‘Reunited in Cairo’ Cairo, Egypt

After freezing my ass off at the Toronto airport for a 6 hour layover, literally bundled up in every layer I had in my bag, scarf wrapped around my ears, trying to get some sleep on the ‘oh so clean’ airport floor, the boarding process began and the real excitement started to sink in. In 10 hours I would be reuniting with Simon and our adventure would finally begin! I found myself getting on the plane with a big smile on my face. The boarding ramp was super warm, and had I known, I would have absolutely snuck in there. Definitely going to hit it up on my way back, when my layover gets doubled in time. Ugh. As I’m relishing the heat and making my way to my seat, I get hit with a cold front even worse than the airport. Wow, this is going to be a long day. More ugh. Then these two adorable, curious, little girls plop down next to me and silently watch me pop all my vitamins to assist me in destroying this heinous cold that creeped up on me a week ago. I tried to explain to them that you can’t dive with a cold, and that it must be annihilated by Saturday morning, but the one sitting next to me says, “Don’t you think that the more medication you take the sicker you get?” I concur, but these are hardcore herbs. Smile. I like her. Maybe the flight won’t be that long after all. As soon as I engaged them in conversation, it was a whirlwind of stories and me listening to just about every Selena Gomez and Sambaya songs she could get me to listen to. “Do you know what kind of cats like dogs?” Um…”Crazy cats. Only crazy cats.” Ok. I had a boyfriend once that had a cat who acted like a dog I said. He would play fetch and always bring his toy mouse back. “Why are you not with your boyfriend anymore?”… Not expecting that response, I told her that things just didn’t work out, but we’re friends now. “ Oh, ok, I get it, I’ve seen them do that in the movies”.  But, I have a new boyfriend now and I’m meeting him at the airport. “What’s his name and did you meet him on FB? That’s where I meet all of my friends.” She promptly wanted to see a picture of Simon and she approved. Phew!  “Alice, how do they change clothes so fast in these music videos?” Malek was her name, and she believed it meant the King in Arabic, but her sister quickly added that that wasn’t true. It actually means angel. I was sitting next to a little angel.

Malek and I counted down the minutes together and then cheered every time we got 15 minutes closer. I breezed through customs, so ready to grab my bag and throw my arms around Simon, but luggage took over an hour and my bag was practically the last to make it through. I broke out in a sweat. I’ve only ever had that happen once but it would have been a messy affair if it hadn’t made it, since we had such a tight schedule due to the dive boat itinerary. Anyway, it made it!  I rushed through the doors, scanning through all the locals and no Simon in sight. Now my heart started beating fast. I realized that we had not worked out Plan B and just as I thought this he ran up and kissed me! He flew into another terminal and didn’t realize till about 15 minutes prior that there were other terminals and that I would be flying into one of them. Ha. He said he raced over throwing money at the taxi driver to drive faster. lol  It was great to see his wonderful face so lit up with stories from his layovers in Cairo and Amsterdam. He was full of life!  We were reunited and it was time for our journey to begin!