Egypt World Cup

Cairo is a long way from home. A really, really, really long way from home. I travel a lot; but when I come here, I have to try not to think about the length of the trip. Door to door, it's right around 24 hours. If I’m lucky, I can get 6-7 hours of sleep on the flight over. That leaves 17-18 hours of mind numbing sitting, thinking about how a day of my life is gone, evaporated by waiting in an airplane seat.

For me, travel starts way before getting to the airport. Cami will tell you that I am getting a bit obsessive about getting good flights and picking good seats on those flights. In the end, it really does come down to doing everything to have the best possible chance at a good performance… and trying to mitigate the dizzying boredom that international travel can cause. So this trip started with booking the fastest route I could get. Colorado Springs to Denver, an hour layover, Denver to Frankfurt (about 10 hours), a 4 hour layover, and Frankfurt to Cairo (about 4 more hours). Luckily, my status on the Star Alliance gave me access to a traveler’s club in Frankfurt, so my four hours there were broken up by a somewhat healthy lunch and a hot shower.

Backing up to my departure from Colorado Springs for a second, it was a somewhat unusual experience. I arrived about 50 minutes before the flight to Denver which is actually a lot for me. With Gold status on United (earned by sacrificing about two weeks of my life each year sitting on airplanes at 40k feet), I can bypass the normal line for an expedited check in. Being Gold also means that I get a personal representative on the phone when I call (no kidding, people actually do work at the airlines not just computers), and the ticketing people are usually very nice, knowledgeable, and helpful… usually. This time, it must have been amateur day at ticketing. After scolding me very sternly for not being there two hours before my flight (in Colorado Springs, the counter is often not open that far in advance), he continued to pretty well screw up my check in. After a painful 10 minutes, and having to instruct the self described boss of the ticketing area on his airline's partners, policies, and standard operating procedures (I’m not kidding, any frequent flier would know more than this guy), I proceeded on to the gate. And after being scolded for not being there two hours in advance, I waited 30 minutes to board.

Upon arriving to Cairo, travelers have to purchase a visa. The first time I came here, I made the mistake of shipping my passport out to the Egyptian embassy back in America, and it cost me through the nose. I’ve been here five times since, and now I’ve learned that you can just buy a visa at the airport for $15, it’s basically a small airport tax. So with that completed, it was on to the luggage.

Waiting around for luggage for me is probably a bit like playing roulette to a gambler. You sit there and wait in anticipation to see if you will win. The gambler eagerly watches to see if the little ball lands in the right slot; I eagerly watch to see if my luggage has taken the same route around the world as I did. This time, my odds were better than last year. One bag came in, the other did not. Fortunately, the one that came was my equipment bag. That has everything I need to compete but leaves me in the same clothes I traveled in. After 24 hours of flying, I really want to change (or throw away) my clothes; but the competition equipment is much more important. After all, that is why I endure the travel...

Customer service really isn’t their thing over here. Upon realizing that my bag was “delayed” (that’s EgyptAir for “we have no idea where your bag is and we really don’t care”), I went to the baggage area to make a claim. Ahead of me was a couple and young kid from Germany. They had put a stroller through the checked luggage and it had come out with some battle scars. As they pleaded their case with the apathetic luggage reps, I just laughed to myself and though “good luck with that one!”. After a 15 minute argument, the couple decided it was not worth it and left. Next I had my turn with the apathetic reps.

Because I had my competition bag, I was not too worried or concerned about getting my other bag. Though it was still annoying, I was almost amused by the actions of luggage reps. Upon telling them my bag did not show up, I was greeted with a blank stare. The reps (it takes three of them to do it), took my claim check from me. One looked at it and said a bunch of things in very animated Arabic, the other two pitched in with more blank stares at the claim check. It was as if they had never seen a lost bag before… at the lost baggage office. After about 10 minutes of animated Arabic, they finally told me it did not make it out of Colorado Springs on the first flight. That was it. Nothing about where it was, when it would get in, just that it had not made the flight. Having dealt with this last year, I knew hassling the baggage folks would not help; but I also knew something else, that they give money to you when they lose your bags. So they were a bit surprised when I knew to ask them for my allowance, but another 20 minutes yielded a whopping $40 worth of local currency. Not much, but better than nothing.

By the time I finished with baggage claim stuff, Dennis had arrived on a later flight. There’s another story behind this, but the authorities almost didn’t allow him in. After some negotiations, he was let in.

Next came the pistol check at the airport. Egypt does not require a permit for the guns, but we have to declare them. (I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the tax they collect on them when we leave, but that’s just my theory. In this part of the world, it’s not too hard to get something a lot more dangerous than our air guns.) Awhile back, I wrote in a blog about how security people tend to look at our guns like they are dead aliens. That was true again as the police took turns looking at them, checking serial numbers, checking serial numbers again, checking passports, checking serial numbers again (in case they had changed), standing around doing nothing… you get the picture. An hour later, we made the three minute drive to the hotel and finally were able to check in.

Today, we went out to the venues for some workouts. The facilities are not great, but they work. The biggest problem is dealing with the jetlag and trying to get your body feeling normal after an abusive travel day.

The hotel’s phones went out today, so I had no way of knowing where my lost bag was. I finally went back to the airport to check there. The shuttle bus driver said he would wait, but when I went back out ten minutes later, he was gone (remember, customer service is NOT their thing here). That turned out to be okay since I had to go to another terminal that was about a mile away. After arriving at that terminal, I checked in with the EgyptAir desk. Upon receiving my claim check, the attendant gave me a look that indicated he had probably never seen one before. Finally, he directed me to another baggage specific desk in the basement of the airport. There I found 4 attendants patiently doing nothing and waiting for their shift to end. Upon entering the office, they all looked up at me with a “what the heck are you doing here” look and a total absence of any offer to help. I finally convinced one of them to take my claim check which led to a long studying of the claim check as if he had never seen one before. Mind you that the claim check is a form with the only variable being the claim number. But still, they could not be too careful and studied their standard form for quite a while. Finally, they had the answer. My bag arrived from Frankfurt just 30 minutes earlier, but I could not pick it up. It would be delivered to the baggage office later tonight. When I asked if it would be delivered to my hotel tonight (a three minute drive), the attendant asked how many nights I would be staying at the hotel… not a good sign at all, but hey, customer service just isn’t their thing!

So tomorrow is men’s semi finals. I have been training hard and did not rest for this, so I’m not expecting a lot. My biggest goal is to gain more experience in the combined event so my training is more on target. A decent day in my combined event and I should make the final, anything short of that and it will be hard. But it’s all chalked up to training this season anyway, so the most important thing is to be here and learn from it.