The first day of the rest of our lives

That’s it: I’ve quit my job, we’ve packed up our stuff and left our house, friends and the boys’ country of birth, to move to a place we’ve never been to before; a place with a university that offered Courtney, my husband, a great job as an assistant professor. It’s our first day in Cairo, Egypt: everything is big, strange, noisy, foreign, scary, bright, fragrant and hot. I still haven’t quite recovered from the flight last night (or from the past busy weeks and the teary-eyed goodbyes to all our friends at the train station and airport for all that matters) and certainly not from the taxi ride from the airport to our new house; our new huge apartment, at which we arrived at about midnight last night, greeted by our American downstairs neighbors. They seem nice. Our house is nice. We’re very excited to start our new life here.