleed, Ali, Khan Al Khalili, Sakkara, Beyti Skimmed Milk, excited trips to the Duty Free Shop, stray cats, Balady bread, Drinkies, Miriam’s Market, taxis, Shary tissa, Souk, Soup place, Arzak, Fuul and Koshary, security guards, wild dogs, garbage in the streets, Otlob, Bowabs, the Maadi House, and everything and everyone else that made our life in Egypt special. We will miss you!

Maa'salema, ya Misr!

Sick and busy days - in transfer

For two weeks in July, we were in Greece on holiday, enjoying time together as a family, relaxing. Towards the end of our trip we made a decision that set our entire world spinning at 100 mph. We decided to turn down the offer AUC had made us to stay on another year, and to accept AUB’s offer of a four-year contract. It was not easy, because we have had a comfortable life in Cairo, and the AUB offer was nowhere near as generous. We decided though that clean air for our children, future security, and new academic challenges for Courtney triumph wealth at this point in our lives, and so we said, “We are moving to Lebanon.”

Upon our return to Cairo, we notified our current and future employers of our decisions. We were quite sick. I was suffering from bronchitis and had a thrush from the antibiotics, and Courtney had an ear infection. Abraham was coughing too. As soon as our decision was sent out however, we had to act fast. AUC needed our apartment immediately, AUB needed papers, shipments needed to be arranged, tickets, bank business, accounts needed to be closed, VISAs, medical forms had to be filled out. At one point, our house was filled with packers, packing up our belongings, while a man from the lab sat with Courtney on our cluttered couches, taking his blood for various medical tests. Amidst everything, friends returned from the US, and we tried to see as many as possible to say good-bye. Chaos reigned.

When we left our apartment in the middle of the night a couple of weeks later, the floors were covered in papers, stuff, our fridge was still full of food, and we probably forgot several things that we will miss. We got on a plane to the US to visit family for a couple of weeks before flying to Beirut on our one-way tickets. Somehow, ¾ of our luggage was lost on the way, and when we finally arrived in IN after about 30 hours of traveling, we had no changes of clothes, no toothbrushes, no deodorant, nothing, and had to go straight to Walmart. I was still recovering from my viral/bacterial infection, which had now turned into a sinus problem with a nasty cough. A couple of days after we arrived, our luggage arrived, and then William started throwing up. Then August got the stomach flu, then Courtney, and finally Abraham and I. Two days each of fever and puking. Yuck.

Today, almost a week after we arrived in the US, I got out of bed feeling a little bit like a person again, like I’ll be able to fight all these things off, whatever they are. I’m not the person to get stressed, but somehow I think this past month has taken its toll on me physically. We still have so much ahead of us, so many things we need to get through, but I’m hoping that just for now, I can get well, and have a couple of weeks to recover – recuperate and prepare - before the next challenge.

Our family vacation in the Peloponnese 2010

I’m sitting here at home, by the dinner table with my cup of tea in the late morning, washer running, and it feels good to be back home. For well over a month now, we’ve been packing, unpacking or traveling. Last night we finally flew in from Athens after ten wonderful, amazing, exhausting, and dramatic days in Greece. In about four weeks we are supposedly moving to Beirut, Lebanon, but our house bears no witness of that. I am sitting here with my tea, recovering and gearing up.

On Monday morning after breakfast, the boys & I took Courtney to the conference venue, went back to the hotel to pack up, have a last swim in the pool, and check out. We then drove back down to the village of Ancient Olympia and walked around a bit while waiting for Courtney, shopping, having ice cream. After Courtney was finished (his paper was very well received!), we started our drive south down the west coast of the Peloponnese. Somewhere along the way we saw a sign that said “Beach” and decided to take a break. It was a beautiful white, long beach with very few people, high, dramatic waves and foamy water. I stayed close to Abraham, a little afraid. The current was so strong, and the water so stirred up, that had he got under water, I would not have been able to find him. Fortunately, he was more interested in the sand and rocks than swimming, but still got so close to the water once that he did get pulled down. I fished him out just as the second wave was about to suck him out. A frightening moment! The boys had a blast swimming and diving into the waves.

