EGYPT (Trip #2)

TUESDAY NIGHT:

I recently got back from one of the craziest trips/vacations that I have ever been a part of. I ventured off to Cairo for 5 days with some of my best friends. The crew includes Shash Master Flash, SkyWachler, and Benhamin Gordon. It all kicked off on Tuesday night when Wach-It-Out and myself took a journey back to Casino Barcelona. We went to the Nino with the same intentions as we did before we traveled to Amsterdam. Make cashhh money so that we don't have to spend a dime traveling. I enjoy my new sponsor, the casino. For my 3 brand new pairs of shoes, pair of Tony Montana sweatpants, 2 sick hats, and a booobery light blue hoodie. It really is a beautiful concept, unless you lose. Just like before, I walked out the casino with double my money. Unfortunately my friends did not fare so well this time. I left the casino at 3am so that I could get back to my place, pack, and hit the airport on time. My flight to Cairo was at 6:25am Wednesday morning. I had a 2 hour connecting flight to Zurich. The layover was only an hour or so. Then 4 hours from Zurich to Cairo. was at

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON:

We arrived in Cairo at 2pm ready for whatever lay ahead. As I got off the plane into the airport a tour guide was waiting for us. His name was Nuur and he was and is the true definition of the Chronz Bonz. He immediately asked us to follow him, which we did, and approached the long customs line. At this point I recall telling myself how impatient I was and how long this is actually going to take. Less than a minute later Nuur asked us to pick up our carry on bags and follow him to the side of where the customs booths are. As we stood beside the front of the customs line I could feel the hate from those people who have waited in line for a while. 30 seconds later Nuur asked us to follow him through the customs. Wow, what an incredible start to a perfect trip. Before we left the airport I told Nuur that I needed to exchange some money into Egyptian Pound. He understood and let me and SkyWachler go exchange some Euro. Initially when I exchanged 50 Euros I thought I'd be getting back a few hundred pounds. The man behind the counter handed me 402 Egyptian Pounds for 40 Euros. That comes out to roughly 8.04 pounds to every Euro. That really put a smile on my face because with my recent Nino winnings I knew that the whole trip would be paid for.

Once we made it outside we met Shashu's uncle, Emet. Emet turned out to be the true MVP of the trip. As soon as we all met him he asked us to follow him to our bus. When I heard the word bus, I was like why the hell do we have a bus? Anywho, so we walk under a tunnel awaiting our travel bus. This included Nuur, Emet, Sha, D, and myself. When we witnessed what our form of travel was going to be during our tours, which was most of our trip, we were in awe. There were a total of 20 seats for 5 people.

This bus was very accommodating don't get me wrong but it was nothing compared to where I slept every night. We took a stop at a hotel where Shashu's father, was studying for an exam he had to take in a day or so (Business Law). Shashu took us around the incredible, beautiful, and extravagant hotel for 20 minutes I'd say until we ventured back. We hopped back on the bus for approximately another 10 minutes or so, until we pulled up to a building across from a bridge and next to a few restaurants. I was confused at first thinking that we were going to get some food but this turned out to be our home. We grabbed all of our bags from the back of the bus and walked up a flight of stairs. Here, is where we got to meet a lot of Shashu's family and see their apartment.

Note: Sha's family built/owns the whole apartment complex of 15 legit nice apartments.

So, we relaxed in that apartment for a little until we took our bags up to the top floor. This apartment was the pent house suite that no one had rented out in a while we were told. It was honestly incredible. A few hours later we arrived at Sha's majjj's father, his grandpas house, Fouzi for dinner. We ate smoked pigeon stuffed with rice, salad, beans, cucumbers, and a whole other array of food. Unbelievable dinner followed by great conversation in which Shashu acted as our translator. Once it hit 9:30pm we knew that we needed to bounce to pick up the last key element of our trip. No we didn't go pick up poopourrie, and no we didn't go pick up any strippers, we went back to the airport to pick up Ben Gordon. L E G E N D. He arrived on the scene looking like a stud. We got back to Shashu's place at like midnight. We were there for a little while relaxing until Sha had the idea to go smoke some "Shisha", also known to many as Hookah. So,we walked 20 steps out of the apartment building to an underground restaurant called Fiji. We each had our own hookah, smoked them for an hour, watched some futbol, and went back to the apartment to factor for the night.

