New Friendships!!

Thank god... finally i go back down to cairo after 3 weeks of being pretty broke and extremly busy ... it was awesome and i was really surprised about the warm welcome i got over there from my close friends ... it was really nice and i was really happy to see them after all this time ... the the highlights of this weekend was basically that i got to know some new faces while i was there which were solman from pakistan which is a really cool guy ... he's a CS grad. been in the states adventurous from the way i see it when he was talking about his experiences ... "prefer not to say haha" ... Kent from Canada ... Kent has been here for a while but it was the 1st time for me to get to know him better and sit down and talk with him ... it turns out that he's also a CS grad and he works right now for silverkey as a "supporter" for the systems that are developed over there ... which is a cool thing from the way i see ... and finally Mehmet from Turkey... which is a really cool guy with impressive @ xp ... he went to ukraine and he's been in aiesec for a long time till now ... he's currently an alumnus but he's grabbing on to aiesec with his teeth ... its kinda funny thou ... cuz i kinda see myself like that at the moment and am still in the organization ... i can't imagine myself when i leave how the hell would i be??http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m15/creativity55421/IMG_0397.jpg
anyways ... during the weekend i attended AASTC's LTS "Local training seminar" for the newly recruited members where i got to see some old faces like Roudy, Tarek Talaat, Ma'adawy, and some other ppl that I didn't see for a looooooooooooong time !!
i was really happy that i came down this weekend ... to me it was like a really big "FAMILY" reunion !!
Love ya guys

Swimming in the Desert

Last weekend I decided to go to Siwa for my 1st time ... it was a BLAST ... It was me, nay nay, janna, martina, taher, dodi, and adam... I had so much fun and it was a really unique experience... it included: Safari, Sand Surfing, camping out in the middle of the desert, checking out the hot and cold springs, bike ride all around the oasis checking out the temple of the oracle, and mountain of the dead... the views were amazing ... we also passed by a salty lake which was also in the middle of the desert right on the outskirts of the village ... the restaurant that we went to for breakfast was a really cool chillout place... we started with bike ride and it lasted like almost for 2 hours which was really nice ... we checked out the historical places and saw the locals take a dip into the springs which looked really tempting to join them but too bad i didn't have my trunks on :D hehe ... after that we take off into the desert and MAN that was a rollercoaster ride right there ... we passed through alot of steep sand dunes and it really felt good ... we stopped at this spring at the begining since there was something wrong with one of the jeeps and i decided to take a dip since it was really hot ... after that jeep is fixed we go 1st to sand surf and man did that feel good since its been a while for me since i last boarded anywhere and atleast I know now that i didn't totally loose my touch, i must admit that i fell a couple of times but i get the hang of it besides it's still kinda different than sk8boarding and snow boarding, true it's the same concept but the terrain makes a difference!! ...at night we set up camp and we had a kick ass dinner made by the bedoen guides... it was really good that ppl were eating like they had nothing like that before, it was just perfect!!... we play asshole for the rest of the night and then sleep ... the weather was really hot and then it was cool at night ... but when it passed midnight things were really crazy cuz everyone of us were freezing ... they guys had blankets and we had our sweaters and jackets packed up so we were totally fine at that time ... next day we go to the hot and cold springs and it was awesome ... the hot spring was very much saturated with sulpher to the extent that i had a 5 mins dip into it and i came out with sulpher on my shorts, after that we head to the cold springs and damn i was really impressed how pure and clear it was and the more astonishing thing is that there was fish in it, YES FISH ppl ... it was really amazing how that ecosystem was like ... like nothing i've seen before .... after that we head back in town get ready and then we stopped in Marsa Matrouh for a really REALLY good fish dinner ... oh and word of advice ... MAKE SURE U GO WITH AN EGYPTIAN SO THAT YOU WON'T GET RIPPED OFF thats if you wanna go and eat fish ... cuz the check was for 300 but we paid 227 after we calculated everything and our egyptian friend helped us in reading the check !!

Back to SKOOOOOOOOL

3 days left for summer to end .... :( I can't believe it ended this fast ... come to realize this but... this summer will be practically my last to spend in egypt !!! next week college starts and i need to get my professors to agree on me taking their courses as independant studies since am working at the same time and I'm not planning to leave this amazing job i have ... they all know that am I'm an A student and that i manage my time fairly good so i think it'll be easy for me to convince them !! I just hope everything works out to the best and that I get my project done on time cuz by the end of this semester everything will be very hectic ... travelling ... preparing the international presidents meeting ....etc and getting ready to go on my 1st traineeship "yaaaaay" ... january is also close and i ought to get prepared for the colombian MC elections ... I need to be so prepared that I'll pass with flying colors !!! ... wish me luck every1!!

