After packing up our kids, our home, and our lives, and after 27 hours of travel, we made it from Seattle to Cairo. Some highlights from our loooooooong day of travel.
We arrived at the SeaTac airport and checked 20 bags. We each had a carry-on as well, so in total we traveled here with 25 bags. They all made it without getting lost! Thanks to my mamacita for suggesting AirTags in case a bag ended up in Timbuktu.
Kannon almost got sick on the plane. A few times. He held it together and never lost his cookies, but it was a little touch and go for a moment. He also lost a tooth somewhere over the North Pole. He wins for most interesting traveler!
We had the kids carry their own stuff as much as possible, and Blake was a champ with her little booster seat. She was not a fan of her rolly suitcase though, and often negotiated her way OUT of rolling it along. She gets the award for most persistent traveler.
These are the faces of weary travelers.
This is Kennedie’s surprised face. There are a lot of surprises when you’re getting settled for a 14 hour flight. Kennedie was an amazing travel companion and could probably have gotten a job working in airport security. She gets the award for most helpful traveler.
We finally arrived in Cairo around midnight on the 2nd, and were mentally preparing for our first day of work 10 hours later. We were met by an expeditor, which is very common here in Egypt. He led us through customs, purchased our visas, and had a team of people who got all our luggage off the baggage claim. Then, and this is the strangest thing, we were led out of the airport and loaded onto a small bus and the bus driver GAVE US A GIANT ENVELOPE OF CASH. It felt like a drug deal because it was dark outside and everyone was speaking in Arabic and we were in a foreign country and it was like 1,000 degrees. The drug envelope also contained our house keys, cell phones, medical cards, and school ID cards. It kinda felt like we were in Breaking Bad and had called the vacuum repair guy for new identities.
We arrived in Maadi around 2am (it’s about a 30 minute drive from the airport). Before we pulled up to our apartment we made a stop AND KYLE’S ADMINISTRATOR HOPPED ON THE BUS to greet us. At 2 in the morning. Then he rode with us to our apartment (they’re very close to one another, as is everything in Maadi) AND HELPED BRING IN OUR LUGGAGE and made sure we had everything we needed. In a new country. In the middle of the night. You guys, our fridge was stocked!
They even had these cute little flowers for us on the table!
All in all, it was a SUPER long day of travel, but we made it! Hopefully our next trip will be shorter 🙂
