Egypt: Like You've Never Seen Before

While my esteemed colleague, Crankbait, had the pleasure of living in Egypt and was able to experience first hand the daily ins and outs of Egyptian life, I was given a twelve hour express tour of Egypt via the Suez Canal.  My warship passed through the canal transiting to and from the Persian Gulf during my 2011 deployment.

Standing six-hour watch rotations, I really didn't have much time to enjoy the sites. But what I was able to see was quite enjoyable. One thing I noticed immediately was the Egyptian army. There was a soldier standing at attention every 25 yards the entire length of the canal. Some were in pairs, but most of them stood solo out in the heat in full gear, with an AK-47 across their chest. They did have a little shack, but I never saw the soldiers use them. A very well trained force indeed. What they were guarding against was never completely made clear. Perhaps it was to prevent ships from stopping in the canal to offload people or materials. Makes sense. We passed through just before the Muslim Brotherhood debacle. 

At one point, the Suez Canal widened and there was a resort on the shore. I never caught the name, but people were sun bathing and swimming in the canal. There was a barrier net to protect from the shipping lanes. The locals would wave to us as we passed by. Pretty awesome to see some people still like us in that region.  We also passed under the Egyptian-Japanese friendship bridge, which was cool to see. 

The differences between the two sides of the canal was pretty drastic. The west side was populated from beginning to end, while the east was mostly barren desert, with the occasional pipeline or army HQ. Small fishing docks dotted both sides of the canal, but the boats were empty.

I don't post many pictures of myself.  Back when I was pushing 200 lbs and used SH-60 sonar buoys as weights.

The Suez Canal in all of its glory.  This waterway is the most vital transit system of any in the world.

These guys were dedicated.  It was easily over 100 degrees, but they had a job to do.

The Japan-Egypt Friendship Bridge. 

While the Eastern bank was dotted with soldiers every 25 yards, the Western bank had snipers.  I was lucky enough to catch a sniper and his spotter making their way to their post.  

This bridge was pretty awesome.

The resort. I would have loved to spend some time there!

Mt. 508.  One of the two SCAT (Small Caliber Action Team) positions I commanded while on Anzio.  Twin .50 caliber MG's.

Seeing Double??

I do apologize for the delay in posts, Midterm exams are coming up, so needless to say I've been occupied with that. Not to mention, Grand Theft Auto 5 came out, and I was one of those poor individuals who pre-ordered the game in September of 2012 in anticipation of a Spring 2013 release. Well that obviously didn't happen, so when it did finally come out, I had to play it to release a years worth of built up anticipation. Hey, a gamer has to get his game on, right?

Anyway.

The weather has not been very conducive for motorcycle riding for the past week. Unfortunately, I had to keep the bike in the garage all week because the rain wouldn't stop. Today however, the Sunshine State has begun to live up to its motto once again, the rains have stopped.  I decided to take the bike out today, and I'm glad I did. With a high of 86 and a 0% chance of rain, it is perfect riding weather. Clear blue skies and a light breeze. My DRZ's twin, a DRZ 400SM parked right beside me today. I probably looked like a would-be criminal because I was really checking out the SM. I've wanted to do a full SM conversion to mine for some time now, but the cost of doing so almost equates to the value of the bike itself. I do like the off road clearance/capabilities of my DRZ, because it allows me to go places I couldn't go with a bike that has standard street clearance.  I will try to stay on top of my blog, but it's going to be tough until after midterms. 

-J

This is Why I Hate People

This post is dedicated to the real assholes of the world.

Look at how this asshole parked his motorcycle.  He crammed his little rice rocket into a tiny gap between my bike and a Harley Davidson.  The Harley driver and I parked at the same time and we both said we had enough room to mount our bikes and drive away any time.  What we didn't plan on was this worthless prick pulling off this stunt.  Whoever this guy was, he wasn't even able to pull the back of his motorcycle out of the road, so on top of causing other vehicles to swerve around him, he prevented me, the Harley rider, and two other motorcycles behind ours from leaving the parking lot (as cars were parked around us).  At first I was pretty pissed off, but then I became more furious when I discovered that this jack off decided to lock his steering column so I couldn't move his bike out of the way.  I could not even get on my bike, so I sat there for 30 minutes just fuming.  Every rider that came to the parking lot I heatedly asked "is this your bike!?".  I never discovered who owned that piece of shit, but a fellow rider was nice enough to lean that bike over far enough so I could get on my DRZ and drive away.  The guy who helped me told me I should have pushed the rice rocket over on its side.  I really, truly wanted to do that, but I'm a better person than that.