THURSDAY MORNING:

Wow, what a day this turned out to be. We sadly had to wake up at 7amish in order to all shower, all eat breakfast, and make the bus at 8:30. So we all showered and made it down to Shashu's apartment where we awaited a great breakfast. Note: Ben slept in the same room as SkyWachler and I had my own bedroom in the same apartment, which Sha slept in his grandpa's apartment where he had his own room. The breakfast was very tasty I recall, as most of them were, and we finished it off by drinking some coffee. Uncle Emet asked us to finish drinking/eating and make our way down to the bus.

Let it be known that our first stop was to, undoubtedly my favorite place. When we got on the bus we all were full and ready for an exciting day. We first did stoped to pick up our new tour guide, who was a very nice lady. But the next stop was the Great Pyramid. Let it be known that when you read or hear about something for so long, it doesn't remotely compare to actually seeing it first hand for the first time. We first spent time just staring in awe but after a few pictures we made it inside the pyramid. Once inside you have to climb up a tunnel of stairs until you reach the very middle of the pyramid. When you get in all you can see is each other a few walls and some cool designs. It was very tough to breathe in there as well so I decided to bust out 25 push ups with SkyWachler. Good times. After we left the pyramid we got back in the bus and went to see King Cheops Boat. Once we saw the boat we had an incredible experience that hurt my nuts so bad. We took a camel ride from the boat house to the Sphinx. The "kids" that owned the camels that we rode on, were literally 10 years old who smoked cigarettes and seriously were in need of a dentist. After our 30 minute camel ride we got to take pictures at the Sphinx for a little while, and you know as well as me that with time comes creativity. As you can see from some of my pictures at the Sphinx, we became very close. We soon all gathered back up and began to talk about possible lunch spots. I thought that it would be a legendary idea to eat at KFC, as the picture illustrates, but we ended up at the very nice Mena House Hotel, and ate in the Khanel Khalili restaurant located inside the hotel. After I ordererd myself some mediocre Penne pasta we journeyed to see more pyramids. The Step Pyramids were a work of art thousands of years ago. It was an incredible scene when we rolled up to them and got to see them first hand. We ended off our tour day by seeing the Sphinx of Memphis and the Limestone Statue of Ramsey the second. These objects were simply pure in every facet, I still can’t get over how architecturally genius the Egyptians were thousands of years ago, its somewhat overwhelming but enlightening. To end this incredible informative life altering day we and some of Shashu's cousins went to the bar Deals to watch the semi-final game of the Africa Cup between Egypt and the Ivory Coast. Besides the fact that Egypt was a huge underdog in the game I made a bet with the man who owned the bar. I bet him that Egypt would score at least 3 goals and win the game. The owner told me that he appreciated my optimism but it just wasn't in the cards and somewhat impossible for Egypt to score 3 goals in the game, yet alone win. The wager was that if Egypt did score 3 goals he would need to buy my table a round of Meistro Beers while if they lost I'd owe him nothing. So pretty legit bet for both parties I'd say. 90 minutes later, Egypt 4 Ivory Coast- 1. Bring on the beers. During the goals and when they won I was in the zone enjoying every moment of the experience as you can see. Rioting in the streets and pure Egyptian patriotism was on display, and I couldn't have been happier. As soon as we returned home I hit my bed and passed the fuck out.