After another hour or so drive through Kalamata, we started the drive south on the west side of Mani. It was one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever done. The Mediterranean Sea is so blue, the sky so beautiful and clear, and the mountains so majestic. There are not enough words to describe the beauty of this part of the world, and our pictures will give you nothing but an idea of what if looked like. If you ever get the chance: Go! It’s difficult driving; curvy narrow roads winding up and down the mountains, but so worth it. We arrived at our destination Stoupa just in time for dinner. From our restaurant, where we had house wine, Greek salad, tzatziki, fresh swordfish, and souvlaki, we had a beautiful view of the sunset.

We spent the next day on the beach, swimming in the cleanest water I’ve ever experienced. It was so extremely clean, and also cooler than in other places we discovered, because of the many submarine fresh water springs. You could literally reach in between the rocks and drink the water that came out of the mountains. The sand was fine and white, the water blue and clear, and surrounded by mountains and a clear sky, we all enjoyed the day.

The next day after lunch we drove a bit further south to visit the caves of Pyrgos Dhirou. Such beautiful landscape, and breath taking caves! After the caves, we headed north to Sparta, where we visited Ancient Sparta. The ruins are not all that impressive, but to experience the location and see the site was well worth the visit. There was also what Courtney referred to as an “Über Carrefour” where we bought an array of snacks and drinks. After a couple of hours we drove on to Mystra where we checked into a hotel. In Stoupa we had stayed in a camping, but you can only sleep so many nights in a row on the ground, so we decided to splurge for the night; internet, pool, air conditioner, and a clean room! After a fresh night’s sleep we visited the Byzantine village Mystra, which required several hours of hiking up a steep mountain, but was well worth the climb. Even when it was at its hottest and hardest we could tell ourselves, “This is nothing compared to Mount Moses!” After having seen seven churches, one museum, one Palace, one fort, and several houses, we left Mystra behind and started towards Argos and Mycenae. Along the way, looking to put gas in our car, we noticed something strange; fist we saw a long, long line of cars along some random road. Why had they all parked there? What was there in the middle of the country side? Then when we kept looking, we noticed all the gas stations seemed closed, and had signs up that included the word “Telos,” a word my husband scholar is familiar with. We decided it was for this very moment Courtney spent all those years studying Plato, but why were the gas stations talking about the end? The end of what? The long line of cars we had passed in Mystra had indeed been lined up towards a gas station; could it be that they stood in line to buy gas? When we finally reached our camping in Mycenae and got online, we found the answer in the news: strike! It was Friday evening, and after five days of truckers and in particular gasoline truckers on strike (How could we so completely have missed this??! Well, I’ll tell you how. The claim that an internet-free vacation is good for the mind? Bah!), Greece was running out of fuel. As far as we could tell, there was no solution in sight either. We had less than half a tank, and plans to visit Argos, Epidaurus and Mycenae the next day, so we needed gas. What should we do?

The next day we visited the archeological site of Mycenae, only two km away, and then we called Hertz. After a little “back and forth” I got to talk to a man who told me gas had just been delivered to the coastal town of Nefplio, some kilometers away from Mycenae. He said to go there and look for long lines of cars, and so we did. After ca. 1 ½ hours in line, we got nearly a full tank, and our vacation was salvageable. We would at the very least be able to get back to the airport in Athens on Monday. We drove straight to Epidaurus and visited the site around dinner time; a very pleasant hour it turns out, to stroll through the vast amount of archeological area it covers, the most impressive part of which, of course, is the theater.