An Afternoon Cruise

After my classes last Thursday, I decided to take the long way home and hit some back roads and open fields.  I wanted more content for the blog, but I also wanted to take a break from my normal routine and tear up some ground.  Since I do drive a Dual Sport, I am required by Man-Law to go off-road to make me and my motorcycle happy by tearing up some back country.  The weather called for 60% chance of severe thunderstorms in the afternoon (typical Florida), so I wore my heavy weather gear.  What happened instead, was clear blue skies with a high of 94 degrees and no rain whatsoever. The humidity was high, and it did rain later that night, but certainly not when The Weather Channel predicted.  A heavy leather jacket, rain proof steel-toed boots, and Wrangler jeans caused me to sweat horribly, but I was able to enjoy myself, despite the hot, heavy gear.  It was a beautiful day, perfect for taking the pictures I wanted, and the traffic also cooperated.  Along the way I decided to visit my parents and revisit the nearby fields and dirt roads I used to ride when I was kid.  I had a really great time, and I will definitely be doing this again soon!

-J

Expedition Egypt: Part Deux

Egypt is so legit, that even Blogger says "Nah son, you gotta break dat up into two posts."

the nose is missing.  Awesome picture.  Believe what you want but I am going to blame Napoleon, he was such a little jerk.

The answer is yes, I answered the riddle correctly the first time.  And faster than that jerk Harry Potter too, he sucks

solid gold Chair of King Tut—his queen is anointing him with oil, which is considered a tender moment.  Each is only wearing one sandal, which is a sign of fidelity to each other. 

Red Sea, What’s cool about this? I got to drive under it son!  Ain’t modern architecture amazing?

Base of Mt. Sinai (Below).  Outside of St. Catherine’s Monastery.

St. Catherine’s Monastery at the base of Mt. Sinai.  It housed the Burning Bush and either a replica or the supposed actual Ten Commandments. It was over 10 years ago, and I’m old.

Inside of the monastery town.  This is the walkway up to the base of Mt. Sinai.  It was also home to a Greek Orthodox Cathedral.

Mt. Sinai at sunrise, from the top.  My mother and I climbed to the top with the rest of an expedition and we took a camel halfway up before it became too steep to travel on anything other than foot.  It was freezing cold as well.  The camels and the pathway still give me nightmares.  If anyone has ever ridden a camel, you know that when they walk the first thing that comes to mind is “Weebles wobble but they won’t fall down!” except that you don’t remember the second half of that saying when you are on top of a camel, walking on a tiny pathway barely wide enough to fit 5 people as the camel walks along the side of the path over a sheer drop over 100 feet.  “Nightmare Fuel” doesn’t even do it justice.  I still have bad dreams about it.  Another significant event shall we say was when my mother was freezing cold.  A French lady stopped as I was huddling around my mother hugging her trying to get her warm.  We were on the verge of turning back because my mom was too cold, but this French lady gave my mother a sweater out of the goodness of her heart, so I guess that there is one nice French person.  I take nothing back that I’ve ever said about the rest of the French though.

The Nile River Delta! Except this delta doesn’t provide crappy service, unsmiling faces or stick you in coach class next to a guy with the flu or SARS who is spread out across the entire row and snores, and the only compensation they give you is a seatbelt that works.  No, this Delta has people who actually care. Also it is amazingly beautiful.  Man I miss Egypt.   

Valley of the Kings (Above & Below)

All joking aside, I loved Egypt.  It was an amazingly unique experience I was blessed to enjoy and from which I grew tremendously as a person.  People can stereotype Africa and Muslim countries all they want, but there are just as many crappy, crazy people in literally any other country.  Your religion may make up a large portion of who you are but it doesn’t make you a good or a bad person, that much is up to the individual. I saw good and bad, but no more than I’ve seen in Japan, England, France and America.

Time for me to #logoff

Expedition Egypt

Hello readers (and my one follower)!

 This post comes to you directly from Crankbait.  A dear friend and recent UCF grad who betrayed the Sunshine State all because he wanted to experience "seasons".  Anyway, I asked if he would share his experiences of living in Egypt and he happily agreed.  So here you go!

Welcome everyone, to another edition of the Florida Rider.  I’ll be guest blogging on here from time to time when Jimmy asks me to write for him.  So I’ll start by introducing myself.

            I’m much like the lycan/vampire hybrid you see in the “Underworld” series in that I was raised by a Southern mother and a Northern father and have lived in both the South and North as well as the barren wasteland that is the Midwest.  My Texas-born-and-raised grandfather living with me has only furthered the cruel social experiment, and as a result I have this to show for it.  

What the Hell, right?

I kid about the Midwest, but seriously my home state is a little lacking in major cities, (we have 2, one of which half belongs to another state, so thanks for nothing Kansas).  As you can already tell, I’m going to be a bit different than Jimmy when it comes to blogging.   I may be a little abrasive, some might not even find me funny.  Too bad. Don’t worry, I’ll save the really incendiary stuff for Xbox.  You won’t get anything intentionally offensive out of me, no sir.  So lets get on with it, homies. 

