Getting Ready to Leave

This post is more about my thoughts than anything else, so it'll read more as a stream of consciousness. Ones recounting things I'm actually doing will make a little more sense and be easier to read due to chronology's innate ordering system.

Well, I leave for Egypt tomorrow morning. It's been a good week where I've tried to get in everything from home while I could. I spent a lot of money on food, but it was definitely worth it. For anyone in Chattanooga, if you haven't eaten at Sugar's Ribs or Champy's, you haven't lived yet. I'm really grateful for all the time I've had with my mom and brother this past week. I made it a point to make sure I wouldn't have any regrets before I left, and I don't really think that I do. There were a few people I wanted to see that I couldn't, but it's not as if I'm leaving forever, so I'm not overly anxious about it. I was more focused on getting in the food and beauty of the American Southeast while I could so I could take it with me. So basically I ate a lot of fried food and barbecue, had the occasional PBR (no whiskey, unfortunately, which I will miss dearly), and looked at mountains and rain.

I'm a little anxious about the flight tomorrow, but not overly so. It's starting to set in that I'm actually leaving and won't be back for a long time. I think the first time I'll really experience culture shock will be when I get to the airport and can't read everything on the signs, but I figure a lot of them, like at most airports, will be written in English as well, and my Arabic is decent enough to get by for the most part. But I'm not terribly used to speaking it, so I'll have to get used to feeling like a tourist. It's usually a feeling I don't like given my general disdain for tourists in DC (especially on the metro), but I suppose being as pasty as I am it's inevitable in Egypt.

All in all, I'm pretty excited about finally living out my fantasy I've had since I was five of seeing King Tut, which I'll probably be doing on Wednesday when I land. After checking into my hostel, I'll be picking up a phone and hopefully headed to the Egyptian Museum. I'll be dead tired, but Arab coffee is strong and my determination to get adjusted in the week I have before classes is stronger still. I'm prepared to take the pleasure with the pain, whether it be "Nile piles," traffic, smog, congestion, hawkers hounding me incessantly, or culture shock in general.