Wow.
After first having my traineeship cancelled, then by some miricle of God and a little bit of personal intervention having my traineeship reinstated - only to have my visa not arrive and not arrive again and flying to islamabad just to see what was going on just to find out that my travel agent had been screwing around and THEN having my visa arrive at the last possible day so that i could fly out three days later without even getting the chance to meet half of my friends....
Im Finally in Cairo.
WoW.
Where to even start - where everything starts i guess... at the beginning. THe flight was pretty uneventful - was hassled a bit by the pakistani immigration guys for the simple fact that this was the first time i was flying. They asked me to sit and wait and after waiting for almost half an hour when i confronted the same guy again he took a look at it and let me through - not a word not nothing. First flight from karachi to Dubai, sat next to a pakistani guy whos parents had settled in the UK so we had a nice talk about this and that. Landing at dubai airport was uneventful but walking into the airport itself was wow. THe place is less an airport and more of a shopping wall... with massive 12 foot screens lining the walls almost 30 feet high. within an hour i was on a flight from Dubai to Cairo, sitting next to a dubai resident who was going to cairo for business and didnt really have anything nice to say about the place.
Then came cairo.
Hahahaha my first reaction of the airport was like WOW this place is even worse then islamabads airport before its renovation (and anyone who knows islamabads airport knows that its still pretty bad :P) Got in line to get my visa approved and my entry stamp put on. I had been told by an uncle that i would probably get hassled at the airport simply because of the fact that i was pakistani - interestingly enough that never happened... i was asked simply if i had anything to declare... one of my bags was given a check over and then they let me out. When i walked out rolling a luggage cart that refused to work looking for someone - anyone wearing an aeisec t-shirt I knew that someone named Alia was supposed to pick me up but i had no idea who she was or what she looked like. Took a round got out and was suddenly asked by by a very pretty girl if i was Salman and lo and behold.. that was alia.
We grabbed my things, and drove out of the airport. First impression of cairo city? Very VERY nice. A lot like karachi with nicer cars, nicer buildings, AMAZING roads (so far) and absolutely MASSIVE. Driving driving drivingg driving drove over a bridge that absolutely never seemed to end. It had to be atleast 4-5 km long! From the airport we took about an hours drive down to Cairo University. There i met a lot of the students who were a part of AIESEC Cairo University. I was there about 45 minutes - after which we packed my things into a car, and went for "falouka" which is basically a sailboat along the Nile (all of this is straight from the airport :P) We met right outside the Four Seasons (impressive hotel) and next thing you know im sitting and thinking WOW... im ACTUALLY sailing on the NIle river - a year ago i never thought THAT would happen :P I met my roomate Kent from Canada - who had spent some time in India before coming here so we had a great time while he practiced some of his Hindi and we spoke of partition :P Around 12 o clock we got home to find out that the guy who was at the flat (and with the only key) was out partying and didnt expect to be back for a while... so we FINALLY somehow (there was a lot of conversation in arabic that just sounded like someone reciting the Quran to me :P) but finally we got the landlady to open the place. Got home sat around for a while and then crashed at around 2 am. That was my first day in Cairo.
The second morning i woke up early cause Miguel - my second flat mate froom mexico (who came home eventually at like 4 am) works at the same place as i do... so he was supposed to take me to work the first day and i had no idea when he would leave. Eventually he woke up bleary eyed from the night before but eventually we got to work... and wow... what an experience THAT was.
We started at the 12th floor... and Miguel took me around and introduced me to just about everyone in the office who had arrived by around 1030 (we have pretty flexible hours here i was later to found out)... so ahesta ahesta i made my way up the floors meeting everyone along the way until i reached the the 15nth floor where i have my office. Walking into the office was an experience... wooden floored with a large open space, full of incredibly hyper people who literally jumped up off their chairs to meet me with big smiles. One entire wall is made of glass - and because we have a little park right in front of the office - we get to see literally all of Cairo sprawled out in front of us every day. Here i met Karim - my incredibly energetic boss whose gave me a 45 minute CRASH COURSE in everything thats been going on...which was a total mindful - talked to me about different ideas and proposals that i had and because of something i said basically in right there and then told me that i would be giving a presentation to all the heads of departments in the middle of next month. Wow.