I’ll make the rest of my bio short and sweet for everyone.  I graduated from UCF with a degree in Marketing (lol) and I love hockey.  Specifically #USABestHockey (sorry Canada) #worldjuniors2013.  I don’t associate with a political party because I think they are hot dumpster fires, I don’t abide by any religion or credo other than “don’t be a terrible person”.  I believe that, if there is a Jesus, he most certainly COULD hit a curve ball, that batting average is at the least the second worst way to judge a baseball player’s ability, and that every child deserves the right to have only 151 Pokémon.  And on a serious note parents, when your kid is 18, stop doing everything for him; It’s time to let lil Johnny grow up.   Speaking of your kids, I also believe that it should be illegal to dress your child in Jorts and Crew socks

Andrei, C’mon man.  End the madness, people.

I have been blessed to travel all over the world and visit different countries for extended periods of time.  These experiences have taught me a great deal of perspective on how the world works and shown me the ludicrousness of racism and bigotry, which in my opinion essentially boils down to unwillingness to understand and embrace a culture different than your own.  I will go into what I learned from my specific travel in Egypt at the end of this post, but first let us all step into my time machine and get this puppy rollin’ back to 1999.

I want all of you to think of Egypt, go ahead, close your eyes.  If you think of flying carpets and lamps, open your eyes and slap yourself, you racist.  This isn’t a 1995 Disney movie.

Egypt was a beautiful place, and yes, blah blah blah, I know much of it is desert. I get that.  But the country was still beautiful.  The people there were just wonderful.  They loved tourists, and most in fact went out of their way to help you.  One of the best things I remember was going to the Khal el Khalil; which is the oldest market in Cairo, dating back to biblical times actually.  The staircases, the pathways, all built by hand.  It captured an essential part of Egyptian life…haggling.  You could bargain and haggle your way into any price, for ANY object.  There was never a set price.  In fact I remember my grandfather haggling over a gallon of milk. MILK, people.  It was wild.  Back to the market though. When you enter the market they have some military there armed with AK-47’s.  If that doesn’t tell you to keep in line, boy howdy I don’t know what will.   The was a vast maze of stores that went on forever.  The walkways were cramped so you needed to be prepared to jostle with people and keep a firm hold on your belongings.  The shop owners would sit or stand on the steps outside of the shop and cry out what their shop had and in some cases would try to lure people into the shop to bargain. 

An effective tactic that we found was to know roughly what you were looking for beforehand.  You could do that by going one day and just looking around, not buying, in some shops.  Many shops carried similar products so you could get a good idea of what you liked.  Now this is not to say that all shops were the same, but just that similar products were carried. But having an idea beforehand was essential to getting a good price.  You could simply ask the shop owner how much a certain thing was and they’d give you a price.  If you didn’t like it you just say “no thanks” and walk off.  Odds are that they will come follow you and haggle with you over the price.  They want a sale as badly as you want your trinkets and such.  No one goes around the world to come back empty handed, c’mon people.  I wish I had some pictures of the market to show you, but I cannot find my album with those pictures.  In other words, It is in storage in another state.

Now, I have no idea what the police force is like now with the current state of affairs, but I do know that when I was there they were fun to watch.  They didn’t have guns, just the billy clubs and a whistle. They had to chase people down on foot if there was a problem.  I once watched in awe of a police officer as he hauled ass through an intersection to chase down a bus and he jumped on the bus through the door AS IT WAS MOVING.  Egypt’s Finest, doin it big.  Driving there was nothing short of a terrifying and frightenly maddening experience.  Hey LA, think your traffic is bad? LOL.  Try driving in Cairo, ever.  In LA you nerds have to stay in your lanes and obey traffic laws, boo hoo.  In Cairo, traffic laws and lanes don’t account for jack.  They turn a 4 lane road into a 7 lane road just because they feel like it.  No one obeys the traffic signals, they stop and go as they please.  Have you seen any zombie movie were the zombies run together in a huge pack through a city street and its like a swarm of ants? Now pretend those zombies are actually cars driven by real people.  That’s the best way I can describe it.  Pure madness.

            Taxis were always an adventure.  You could haggle on prices before you even left and buddy make sure you got the price BEFORE you step in the car because they can change the price on you like Kim Kardashian changes husbands.  The interesting thing was that there were legal and illegal taxis, but it wasn’t very heavily policed.  Imagine walking down Broadway in New York and some random dude pulls up next to you and asks you if you want a ride, but you have to pay him.  Same story, different place.  It was always a crap shoot doing that, because the illegal taxi drivers didn’t have to adhere to the same pricing strategies etc.  Now when I say “illegal” taxi drivers what I mean is that these guys made a living taxiing people around, but they weren’t part of a licensed company.  Sometimes the illegal drivers would try to mess with people and I can’t tell you the number of times they tried to change the price etc and people would say, “yes well the cops are over there so you’ll take the price we agreed upon” and they would just drive off instead of collecting a fare.  Sad, but true. 