The next day we packed up our tent and headed for Corinthos. Near the turn off however, we decided that we – since we were in Greece and all – had to take the boys to the Acropolis, and I headed straight into Athens center instead. This had been a point of discussion throughout our entire vacation: driving in Athens would surely be unpleasant, at the very least, but could we really not take the boys to see the Acropolis? At this very last moment, we decided to take them. Finding it and a parking spot was easy, climbing the mountain and visiting the site was unpleasant as always but worth it of course, and our lunch at a restaurant we chose because of their nice-looking salad plates by the Forum Romanum was surprisingly worth its price and very tasty; it was the getting out of Athens that proved horrible. We had both predicted this, but made a very bad miscalculation when we thought there would be hotels east of Athens, by the sea. We should have checked, but even the most experienced traveler makes mistakes like this in situations like these. We drove around in circles for – really – hours, until we finally ran into a mega-overprized hotel in Pireus. 8 am, with kids screaming in the back, fighting, we - literally - paid for our stupidity. The hotel was nice, with a pool and breakfast, but – really – no 8 hours of sleep is worth that kind of money.

Monday – we slept in and took advantage of every free hotel facility available (breakfast buffet, a swim in the pool, two hot bubble baths within 12 hours, and a late check-out, anyone?) before we headed back to the airport. Hertz has probably seen dirtier cars returned, but I thought I saw the guy frown at the full package of garlic nuts poured out all over the baby car seat, the vast amount of sand and rocks covering the floor, and the plethora of drinks spilled all over the seats, not to mention the sticky fruit and candy wrappers wedged in between the seats. Our little grey polo was also covered in sand and dust. Well used but not a scratch!

As for the rest of the trip, it was business as usual. The boys – the entire family – are professionals when it comes to standing in and getting ahead in line, checking in, snacking on free samples in the airport shops, surfing the internet or watching a movie and flying. Our trip home was very smooth.

And here we are, just home but heading out. There are currently a lot of e-mails circulating to arrange our transfer. At this moment, it looks like we’ll be shipping back to the US, and then relocating to Lebanon, all within a few weeks, but I’ll have to keep you posted on that one, because it could change. At this point, nothing is worked out, and we’re not exactly sure how everything is going to happen. For now, I’m enjoying my tea, and the quiet before the storm.

We're in Greece!

It has been a long time since my last blog, but I have good excuses. We didn't really have any good internet in Sweden, and when we got back to Cairo, we practically just washed all our clothes, repacked, and left for the airport again.

