On Monday afternoon I ducked out of work for a bit to meet up with Laure! Laure and I met in the summer of 2003 when Grant and I were on assignment for Nerve.com trying to Use Pickup Lines at the Ford Model Party. Hahaha. She was in town from Paris working on a movie and we got together and caught up!
I ran into Marisa (who I hadn't seen in YEARS) and I think this is a picture of us recreating the MisShapes flyer we appeared on way back in 2004. (Fuck, that was a long time ago. Remember MisShapes? Remember when people used to actually hand out hand-made flyers to promote parties instead of sending FB invites? We are so living in the future.)
Amanda and Scott were the only people I knew on our team of six people! That meant that someone had to let this random dude do a body shot off them. The two girls on our team politely giggled and excused themselves, so that meant it came down to me or Scott. Since we all figured my bellybutton was probably cleaner than Scott's, I volunteered to take one for the team. After daintily slurping a bellybutton-full of tequila right from my navel...
With my ego-smarting, I set back out upon the streets of Williamsburg with a vengeance; hellbent on redeeming myself for the 25 points I lost at the feet of MANZELLE. "Team member groping a statue." 10 POINTS!
And I also ran into this guy who recognized me from reading the site and came up and said hello! We laughed about the fact that this photo wouldn't actually be online for another TWO YEARS and how I would most likely forget his name by then. (Correct on both accounts!). Nice to meet you! Hope you see this and laugh!
Hahaha. On my flight back to NYC from Abu Dhabi I sat next a restless, grumpy older man from somewhere in Africa. He couldn't seem to get to sleep and opted to eschew the airline-provided sleepmask in favor of dramatically re-throwing a huge blanket over his head and sighing EVERY TWENTY MINUTES FOR THE ENTIRE FOURTEEN-HOUR FLIGHT. Hahaha. Here's me giving him very worst stinkeye after he elbow-jostled me awake for the TENTH TIME!
Afterwards, we hung out back at his place for a little bit, then I took a quick shower, said farewell to Faisal, thanked him for his hospitality and laughed about how I'd been at his house in Abu Dhabi TWICE in less than one year...
Thursday morning was my last full day in Egypt! I got out of the shower and found that my hotel only had tiny hand-sized towels in my room. When I put one around my waist, it made me look like an ancient Egyptian! Haha.
...other friends! Hahaha. I forget this guy's name, but he was hilarious. He was like one of the few guys in the town who was super into bodybuilding and was excited to have someone puny like me to flex-down next to. This photo makes me laugh every time I look at it.
And here's me, laughing about how during the night dive one of my instructors was banging on their tank underwater to get my attention (you can't talk underwater so when you want to get someone's attention, you tap on your tank with a dive knife) and when I turned around, I almost freaked out because out of the blackness of the water, my torch-beam illuminated a HUGE NAPOLEON fish that was within arms-length of face!
And this is the view of what my hair looks like after doing 3 dives in the ultra-salty Red Sea. My first day of diving was EXHAUSTING! I'd only dived off of boats before, but in Dahab, all the dives start from the shore. That means that you have to put on your 5mm-thick wetsuit (because the Red Sea is REALLY cold) and your tanks and your weight belt, and then walk like 500 yards through the crowded streets of the town, down to the beach and then into the water! I had to sit there and float and catch my breath for like 5 minutes before I could begin my dive!
Five and half BUMPY hours later, I arrived in Hurghada and got a taxi to take me to one of the few hotels listed in my book that looked like it'd still be open - a place called Al Arosa. I checked in a little after 1am, got a decent room that was WAY overpriced (100 EP!). Here's my best "Get a load of THIS room" face. You can tell the room is totally embarrassed by me calling it out.
Here's me saying goodbye to Ahmed after we got back to my hotel around 4pm! This guy was the best! Despite only knowing a few words in each others' language, we managed to talk all day for an eight-hour road trip. Thanks again for driving, Ahmed!
Obligatory shot of solo traveler in front of pyramid. Despite the fact that it was 110 F outside, wearing my BLACK HOODIE was preferable to exposing my skin to the mid-day Egyptian sun.
Sitting in mid-day afternoon Egyptian traffic after almost 20 hours of travel = feeling like this.
After getting dropped off, I wandered around and checked out a few hotels and hostels before deciding on a room at the Carlton Hotel on 26th of July Street (just a few blocks away from the Nile River!).
6:48am. Excited about the trip! I bought this book 4 days prior (which was also the same day I impulse decided to go to Egypt). My plan was to fly into Cairo and find a hotel for the night...then figure out the rest while I was there. (Also known as not really having much of a plan).
And there was even a surprise pop-in visitor: ASIAN PORNO LADY! Asian Porno Lady roams the East Village in the wee hours of the night pushing along a little cart stocked up with cheap smokes and illegally-copied DVD porn! She's the best!
On Monday Sarah and I got together to celebrate the fact that she'd just received the first galley copy of her second book, Pocket Karaoke. Congrats, Sar! I'm so proud of you!
Lani saw what was going on and wasn't about to miss out on all the hot MAN-MILK action. (The best part is how Lani's delicately squeezing with her thumb and forefinger. Hahaha).
Wendy showing off a zoomed-in pic of what she calls my "crazy eyes." We sang karaoke for about an hour or so and then around 12:30am they came in and told us the restaurant was getting ready to close. We decided to head over to Hanger Bar to see Sarah and Karen. Even though we'd only been drinking for a little while...
I stayed super late and helped clean up. Here's the last photo of the night of me and Siege getting ready to take the garbage out! Happy Birthday, Katie!
Siege and I were starting to get concerned that the male to female "visible nipple ratio" was getting too imbalanced so we decided to try to even things about a bit. Peek-a-boo, ladies!
Early the next morning, however, you will realize the folly of your ways. This is the picture I took of myself in the elevator on my way to work the next morning because I wanted to see if the massive hangover I was suffering was empirically obvious. The answer? A resounding yes. My head feels like ouchy.
"Play your cards right, yeah, and in a couple years time, you'll find yourself here...in the HOT SEAT." Here's me giving Gurj our very favoritest moment from The Office EVAAAAR!
Same goes for this girl. I no longer have any recollection of who she is, but apparently, we bonded enough that night that I apparently felt comfortable sniffing her hair for this photo (while double-fisting a PBR and Johnny combo, no less).
. Congrats, Sar! I'm so proud of you!
