After 5h flight on Egyptair from Barcelona to Cairo which gave me the first level of immersion into the arab world with a very efficient crew. Things started to change at arrival to Cairo where immigration kept me waiting for a while (what a chinese looking Frenh with siryan stamps on the passport is doing here?) and security people trying to backsheesh (which I sorted out playing a dumb tourist better then a fooled one) and with obvious queeing for nothing and a strong sense of authority and hierarchy...Since I got seated on the first row of the cabin, I was being asked for my boarding ticket on the flight from Cairo to Sharm El Sheij 5 times until the crew realized that we were not supposed to be in business class so they had to move the curtain one row forward... Then what I thought was a flight attendant got seated next to me and asked again my boarding ticket and my passport and I started freaking out and suspect he is a police under cover althouh he claimed to be muhandiss...And finally when we got toSharm ourluggage were forwarded in a different room and we could see our luggage drifting through the glass partition...
Anyway, after getting my bags (opened in Cairo transit) my bedouin driver was there to pick me up for a 1h drive to Dahab where I arrive in the middle of the nigth with a freezing wind but in my spartian room of 3x4 square meter and bathroom outside but by the beach near the lighthouse in a very quiet area...
I started helping at the dive club basically attending to customers because the managers are away in Cairo, but it is a very layback place and I can use all facilities of the club (diving, biking< may be climbing) with no charge! And I might move tomorrow to a house in the bedouin neighborhood of Dahab for a very cheap price, and having a change in my diet from foul for breakfast and rice for lunch and fish for dinner...So everything is perfect except for this constant breeze/wind blowing to your bones.
About arabic: most of the people here are bedouins which means desert population who only completed primary school and want to learn English and know very little fusha, adn speak bedouin which is not misryi. So I mainly speak English at work, but I am quite happy to listen to arabic music, read in arabic and being able to communicate in arabic and after all this theory grammar this is like the real thing, and by the beach...But there are arabic teacher and I plan to contact one tomorrow...
So for the moment, since I don,t have direct access to internet, I will just give you harm El Sheirj...tel. (20) 142 995 795
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