I won’t be able to post any pictures until we get back to Cairo, because I forgot the cable, but I can assure you that we are having a great time in Greece – despite a couple of mishaps along the way.
The plane from Cairo to Athens was delayed, so when we finally arrived and had picked up our car, it was way past 2 am. We had already decided not to get a room at the airport – 230 Euro for a double room that we would sleep less than 8 hours in? – but by the time we were out of Cairo it was so late, there was really no point any more to check in anywhere. We stopped and slept for an hour at some rest stop just north of Corinth, and then I drove the rest of the way to Ancient Olympia. Somewhere along the way we had our first mishap, or rather, realized it. The backpack we use to carry Abraham in - the super expensive baby carrier he was brought to the top of Mount Moses, among other places - was still sitting in the Hertz parking lot at the airport in Athens. It would take us hours to go back and get it, if it was still there. So tired, I almost cried. Will we ever see it again? To top off the loss, it had Abraham’s new crocs in it, bought in Sweden and only worn a few times, after we lost one of his yellow crocs at Prague airport, running to catch our flight to Sweden in June. Sigh.
The boys all three slept the entire way to Olympia. We were not sure there was any point to drive straight to our hotel – the Best Western Europa, since we only had a reservation for the following night, and check-in only officially started after 1 pm, but, as we were so tired that we didn’t know what else to do, we still asked at the desk. The nice lady took one look at me and the boys, made a couple of quick phone calls, and took us straight to our family room. I almost kissed her!
We just laid on our beds for a while, half asleep, but then decided to shower, eat, swim, and then nap in the afternoon. After all this we woke up sometime after two, refreshed, and ready to take on the sites. We went down to the village of Olympia and had a light meal in a Taverna; tzatziki, Greek salad, squid, pasta with beef in a tomato sauce, kebab, beer (Courtney) and sodas. It was wonderful! I remembered theoretically that the food is good in Greece, but I had in reality forgotten how good it tastes. Yum! After our meal we visited the museum and the archeological site. Here, mishap number two and three happened: first, August’s sandals broke, and then, after our obligatory run on the original Olympic race tracks, Courtney’s sandals broke. Not as big of a loss as the backpack, but still. Apart from this, the visit was great. The museum had some really cool monuments from the temple of Zeus, Greek gods, statues of Hercules, warrior helmets from Assyria, armor, etc. and although the ruins where mainly, well, ruins, the track was really cool, and there was enough that we could imagine how impressive the temples and buildings must have looked. After our visit we walked along the little shopping street of Olympia, and one of them had the perfect pair of sandals for August, who was very upset about his broken ones. We also found a grocery store, where we bought all kinds of little goodies to have in our room: Retzina wine and Ouzo, tzatziki, nuts, drinks, and the most succulent, delicious peaches you will ever find. Courtney and I spend the evening on the balcony with drinks, after the boys had passed right out.
Today after breakfast, the boys and I drove out towards the coast to find a beach. After a bit of searching, we finally ended up on the beach of Katakolo. It was probably the least child friendly beach I’ve ever been to, mainly because of the traffic. Yes; cars, motorcycles and vespas kept driving by, on the beach! We still stayed and swam – close to the water! – and the boys played in the sand, picked sea shells, explored jelly fish, and had snacks. Courtney stayed at the hotel room to work on his paper (We came to Olympia for a Plato conference, right!), and when we got back we all swam in the pool, and then we took Courtney down to the town hall to register for the conference. The boys and I did some shopping, and then we went back to our hotel for another superb dinner and a glass of wine.
Tomorrow Courtney presents his paper in the morning, and then we head out towards the southern parts of Peloponnese; exciting beaches, caves, Sparta, camping, and – hopefully – more good food and drinks.

August on Uncle Michael's boat

A walk in the woods

Here in Sweden there's a wood behind the backyard...

...and it's a real blessing with three boys!

We're leaving Cairo, Egypt, and moving to Beirut, Lebanon

We applied to so many jobs, but really, the job market in the US is horrible right now. We were starting to prepare for the worst, then AUC stepped in, and offered to let us stay another year on the post-doc contract we have, AND Courtney got an interview for a four-year position at The American University in Beirut.

After a lot of waiting, and waiting, and wondering, and trying not to hope, we finally got an unofficial notice saying that Courtney will be offered the position in Beirut. Apparently the appointment has gone through all kinds of approvals and recommendations, however the provost is traveling, and the contract proposal is laying on his desk, ready. We just have to wait, a little bit longer.

In the meantime though, I’m allowing myself to prepare by reading, thinking, and letting friends and families know. I don’t know how we are going to do this; I don’t even know exactly when, but I’m pretty sure we’re moving. We’re moving to Beriut, and it’s a good thing!

Does anybody know an appropriate prayer? Ann? Looking up “smooth transition,” I mostly get prayers related to child birth. Although the metaphor is cute, I’m not quite up for it…

We're in Sweden!

We’ve been here in Sweden for several days now, but I’m just starting to calm down mentally. It’s so exciting to get here, so wonderful to be with family, to speak Swedish, eat the food, breathe the air and enjoy the culture, that it takes me a few days to wind down. The first couple of days were also completely ruined by ‘travel jet lag.’ Although there is no significant time difference between here and Egypt (one hour), because our plane left in the middle of the night, we missed a whole night’s sleep – or at least I did; the boys and Courtney all slept on the planes, but since I had to sit and hold Abraham the whole time, I wasn’t able to sleep. When we finally arrived at my mother’s house, I had to take a nap, which threw me off even more, because I usually never nap. The next night I spent awake holding a crying Abraham, who had got hold of a few too many Swedish treats, and had a tummy ache, preventing him from settling in. Two nights without sleep; another couple of days went by in a haze. I ate a lot of Swedish treats I’ve missed, read books, hung out in the garden with the family, played tennis with Courtney, went to the store, and just enjoyed being here. But in a haze.

