Day 190 - Shopping Mall and Movies
Wednesday, January 9th, 2019.
Today we got up late and part of me wanted to stay another day home but at the same time, I wanted to help Gregory find enough malaria medicine. We had a late breakfast and we left the apartment by noon. We took an Uber in search of pharmacies. We found three more and bought all the boxes they had. Now we are all set for our time in Ethiopia and Tanzania, our next destinations.
We made to the 1:00 movie. The kids wanted to watch Ralph Breaks The Internet. What an experience! The movie theater was full of children under 10 years old -- with very few chaperones. They were very loud, talking on their phones, playing games, and chatting through the whole movie! At first, I tried to enjoy and just observe their behavior, but after a while, it got annoying. I turned around and asked the girls behind to please be quiet because we needed to listen to understand. I don’t think they understood a word I said, they shushed for a few minutes but then it just got very loud so I changed seats.
I don’t know what was worse, the loud girls behind the first seat or the boy kicking my new seat! I realized that they didn’t care about hearing it, because the movie was in English with subtitles in Arabic or maybe it was boring for them. In any case, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, plus the movie wasn’t that great. I guess these are the things you do for your kids. Sunshine and Daniel needed a fun day.
Afterward, Sunshine wanted to get Sushi and because my mom had given her money, and she decided to use for food. Daniel and I went downstairs to get a coffee. It was fun to observe how the women dressed and to see how the younger generations that don’t cover their heads as much as the older ones.
We did some shopping, nothing interesting. I wanted to buy an Egyptian cartouche but since this was a fancy, Western style mall, they didn’t have "Egyptian" stuff. They mostly had Western stores like Starbucks, H&M, etc. Definitely a different social class, most of the children that we saw on the cinema had cell phones and were wearing brand name clothes.
After that, we decided to walk home instead of calling Uber. The neighborhood is nice but there are so many buildings under construction. We even saw some poor families living in empty buildings. I know this, because there were clothes hanging outside some buildings that were under construction and another family had taken some old chairs outside and sat in the middle of a shady area. We also found some puppies waiting for their mamma to bring them food, so we had to stop and take pictures, It was chilly but we finally made it home in time for late lunch. I didn’t think anybody was going to be hungry after eating all that popcorn (a treat we rarely get at home) but we were.
We tried to eat all our leftovers since we are leaving tonight, at 2:30am! [Gregory's note: what sane airport schedules flights at 2am, or 4am like Lichita's? Come on, guys!]
We finished packing and then we rested. It would have been great if we had internet but it still wasn't working. We had an awesome large TV and guess what? 2 or 3 channels in English. Most of the channels are Muslim prayers.
We wanted to leave earlier to see if we could get in the international lounge and get internet but we ended leaving at 11:00pm because Gregory wasn’t feeling well. I did worry a little bit because he never lies down unless it's serious. We let him rest, then we requested an Uber to the airport. We made it almost at midnight and went through all the security checkpoints. I think we had to go through three. It took a while to get our suitcases to check in and when we finally did, it was almost 1:00am. The kids were disappointed because they wanted to spend a good amount of time in the lounge and online.
It also took us a while to find the lounge, which wasn’t as nice as the one in Jordan but it had free snakcs, drinks, and most importantly, WiFi. Time went fast and we left the lounge close to 2:00. Now I was worried and started to walk fast. Believe it or not, there was another security checkpoint! Again, we had to take off our shoes and jackets.
Everything was fine until they stopped Gregory, saying he had a knife in his bag. At first, I thought he had forgotten to put away the Swiss Army knives that they had tried to confiscate on our way from Luxor, but no, it was his razor blades he had just bought. He got upset and kept telling the police that he needed them. [Gregory's note: the guard didn't throw the blades out, he set them on his little table, right in front of him. If he had thrown them out, I would have walked away, but he looked like a small bribe might get them back.]
I turned around and yelled at him to let it go or I would divorce him. Another guy who spoke some English was trying to help. I just got so mad that I told the kids to walk away and get on the plane [she didn't]. Daniel was crying [because she was screaming about divorce] and that made me more upset [vicious cycle].
[Gregory's note: I couldn't hear her words. All I heard was Lili screaming, which caused Daniel to cry, neither of which was helpful to the situation, but certainly made up the guard's mind to threaten me, or so said the FIFA official who was trying to "help" but knew all about bribery. Finally, another guard threw the blades away, and I gave up.]
We were almost the last ones on the plane and of course, there was no space in the top compartment for our [Lili's] backpack [everyone else's fit fine]. The plane was full and the seat was narrow [not as narrow as US airlines] but whatever, we were all tired and we just wanted to get some sleep. I couldn’t because I was still very mad at Gregory, plus the plane wasn’t taking off. We sat on the ground until 3:00am and I was wondering what was going on but no one said anything [can you say, Africa?].
We slept for a couple of hours and then they woke us up for breakfast. I should just have said no thank you, but instead I ate eggs and Daniel’s beans! I fell asleep again and then we landed on time around 7:30am in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia!
