The prelude and postlude of my Egypt Trip

*sighs*

Just finished catching up on the things I've missed during my 10 day vacation; especially my cyber-related activities such as reading blogs, emails, checking facebook, organising pictures and many more. I am the only awake person in the house. Rest of the family are asleep. I can't blame them especially after having one of the worst flights ever.

Our flight was scheduled at 19:30 p.m on Thursday. But because of a silly mistake, Saudi Airlines sent a smaller plane that could not contain all the passengers for the flight. Unfortunately, we were among the victims who have been told to wait till the next plane that's scheduled at 2:10 a.m.; 7 hours later. Thanks to my dad's negotiation skills, we let them partially compensate us for the delay by letting us sit in the first class lounge.

Things didn't go as anticipated and the plane boarded at 5:30 a.m. We arrived at Jeddah at 8:30 a.m and we spent another damned 2 hours and half waiting for our bags to be transported from the aircraft to the shuttle. With the equivalent time wasted (almost 18 hours of airport time), I could have travelled to Canada.

But I won't this last day ruin the joy of the fabulous 10 days of my holiday. Such vacations help in recharging my batteries for at least 3 months of the routine life I am coming back to. I hope it lasts longer this time since my next vacation is in June.

The only drawback of this whole journey was the wintery weather. I swam for one day in Hurgada but only for 20 minutes. The water was so cold that it felt like swords piercing through my guts. It was the first time I swim in such cold water.

I was a bit hesitant about this whole trip. First, I am going with family. Second, we are going with family friends - who I never managed to tolerate despite the long friendship they have with my parents – since the day I was born i.e. more than 23 years of friendship. Third, our invitation to Egypt was by another close family friend that we have not seen for the last 12 years. So it was kind of awkward to see them again after such a long period especially since we haven't stayed in touch with their kids. So we were clueless to how they look like and how their characters have developed. Thankfully, none of my concerns were an issue. The Hosting family showered us with their generous hospitality and entertained us with their joyous sense of humour. I managed to get along with the annoying family and communicating with them only when necessary. And finally, I thanked God for travelling with my own family. Why would I complain when I have a father who pays, a mom who organises and packs, a sister who relieves me of my photographing duties by her obsession of capturing every single moment of our journey (for your information, she filled the camera's SD card (2 GB) twice...i.e. 4 GBs of pictures), and a brother who I bully to provide me with other services I require?

There is so much to tell. I'll post about them later. But right now, I need to get some sleep.