Then one morning we woke up and it was Midsummer Eve. It’s a major holiday in Sweden, and most Swedes celebrate in a similar way: first we help set up the neighborhood midsummer (May) pole on a big grassy field, that we then dance around, singing traditional songs, and then everybody goes home to eat “sill” – pickled herring – with new potatoes and drink “nubbe.” It was all really nice, even the weather. The boys were a bit disappointed that it didn’t hail like last year, but they enjoy the dancing and singing so, I choke up every year. It’s so much part of me – I celebrated midsummer like this every year when I was little – and it’s such a blessing that they are able to do it too, even though we don’t even live here. We ended the evening in the garden finishing off our “Hallands Flader”, enjoying the evening sun, listening to people celebrating around the neighborhood. At one point I heard, faintly, Gyllene Tider sing “Sommartider,” a classic summer tune. The sun was still shining at 11 pm, when we went to bed.

Good Bye hot Cairo, for now!

This past academic year was supposed to be our last in Cairo, Egypt. The current job market, however, is very tight, and despite a large amount of job applications - anything from one-year teaching positions in Idaho, to tenure track positions at ivy-league schools across the world – we got nowhere to go. Spring semester was coming to an end, and we started making departure emergency plans, still hoping something would come up, but planning for the worst. We would stay here as long as we could, and then go back to the States, live off our savings, and hope that Courtney could pick up some adjunct work somewhere, while we kept trying to find a job. This was our sad, pathetic plan until the Provost here at AUC offered Courtney to stay on for another year. It was not at all what we had expected – it was always understood that our contract was non-renewable – but of course we were very grateful and relieved. We could ask for our deposit back on that cardboard box we had set out for, somewhere in Nowhere, USA. We could start making summer plans, buy tickets, and structure our time.

But then, that same week, we heard from another job, a nice one – and Courtney went to Lebanon for an interview. Now we knew we were going to be OK, but what if this other, better job came through? Then we wouldn’t get any home leave money, AND we would have to organize a move. We decided that it was best to wait with our summer plans until we knew where we were going to be in the fall. If we were not going to receive any home leave money, we couldn’t really buy tickets to go to the US anyways.

This past week however, seeing summer slip between our fingers, and Cairo heating up by the minute, most people we know gone; I decided I couldn’t just wait around anymore. Czech Airlines had a really, really good deal on tickets to Sweden, and so, I bought them. A trip to Sweden we could afford, it’s not too far, and it’s the perfect place for us this summer. Courtney needs to work on his book, I need to relax, and the boys, all three, need a safe space to play. My mom’s house is pretty much in the middle of nowhere with a fenced garden for Abraham to run free in, and a forest in the back for the boys to play in. In the meantime, everything will fall into place, insha Allah.

Tonight we fly out, leaving a very hot – 45C/117F – Cairo behind for a few weeks. Whatever the future holds, we will stay cool for the next month; literally and metaphorically. See you up north!

I have a cold

It’s not the worst cold I’ve ever had, but also not light enough that I can just ignore it. Apart from the runny nose, slight fever and scratchy throat, my sinuses especially, hurt, and my glands are swollen. Most of all, I’m tired. But it can’t be helped; although Courtney – who is trying to get work done before the summer goes all crazy on us - is around to service the boys, a mother cannot just check out for x number of days – I still have to function somewhat. I am thankful for not having to go to work though. When the boys were little in Belgium, and I worked full time, I got pneumonia a couple of times. When I feel bad, I think about that, and about how lucky I am to be able to at least stay home. It’s all about perspective, right?

This morning, for example, I was laying on the couch with a cup of tea. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I looked up, I thought I heard scribble. I looked over, and within just a matter of minutes, Abraham had got a pencil off Courtney’s desk and managed to cover most of the downstairs walls with pencil marks. This is when it’s nice to be able to think, “It could be worse.”