Today we got up late and part of me wanted to stay another day home but at the same time, I wanted to help Gregory find enough malaria medicine. We had a late breakfast and we left the apartment by noon. We took an Uber in search of pharmacies. We found three more and bought all the boxes they had. Now we are all set for our time in Ethiopia and Tanzania, our next destinations.
We made to the 1:00 movie. The kids wanted to watch Ralph Breaks The Internet. What an experience! The movie theater was full of children under 10 years old -- with very few chaperones. They were very loud, talking on their phones, playing games, and chatting through the whole movie! At first, I tried to enjoy and just observe their behavior, but after a while, it got annoying. I turned around and asked the girls behind to please be quiet because we needed to listen to understand. I don’t think they understood a word I said, they shushed for a few minutes but then it just got very loud so I changed seats.
I don’t know what was worse, the loud girls behind the first seat or the boy kicking my new seat! I realized that they didn’t care about hearing it, because the movie was in English with subtitles in Arabic or maybe it was boring for them. In any case, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, plus the movie wasn’t that great. I guess these are the things you do for your kids. Sunshine and Daniel needed a fun day.
Afterward, Sunshine wanted to get Sushi and because my mom had given her money, and she decided to use for food. Daniel and I went downstairs to get a coffee. It was fun to observe how the women dressed and to see how the younger generations that don’t cover their heads as much as the older ones.
We did some shopping, nothing interesting. I wanted to buy an Egyptian cartouche but since this was a fancy, Western style mall, they didn’t have "Egyptian" stuff. They mostly had Western stores like Starbucks, H&M, etc. Definitely a different social class, most of the children that we saw on the cinema had cell phones and were wearing brand name clothes.
After that, we decided to walk home instead of calling Uber. The neighborhood is nice but there are so many buildings under construction. We even saw some poor families living in empty buildings. I know this, because there were clothes hanging outside some buildings that were under construction and another family had taken some old chairs outside and sat in the middle of a shady area. We also found some puppies waiting for their mamma to bring them food, so we had to stop and take pictures, It was chilly but we finally made it home in time for late lunch. I didn’t think anybody was going to be hungry after eating all that popcorn (a treat we rarely get at home) but we were.
We tried to eat all our leftovers since we are leaving tonight, at 2:30am! [Gregory's note: what sane airport schedules flights at 2am, or 4am like Lichita's? Come on, guys!]
We finished packing and then we rested. It would have been great if we had internet but it still wasn't working. We had an awesome large TV and guess what? 2 or 3 channels in English. Most of the channels are Muslim prayers.
We wanted to leave earlier to see if we could get in the international lounge and get internet but we ended leaving at 11:00pm because Gregory wasn’t feeling well. I did worry a little bit because he never lies down unless it's serious. We let him rest, then we requested an Uber to the airport. We made it almost at midnight and went through all the security checkpoints. I think we had to go through three. It took a while to get our suitcases to check in and when we finally did, it was almost 1:00am. The kids were disappointed because they wanted to spend a good amount of time in the lounge and online.
It also took us a while to find the lounge, which wasn’t as nice as the one in Jordan but it had free snakcs, drinks, and most importantly, WiFi. Time went fast and we left the lounge close to 2:00. Now I was worried and started to walk fast. Believe it or not, there was another security checkpoint! Again, we had to take off our shoes and jackets.
Everything was fine until they stopped Gregory, saying he had a knife in his bag. At first, I thought he had forgotten to put away the Swiss Army knives that they had tried to confiscate on our way from Luxor, but no, it was his razor blades he had just bought. He got upset and kept telling the police that he needed them. [Gregory's note: the guard didn't throw the blades out, he set them on his little table, right in front of him. If he had thrown them out, I would have walked away, but he looked like a small bribe might get them back.]
I turned around and yelled at him to let it go or I would divorce him. Another guy who spoke some English was trying to help. I just got so mad that I told the kids to walk away and get on the plane [she didn't]. Daniel was crying [because she was screaming about divorce] and that made me more upset [vicious cycle].
[Gregory's note: I couldn't hear her words. All I heard was Lili screaming, which caused Daniel to cry, neither of which was helpful to the situation, but certainly made up the guard's mind to threaten me, or so said the FIFA official who was trying to "help" but knew all about bribery. Finally, another guard threw the blades away, and I gave up.]
We were almost the last ones on the plane and of course, there was no space in the top compartment for our [Lili's] backpack [everyone else's fit fine]. The plane was full and the seat was narrow [not as narrow as US airlines] but whatever, we were all tired and we just wanted to get some sleep. I couldn’t because I was still very mad at Gregory, plus the plane wasn’t taking off. We sat on the ground until 3:00am and I was wondering what was going on but no one said anything [can you say, Africa?].
We slept for a couple of hours and then they woke us up for breakfast. I should just have said no thank you, but instead I ate eggs and Daniel’s beans! I fell asleep again and then we landed on time around 7:30am in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia!
To see pictures please click here
https://photos.app.goo.gl/e7nP8mYJeBBSzyyb8
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