Jejak Mesir 2006: Day 0 - The Journey to Egypt

29th January 2006

Ironically, our Egypt trip actually begun as a short Moscow trip. :D

Me, Im and Anna arrived at Moscow at dawn, while our flight to Egypt was much later at 9PM. So we had a lot of time to kill, thus our first destination that morning was the Manesh Underground Shopping Complex  located right beside the Red Square, where there was a McDonald's for us to eat and hang out until it was time to go to the airport. Our friends from RSMU came by to accompany us because it was after all a holiday season for all of us. With them around it was possible for Im and I to sneak off to the Red Square to do some sightseeing. It was already my third time there, but since we were there might as well stretch our legs a bit. Anna stayed back at McDonald's with our luggages and the RSMU-ians.

Im wanted to see Lenin's preserved corpse inside the Lenin Mausoleum set up inside the Red Square, so off we went to look at it. I had been there the previous year's winter but I tagged along as well because it was free of charge. We couldn't bring our cameras in and the guards politely told me to take off my cap as a sign of respect to the deceased Vladimir Lenin, the first de facto leader of the Soviet Union. From the mausoleum we headed to Saint Basil's Cathedral, and luck be with us we actually thought of asking the guard there whether we could enter the famous church for free by showing our student cards. The guard allowed us to go, and since neither of us had gone inside the church at the time we immediately seized the opportunity; chance like this did not come everyday for us who were living in Kursk. Don't you think that the domes of this cathedral look a bit like a regular mosque's onion domes? It is said that the cathedral is a symbolic structure representing the unique position of Russia being in between Europe and Asia.

We spent some time exploring the insides of this church and having fun climbing the ancient spiraling staircases before heading to the souvenir section to buy some souvenirs to bring to Egypt. Afterward we headed back to McDonald's for lunch and to give Anna the chance to go to the Red Square along with our RSMU friends. When they returned, we decided to do some light shopping, and of course I headed to my favorite store - Reebok - and saw a nice red cap I had been eyeing since my trip to St. Petersburg's during summer 2005. The store was having a sale so I bought it instantly, thinking that Egypt would be sunnier than Moscow despite also being in winter season that time of the year.

Around 4PM when it was getting dark, we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Egypt, arriving there on midnight Egypt time. To get through the immigration was a hilarious experience: the officer on duty was baffled of the fact that the three of us were Malaysians but our details showed that we came from Russia. Anna and I surrendered immediately when the officers lambasted questions one after another in Arabic. Im who had some knowledge in Arabic tried to converse with the officer......before Anna and I noticed something really familiar in Im's 'Arabic' drawls, and the confusion etched on the officer's face.

Im had accidentally mixed up Arabic and Russian! Too many languages can be confusing. In Kursk alone we just love mixing up Malay, English and Russian in our daily conversation so our official language should be called as...err....Marunglish? When we quietly pointed out Im's error, Im's Arassian suddenly became Maarasian. (Malay+Arab+Russian). Finally the officer decided to let us through without further question. We gleefully walked past the immigration counter and ended up stumped at the unfamiliar surrounding after stepping out of the airport. There was no one to welcome us?!

Luckily I had my roaming 019 (I demand a commission for promoting this in my blog) so we managed to contact Im's friends here. Turned out that they were waiting at the international terminal for us, but we arrived at the 'old' terminal. Maybe that was the reason of the confusion earlier? Not sure, but we were just glad that they were finally there to pick us. After some brief introductions we were taken to our rented apartments - the guest apartments at the Selangor Villas at Asyir. Anna and Im went with Halim and a friend of his who was driving the car, while I went with Md.Nor and a friend of his.

Inside the car, I didn't remember what the conversation was about but I do remember my initial confusion of the way the students in Egypt addressing themselves as and the way they were addressing us. They used Ana and Anta, meaning I and you. Well, long story short silly me was blatantly ignorant of that simple fact.... Md.Nor was telling something about himself so I kept hearing 'Ana' being repeated a few times before confusedly pointed out that Anna was in the other car with Im. Md.Nor and his friend realized what was going on and shifted instantly into the more familiar kata ganti diri, while I sat at the back embarassed of my first folly.

We reached Asyir and I was astounded to see that for the price I had paid, the apartment which I got all to myself was very nice. It was actually too big for me alone; Anna and Im shared an apartment at the girl's building. Md.Nor and Halim eventually crashed in for the night as it was already too late and everyone was tired.

Tourists and main Tour Guides. Occasionally we had several guest Tour-guides as well.