Straight away iv been put onto work on the largest project going on in the company at the moment - and not only that theyve basically given me more control then even the project manager so im designing the pricing scheme for a combination of new advertising products that were coming out with - as well as getting my hands into just about every aspect of the project from page design, page flow charts as well as getting into the branding of each of our advertising products. Its really really hectic and i always have a LOT of work on my hands there are days that i stay in the office until 8pm just because theres so much to get done and the deadline is basically - NOW.
Its crazy hectic - lots of work - but atleast its quality work. Im learning a lot, my work environment and my coworkers are amazingly friendly and helpful and whenever i need anything there are multiple people ready to lend a helpful hand. Though yeah if i had a paper pushing job i would be more relaxed have more time on my hands to do things and basically not come home from work exhausted out of my mind :P but this is quality work, REAL work where the decisions that i get to make actually make a difference in the grander scheme of things. That allows not only for my work to be fulfilling to a certain extent but it also means that i learn a lot of different things from various different people.
CAIRO
Cairo? Well... everyone who said that Cairo is a lot like Karachi was perfectly right. The traffic interestingly enough better - but traffic jams here are worse because in Karachi you have the advantage that if people get stuck, they always find a way around and so traffic is constantly moving... here when it gets jammed it gets REALLY jammed :P The style of the shops, the fact that you have to bargain for just about everything and the fact that when they see a foreigner they automatically try to rip them off is the same as well :P one of the advantages i have though is that for SOME reason every single person i meet automatically assumes that im Either egyptian or at the least arab. Which is why when Kent goes out shopping he ALWAYS gets ripped off, and when i go out shopping people take a good 5 minutes to understand the fact that i dont speak arabic! (Even though im constantly repeating la arabi la arabi i.e. no arabic over and over again :P I have to specifically point to myself and say PAKISTAN before i get an... ahhhhhh... pakistAAAniii and then we proceed to bargain and haggle with numbers and hand signals :P
LIFE AFTER WORK
Every day after the office is something or the other... at the least you go over to a friends place or people come over and you just hang out. The rest of the trainees here are great and are constantly looking for something fun to do. At the most ill get out somewhere to do something special, either getting out for sheesha (they have an AWESOME variety of flavors here, the other day i had CANTALOUPE flavoured sheesha which was absolutely awesome!) I havent been to very many touristy places yet... im basically thinking that i have six months to look at tourists sites... though i did go to this one special place which is basically a really high spot on the outskirts of the city where you can ssee ALL of cairo spread out below you. It was beautiful and for the umpteenth time i cursed myself for not carrying my camera along with me. (Our plans are mostly along the lines... lets get out for a bite to eat and then they just develop and modify into something larger then that :PJust yesterday what started out as a few friends heading back to our place just to hang out and chill turned into something like 15-16 people showing up... half of whome i was meeting for the first time incluDING a new trainee who had literally JUST gotten off the plane from Turkey. The poor fellow stayed for so long he eventually fell asleep on one of the couches :P The event turned into a dancing gaala with my trying to teach miguel how to dance like a pakistani (i.e. move his SHOULDERS and not his hips :P) followed by him trying to teach all of us latin dancing (MOVE YOUR HIPS not your SHOULDERS!!! hahahahahaha) which was an absolute failure :P I swear mexicans have more joints in their hips then we do :P We then got a performance from Harrision (an absolute crackpot of a trainee from Nigeria who has just gotten a fulltime job here) who showed us a traditional Nigrerian dance! The best thing about ALL of this... SOMEBODY decided to grab my camera and videotape the entire event!!! Talk about absolutely hilarious viewing :P
FOOD
Hmmm the food itself was DEFINATELY a surprise. My best explanation for it is that almost ALL of the food here has been very similar to desi food... and while definately full of FLAVOUR... cOMPLEtely lacks spices. I end up pouring chilli sauce over just about everything just to get a bit of spiciness in the food and this is ME... the guy who never put spicy sauce on ANYTHINg cause our food was spicy enough. There is a whole collection of food that we have no equivalent of in Pakistan and im having a great time basically closing my eyes and picking something just to see what it tastes like. The rest of the trainees get a major kick out of the fact that i can READ arabic (even though i cant understand a word of it :P) and so i can generally navigate around a menu (NONE of which are printed in ANY english).
hmmm Well its midnight here, and though so far there hasnt been a night that iv slept before 4 am... tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan and im inshallah going to be fasting. I dont know if ill be able to continue considering the fact that my stomach is still settling down to the water here... but tomorrow i definately plan on fasting. So i better crash now if i plan on getting ANY sleep whatsoever.