FRIDAY MORNING 8:30am :

Another ridiculously early start. I was quite hung over but I knew that I needed to fight through not only for my team but for my fans and supporters, so I did. We had another beautifully prepared breakfast prepared by Shashu's nannys/maids. I had some more cucumbers and eggs. We began the day by visiting Muhammad Ali Pacha's Mosque. This mosque was mind boggling. It was not only Giii Giii (Derived from Ginormous), but it was full of creativity and imagination. This mosque took hundreds of years to build because of the intricate designs and architecture. We spent an hour there before we went to see a Hanging Church and even made it to see an Orthodox Synagogue. After seeing these places we got to shop in the Khalili Market. Here is where I bought many cool ornaments and such for my family and for the Vajjj Mahal. I had Sha's uncle helping me bargain thus getting me great deals on expensive shit, so it couldn't have worked out better. We got lunch at a side restaurant off the Grand Hyatt Hotel. It was beautiful over looking the Nile. After the lunch we got to see the sickest museum I've seen in a while. We went to the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. Here is where we got to see King Tut's tomb and jewelry and such. We even got to see mummies which cost us an extra 100 pounds, but it was well worth it. Mummification is a very interesting and brilliant concept that preserves the bodies of these ancient kings and queens. To see their faces and just to SEE them, I was like this is the Booobs Factory. King Ramsey's the Great, a mummy I saw, understood me when I said that to him when I looked through the glass at him. After the museum we went back to our apartment to get ready for our dinner at Budabar of Cairo. The restaurant was beautiful there were fucking Giii Giii Buddha's all over the place. The food was great, the women were mediocre, it overlooked the beautiful Nile River, and the DJ played great music.

SATURDAY:

Saturday was a gorgeous day outside. We finally were able to sleep in until noon. We had a lunch on the Grand Hyatts Cruise Ship that traveled through the Nile. It was a two hour boat ride which included a great buffet lunch and a huge top deck that one could sit and relax with the sun in their face. I utilized this two hours the best to my ability. We got off the boat and went back to Shashu's grandfather Fouzi's place. Before our dinner we played some futbol in their front yard. Sha's uncle had his own Coffee shop that we were able to sit in and watch the 3rd place game and smoke some hookah. The 3rd place game was between Ivory Coast and Ghana. I called the score once again which was epic as usual. This was our last night so we had so say goodbye to all of Sha's family. Their whole family was so nice and sweet. They opened up their homes and hearts to all of us and that goes a lot further than just having a good time. It made everything so much more enjoyable and it made me appreciate what they did for my friends and me. As we went back to the apartment it hit me how lucky I truly was. I'm not sure how or why but I started thinking about my grandpa Morrie, who recently passed away from Pancreatic Cancer. I spent the rest of that night thanking him for making my life as easy and stress free as possible and I can only tell him that I love him and miss him dearly.

SUNDAY:

Another solid ten hours of sleep was a necessity. Our flight was at 2pm so we had to leave at noon. We got into our bus for the last time. We even bought Egyptian flags as a memorabilia item before we got on the bus. We arrived at the airport with Nuur, Sha, Wach and myself. Ben had a later flight so he got to stay in the apartment for an extra few hours. Anyways, so when we arrived at Cairo Airport there was a huuuuge line to check bags in and I immediately though that there was no chance that we would make it on our flight. Again though, Nuur pulled through in the clutch like Messier in 1994. People's faces were of displeasure as I recall, but you do what you gotta do and in the words of the late Morrie Fenkell, "it is what it is." Our flight was 4 hours to Zurich. Cool thing was that our layover was so long when we booked the trip we decided to stay in Zurich overnight. We stayed in a beautiful 5 star hotel called Hotel St. Gotthard. We arrived at like 8 pm so we took a quick shower and went out to find a place to eat dinner. We ended up at an extravagant Italian restaurant called Santa Lucia. Had myself a nice pizza, bottle of red wine from 2001, and some Lasagna. After dinner we went back to the hotel and got some sleep in preparation for our early flights back to Barcelona the following Monday morning.