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I almost forgot that I have a blog and somewhere to post thoughts. Was a wonderful surprise to come back and find that I now have 4 people in my entourage..such encouragement.

Well, it's a Friday night and I'm at home - well, not just at home, but home in Squamish! Got stuck at work late and then was too lazy to tackle the dark drive back home to Vancouver. So I put on my jammies and have been surfing the net the whole evening. Got nothing to account for it or this evening for that matter - which can be either a good or bad thing.

It snowed for the first time this year this morning. I'm not used to snow. I like how peaceful it is when it falls... Quietly, slowly... I was pondering this at the stop light and almost sat there until it turned red again because I was lost in thought. The confused stare I got from the car next to me brought me back to reality though and the car behind me managed to squeeze through the orange light. Squamish people are so nice.. no one honked! Some of them probably ended up having to sit through until the next green light as well.

Another thing I have to remember in the snow is how to clean it off my car. I got it right by letting the car warm up this morning while I walked the dog.. but I didn't think about dusting off the snow until I got in the car and couldn't see out my windows. So I - well, I didn't roll down the window.. what do people say these days? - I opened the window thinking the snow would fall off because it has nothing to lean against - and of course it fell off.. INTO MY CAR!! What was I thinking? well, clearly I wasn't thinking. Then with my heater blowing at full blast I was worried that everything was just going to get wet. So I opened the door and tried to brush everything out of the car but then my fingers started freezing. At least no snow was on my seat, but now I have a little puddle on my car floor. Filthy. I finally bought one of those ice - scrapping things from Shoppers.

I was at shoppers to send off my passport to the Egyptian embassy so I could get a visa to go home (Cairo home) for Christmas. Really frustrated.. maybe I think too much sometimes, but after applying for so many visas before, how was I supposed to think that no information on the embassy website means no information required for my visa application? I just wanted to avoid the run around they've sent me on before. But get this.. for example, there is a different section on the website showing you visa fees which I only finally found. But there's only one link to it. And in the main section they tell you all about who doesn't have to pay visa fees, but no link to how much the visa fees actually are! Since I didn't fit any of the criteria, I have to pay visa fees, but I couldn't bloody find them! Of course I finally found the link amongst other links - but that was so cumbersome.. or maybe it's just me - I'm getting too spoiled with north american service where it can almost be an information overload.

But as much as going home (Egypt) can be frustrating, I love it. It's about time. I've been in polite, unintrusive society for about 10 months now. I did have two weeks off though back in March - but it feels like a while ago. I'm looking forward to real fresh fruit sold off a donkey cart, fresh orange juice with breakie, drinking sugar cane juice in little corner shops decorated with bathroom tiles, taking my pants to get hemmed for a couple of pounds, the nile, the pyramids, the old buildings, koshari, foul,tameya, KFC home delivery at 3 am and knowing that I could have had McDonalds home delivery instead.