Moving around in Cairo

It has been months since my last post, which means lots has happened since May.

We finally moved out of Nasr City in June to Sheikh Zayed, which is in the outskirts of Cairo. A beautiful area, quiet, clean air but completely secluded if you don't have a car. 

We only stayed there for one month as the commute to Ramy's work in Heliopolis (two hours each way by taxi) was taking a toll on all of us. While there we had three visitors from the United States which made the time go by quickly and made me feel less home sick.

Then in July we moved into an apartment close to the airport in Nozha el Gedida, which is basically 5 minutes from Ramy's office. Our furniture arrived at the same time, so it was a very busy time with getting the apartment set up and trying to resume a normal life after months of living on borrowed stuff.

The apartment itself is very nice and roomy, but only one third of our old home in the US which forced us to put half of our belongings in storage.

Omar was very happy to have a room of his own again, he was also ecstatic to have most of his toys and to sleep in his own bed.

But Cairo is Cairo, and with living in a overcrowded city like this comes pollution and lots of dirt.

It keeps me busy, cleaning every day. My husband tells me to just get a maid, but why should I? I am home at the moment, taking care of a two year old, I can manage this!

In September Omar and I took a month long trip back to the US. It was a fantastic trip, and the month flew by. Omar and I tried to visit as many friends as possible, and Ramy managed to join us for two weeks as well. 

For our seven year anniversary we took a Disney Cruise to the Bahamas which was absolutely fantastic and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of taking a cruise with kids. Omar had a blast and so did we. We all needed the much needed vacation and relaxation.

Afterwards we stayed in Orlando for three days and visited Disney World. Coming back to Maryland after our little vacation gave us only a couple of more days before we had to take the plane back to Egypt. It was a crazy hectic few days which flew by and before we knew it we were in the air on our way back. 

Mixed feelings of happiness and sadness engulfed Omar and I, but the fun wasn't quite over as we had a long lay over in Amsterdam.

We got there pretty early and Omar and I took the train to my grandma's house, where my brother, fiance with newborn baby and my dad and his wife were all there waiting for us.

Omar was very happy again, and did not sleep at all as he was too excited.

Later that evening we took the train back to the airport and finished our trip to Egypt.

Surprisingly enough it felt good to be back in the apartment. Ramy came and picked us up as he had gone back ahead of us. 

It looks like Egypt is starting to grow on me, well Cairo is. I still dislike it but don't hate it anymore.

While we were gone on our trip, our upstairs neighbors flooded our apartment, which they failed to mention to us, and luckily Ramy's dad happened to stop by and found the mess and was able to save our things.

Due to the nasty mentality of our neighbors and it not be the first time they did some nasty stuff to us, we decided to give our notice and move out.

At the same time Ramy told me he is being moved to an office in Maadi, which is where I wanted to live all along. So it seems things are falling into place, and I am very excited!

The apartment search is on again, hopefully we find something nice with some green around us.

After 8 months I am finally feeling a bit happy and I am trying my hardest to keep this feeling going!