The only dark side I ever saw to Egypt was involving licensed Taxis ironically.  Once my mother and grandmother were in a taxi and there was an accident involving the taxi they rode in.  Apparently in Egypt, even if you are licensed, getting in an accident while driving tourists around is BIG trouble.  The police according to my grandfather “will hold the foreigners partially responsible for the accident, sometimes will haul you off to jail and with any interaction between police and foreigners there will be very steep fines”.  Now my grandfather lived there for over a year so he is a qualified source, so pipe down you liberal hippies who are probably wallowing in your tears from the Nixon era, shouting “QUIT BEING RACIST”.  But bottom line, involvement with authorities comes at a big price to foreigners. 

            There are so many things I could tell you about the culture.  It was out of respect that we stayed out of the streets when were heard the Prayers going on.  Many people would stop on the sidewalks or the street medians to pray.  They showed respect to the Christians and to the foreigners, so why should we not do the same no?  They appreciated the differences we all shared and in turn it taught me as well.  There was a strong sense of community as well.  Things that would probably not happen in America because everyone is so lawsuit happy and this country is so whiny and sensitive about every little thing, happen in Egypt.  There was a little girl who was hit by a truck on the street below our flat, and the truck driver tried to drive off.  Guaranteed, in America people would have let that jerk drive off and taken down his license plate.  Yeah, well, in Egypt that crap don’t fly.  People IMMEDIATELY surrounded the truck as another group tended to the girl.  The truck driver tried to drive through the crowd and someone dragged his sorry behind out of the truck while another turned the car off.  I watched a citizens arrest from the 7^th story.  It was bittersweet, as what I assume was the father of the girl had to pick the girl up in his arms and started sprinting for the nearest hospital, through the streets.  The nearest hospital was at least 5 miles I knew.  It was terrible.  But the jagweed who hit the girl was apprehended.  Yeah, time to step up your game America.(see: lawsuit because my feewings were huwt after I hit da girl).

            There was so much more that I could tell you about Egypt but I am at almost 2000 words now, so I’ll put it in pictures from here on out with some blurbs about each picture if needed.  Hope y’all enjoy, and Go USA.

Memphis, Egypt

Pyramids of Giza.  Khafre’s (front) and Menkaure’s (back).  

Step Pyramid of King Zoser.  In 6^th grade we had to build Egyptian stuff for our projects, and I made an exact replica of this.  Best BELIEVE I got an A on that section.

Khufu's "Great Pyramid"

St. Augustine Beach

Good afternoon, readers!

I decided to take a ride to the beach with my dad for a mini family get together.  The weather cooperated beautifully for the 200 mile round trip adventure.  We stuck to the back roads (as any motorcyclist knows, that's the only way to do it!) and really enjoyed the drive.  This was the farthest trip I've ever taken on the DRZ and surprisingly, my ass didn't hurt until I got off the bike!  Putting 200 miles on a single cylinder motorcycle does indeed sound like quite a feat and truth be told, it really was!  But with brand new chain and sprockets, I really had a comfortable, smooth ride.  I was really enjoying myself and it felt great to share this experience with my dad.  My DRZ 400 did struggle with keeping up with his Triumph 675, but dual sports aren't built for speed.  The traffic was marginal until we hit Palatka, after that I really had to keep on my toes.  The most pleasurable part of the drive was A1A.  A great stretch of highway that runs along the coastline all down the Florida Atlantic Coast.  Speed limit wasn't more than 45 mph, but the setting of a coastal highway with all of its sunshine, coastal breeze, beach goers, and restaurants was really enjoyable.  We met up with family and friends and enjoyed a beautiful day in the surf.

After 4-5 hours at the beach, we decided to grab some lunch before heading back home.  This is Florida, and there's no guarantee that it won't rain on you.  Leaving the beach was quite an experience.  I was on a dual sport and even I struggled in some of the areas of soft sand.  My dad had an even more difficult time on his Triumph.  We never lost control, but the transit back to pavement seemed to take forever.  We had lunch at the World Famous Oasis Restaurant.  If you haven't been there, make it a point to!  Amazing food and a great menu selection.

The weather had turned sour, but luckily for us we managed to stay behind the storms as the passed through, so only the roads were wet.  We never got rained on directly.  Typical of Florida, once we returned home the sun began to shine again.  I stripped out of my sweaty, sand-filled clothes and proceeded to wash down the motorcycle (and myself).  So much sand everywhere but it was certainly worth it.  I forgot how much fun the beach can be, especially if you enjoy it on a motorcycle.  For me, the journey was just as enjoyable as the destination.  I will certainly be making that trip again.