Landing in Cairo

A very early start this morning, with the alarm going off at 4.45am and an Alitalia flight at 6.25 to Rome. In Rome airport we heard the shocking news that an Egypt Air plane had been hijacked and had to land in Cyprus. By the time we left Rome at 13.15 all we knew was that the Egyptians had been let off the plane and the foreigners kept on. My colleague lives in Ankara and was flying to Cairo from there today and we'd already been in touch and he expected a delay in arriving in Cairo at night. Our flight was fine, a bit late in taking off, but fine. New British Council procedures meant that we had to go to the school first to pick up the flat key, rather than it being left with the flat doorman. Goodness knows why they've changed a perfectly good system, but it meant a 2hr taxi ride to get 'home'. Remember the big water leak ago on the parquet floor six weeks ago, just before we left? Well, we walked into what was meant to be an almost-finished new parquet floor, but what we walked into was more like a building site. Half of the flat is still totally unusable, leaving only our bedrooms, the kitchen and the bathrooms. So no public space at all. And the floors still have to be finished and then sanded. The furniture is still all piled up as we'd left it and hadn't been covered, so everything is covered in thick thick dust from the work already done and the sofas are heavy with dust. On a plus note, the landline's connected again (a British Council essential requirement in their flats), but the internet's still not working. Our hearts sank. We picked ourselves up, picked up our dry cleaning (bedding and towels mainly) and then we went to the local Orange shop where Bb super efficiently got our little Egyptian mobiles topped up, bought a new Egyptian sim for my iPad, got both our iPads charged up with data to use while here and our own router which we use in our bedroom topped up and reconnected. We pay for all of this ourselves, but it's essential to keeping us connected and sane! Then a taxi to a much needed dinner at Hana's Korean. My colleague arrived at the flat safely at 10.30pm and like us, was shocked to see the mess. Unlike us though, he'd unpacked in 30 minutes. Ours will have to wait till tomorrow.