I also had my 1st LC meeting yesterday in montazah which wasn't that bad ... it was cool to see everybody again !! and since am on national support right now ... I wish my LC the best of luck and that I will be there for support at all times...

not to mention alot of my friends have left as well back to their countries ... Dolph went back to the netherlands, the dutch ppl went back home as well, thank god that jerardo,perci,naynay,harrison and others are still here to keep me company ... if it weren't for them I'd go crazy here in egypt right now after almost 5 years of being here ... it's way over my head ppl ... spending some time here is cool but 5 years ... that's a little over the limit for a guy like me haha ...

wish every1 the best in persuing what they want ... and i wish myself that everything goes swell in the comming 6 months !!

contradicting day!!

ok so am back in cairo having a wonderful time with my girl and my good friends .... we chyll we have fun we do everything we expect to do to have FUN .... on friday we threw Mino a farewell party which was the most EXTREME party that I've have since i came back from the states ... basically I've never had such a house party ever here in Egypt ... I mean the fact that I danced sooo hard for almost 6 hours straight with loads of ppl

... oh man it was intense ... but late in the hours of the next mornin I realize that I'm about to let go of Mino for almost 7 months for me to see her again since I left her at the airport and said goodbye... it just hit me right there ... my whole day of happiness of being with her and partying like that turned into a sad gazing day of not knowing what to feel except all I want was that time to last forever !! the party was very cool ... everyone is extremely happy about it and we had almost every1 from cairo to be there which made the party even more cooler !! FEAST YOUR EYES ON WHAT YOU MISSED !!! .... and thats not even half of what happened ... believe me ;)

Y'all of u who wanna dig into more of what happened ... check my photobucket

"Somewhere in Cairo"

lo0o0o0ol, now that was the funniest quote i took off of someone. Harrison, the nigerian trainee "a.k.a. Harrisoonaa" haha said that when we were chylling at al shader fitir place in mohandesin ... i can't recall who he was talking but what i know for sure is that that person was asking for directions to come over since it was me him and almost 80% of the trainee's of cairo which was a damn cool gathering and he blurts out and says " aahhh well man I'm somewhere in cairo eating fitir with everyone ... comon over !!!!" how the hell is he supposed to know where are we when you say smthin like that .... haha ... every1 heard that and started cracking up on the floor ... it was hilarious!!

ok backtracking a bit and starting back to the beginning of my weekend ...
at first I was invited for dinner with the country director of amideast since me and him go way back. it was really cool ... me, Mino, ney ney, Janna, and Nisrin went all together and we met up with Steve" the CD of amideast" along with some other people who are interns in amideast cairo which were shannon and sarah ... they were cool and the company was just amazing ... i had so much fun that night ... after taking off from dinner ... Pam was throwing a party and we just had to be there ... so we take off and arrive there around 12am which wasn't that late cuz the party was just starting !!! we played "flip-cups" so it was me"american", Simon"australian",tom"australian", Jan"German", and Harrison"nigerian" on one team ... and the other team was a bunch of american "mid-westerners" who really knew how to kick ass when it came to that game ... as for me I did my job but my advice ... never play flip-cups with germans on your team ... no offence guys but "YOU SUCK" haha... after playing that and me talking with Mino for a while ... not to mention mingling with everybody and catching up with harrison since it's been a long time since we last met eachother ... we took off to Rhea's place which was one of the coolest apts. I've seen in cairo so far ... Rhea is such an adorable gurl ... i just love her ... we hung out till like 6am watching movies and drinking beer!!
it was so cool ...

on the next day we went to al shader for fitir and we had so much fun over there since we were foolin around "we were kinda loud thou" but hell Rhea knew the owner of the place which was so cool cuz we had some kind of extremely special treatment ... it was so cool ... the waiters came every now and then asking us if everything is ok , "is the food good?, is the shisha good?, do you need anything else?" damn it was gr8 ... and then Harrison came out with his now well known slogan "somewhere in cairo" which now we wud say it whenever we get lost in cairo and then laugh about it !!.... after fitir we took off to Rhea's place again which was soo cool again haha cuz basically we had more fun this time by watching barbarshop 2 and stasky and hutch ... not to mention the fact that every1 was a foreigner ... but every1 understood the humor of those movies which made me soo fucking happy since it reminds me of being back in the states with my friends !!! "damn i miss those days"


third and last day ... we wake up and me, Mino, and Janna take off to see Harrison and the german Trainee's new place in mohandisin ... which was really sweet.. it was smthin like mtv cribs " only mentioning the fact that we're in egypt so it's actually nothing compared to mtv cribs hehe"
we chill all day long and then the time came for me to leave all the funn and come back to alex on the 10pm train said bye to everyone ... give my girl "mino" a kiss goodbye and leave!... I miss you cairo ... and i miss everybody there ... await my return next weekend guys ... I promise !!!

Working in Amideast

ok so it's been almost 3 weeks since i start working here in amideast which is really cool since the working environment is soo cool and not to mention the people over here at work are very cool !!
so i started off working in the ITOS department(stands for information technology and office systems) but i didn't know my title back then ... but after the 1st week i finally knew exactly what am doing here when Doaa my boss said that my title will be the networks system administrator ... which kinda sounds cool as well too :D:D ... basically what am doing over here is maintaining all the computers over here in the amideast office ... assisting and supporting users for optimized experience, troubleshooting, and last but not least setting up back ups to the main server and at some points administering it as well... but I've recently was able to get involved into the programming aspects of this job where they have a special part of the ITOS dept. to develop software specifically for the use of the field offices here in the middle east as well as the HQ back in washington DC.

I just love it here ... but only if i had more work to I wud've felt that this job is PERFECTO ... but hell it's still cool so am not complaining !!