Moving Around in Cairo

I have arrived in Cairo for over three months now with my family but I still cannot say that we are well settled into our new home. Reason is that I am still waiting for my car to arrive. Moving around Cairo is not an easy task, especially if you are not sure how to say where you are going in Arabic. Forget about the unmarked micro buses plying the busy streets. Not knowing your destination in Arabic means that you can forget about taking taxis too unless you want to risk a merry-go-round and get ripped off. To have a decent life here, you need a car to move around and better still a chauffeur so that you can also forget about the parking problem.

I placed an order for a brand new Opel Vectra last month and I am now in the final stage of clearing all the paperwork. Hopefully the car can be delivered before the end of the month. This is a huge purchase for me and my first car. I thought of buying a cheaper Japanese or Korean car but they were mostly locally assembled and I do not find them tough enough for the harsh roads of Cairo. The Vectra is assembled in Germany and it comes with 6 air-bags and a whole suite of state of the art features like Easytronic transmission, a hybrid of automatic and manual transmission. Bottomline, Vectra is a very sturdy car and I really feel safe in it.

I also considered buying a second-hand car from other diplomats in Cairo but I dropped the idea. I just want to have a brand new car with warranty, no hidden history and no nasty maintenance problems. Also, I did not come across any suitable cars since my arrival. I am ready to bear the depreciation for the first few years so buying a new car is a natural choice. I am starting to read up about cars and I'm feeling excited about driving in my Vectra. Only then I can truly start to settle down to life in Cairo.

Recent Videos and Photos Taken in Egypt

I have not uploaded new video clips and photos for quite sometime now. Here are the three recent videos I have uploaded on my Youtube channel and a new photo album on MSN Space. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_UKodBWJDs

Watch two other videos through the links below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d90dLM6XHo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0VjuyO26Ss

Below are a couple photos for your preview. Click here for the album.

Settling Down In Cairo

It has been more than a month since I arrived in Cairo with my family. Swarmed with work and faced with the challenge of adapting to the new environment with a family, I was unable to find the mood to blog. To recap, we stayed at the Cairo Marriott Hotel for about 3 weeks before moving into our rented apartment near my office. We had to extend our hotel stay because of an unexpected delay in the arrival of my shipment. Our mover explained that the delay was due to bad weather and port congestion. There is nothing much we can do about that. The hotel stay was nice but we really yearned for our own home to settle in. Living in a hotel for such a long time can be quite unsettling and costly as well.

We were overjoyed when our shipment was delivered but we have hard work cut out for us at the same time. Given the short notice of delivery, I was unable to clean up the apartment beforehand. All our things were unpacked and placed in the dirty cabinets, shelves and floor. The whole apartment was in a mess. I had to toil through the day till late night cleaning the kitchen, dining area, master bedroom and the living area so that Irene and Le Le can move in. The amount of dirt was unimaginable and I had to keep changing the mop water which turned black so quickly. After much hard work, I managed to keep the mess to the study and guest rooms. We moved in a couple of days after the delivery of our shipment.

The cleaning work did not stop after moving in and we had to take turns mopping up the place and tidy up the mess. It has been two weeks now and we are left with only the two guest rooms to shape up. Fortunately, I managed to get back the cleaner I engaged to clean my apartment during my language studies and she will be reporting to work tomorrow. Besides the cleaning, we did tremendous amount of shopping for household items. Every trip to the hypermart left us drained and tired. Le Le was usually asleep by the time we reached home. After a few rounds of shopping, I think we have almost fully equipped our home in Cairo.

The only problem we faced was looking for the child-safety doors to our staircase. After searching through all the places we can think of, we were unable to find a suitable door off-the-shelf. In the end, we had to call in a carpenter to custom make two doors, one for the upper floor and one on the lower floor. Yes, we are living in a duplex. Given a choice, we would have opt for a one floor apartment for child-safety and comfort. We are really not used to climbing up and down the stairs so frequently. Irene is now complaining of aches in her feet.

That's all for now folks. I will upload some photos and videos when I can find time.