Keep checking in here for more updates.... ill write whenever i can.
And yes, pictures pictures pictures... ill upload them whenever i get the chance too... things have just been crazy hectic here so far - especially work. So soon ;)
I hope everyone, anywhere in the world is reading this is smiling and happy and having a blast. Vicky get off your butt and start having a good time :P your not gonna get to go through this experience again :)
Im Finally in Cairo.
WoW.
Where to even start - where everything starts i guess... at the beginning. THe flight was pretty uneventful - was hassled a bit by the pakistani immigration guys for the simple fact that this was the first time i was flying. They asked me to sit and wait and after waiting for almost half an hour when i confronted the same guy again he took a look at it and let me through - not a word not nothing. First flight from karachi to Dubai, sat next to a pakistani guy whos parents had settled in the UK so we had a nice talk about this and that. Landing at dubai airport was uneventful but walking into the airport itself was wow. THe place is less an airport and more of a shopping wall... with massive 12 foot screens lining the walls almost 30 feet high. within an hour i was on a flight from Dubai to Cairo, sitting next to a dubai resident who was going to cairo for business and didnt really have anything nice to say about the place.
Then came cairo.
Hahahaha my first reaction of the airport was like WOW this place is even worse then islamabads airport before its renovation (and anyone who knows islamabads airport knows that its still pretty bad :P) Got in line to get my visa approved and my entry stamp put on. I had been told by an uncle that i would probably get hassled at the airport simply because of the fact that i was pakistani - interestingly enough that never happened... i was asked simply if i had anything to declare... one of my bags was given a check over and then they let me out. When i walked out rolling a luggage cart that refused to work looking for someone - anyone wearing an aeisec t-shirt I knew that someone named Alia was supposed to pick me up but i had no idea who she was or what she looked like. Took a round got out and was suddenly asked by by a very pretty girl if i was Salman and lo and behold.. that was alia.
We grabbed my things, and drove out of the airport. First impression of cairo city? Very VERY nice. A lot like karachi with nicer cars, nicer buildings, AMAZING roads (so far) and absolutely MASSIVE. Driving driving drivingg driving drove over a bridge that absolutely never seemed to end. It had to be atleast 4-5 km long! From the airport we took about an hours drive down to Cairo University. There i met a lot of the students who were a part of AIESEC Cairo University. I was there about 45 minutes - after which we packed my things into a car, and went for "falouka" which is basically a sailboat along the Nile (all of this is straight from the airport :P) We met right outside the Four Seasons (impressive hotel) and next thing you know im sitting and thinking WOW... im ACTUALLY sailing on the NIle river - a year ago i never thought THAT would happen :P I met my roomate Kent from Canada - who had spent some time in India before coming here so we had a great time while he practiced some of his Hindi and we spoke of partition :P Around 12 o clock we got home to find out that the guy who was at the flat (and with the only key) was out partying and didnt expect to be back for a while... so we FINALLY somehow (there was a lot of conversation in arabic that just sounded like someone reciting the Quran to me :P) but finally we got the landlady to open the place. Got home sat around for a while and then crashed at around 2 am. That was my first day in Cairo.
The second morning i woke up early cause Miguel - my second flat mate froom mexico (who came home eventually at like 4 am) works at the same place as i do... so he was supposed to take me to work the first day and i had no idea when he would leave. Eventually he woke up bleary eyed from the night before but eventually we got to work... and wow... what an experience THAT was.
We started at the 12th floor... and Miguel took me around and introduced me to just about everyone in the office who had arrived by around 1030 (we have pretty flexible hours here i was later to found out)... so ahesta ahesta i made my way up the floors meeting everyone along the way until i reached the the 15nth floor where i have my office. Walking into the office was an experience... wooden floored with a large open space, full of incredibly hyper people who literally jumped up off their chairs to meet me with big smiles. One entire wall is made of glass - and because we have a little park right in front of the office - we get to see literally all of Cairo sprawled out in front of us every day. Here i met Karim - my incredibly energetic boss whose gave me a 45 minute CRASH COURSE in everything thats been going on...which was a total mindful - talked to me about different ideas and proposals that i had and because of something i said basically in right there and then told me that i would be giving a presentation to all the heads of departments in the middle of next month. Wow.
Straight away iv been put onto work on the largest project going on in the company at the moment - and not only that theyve basically given me more control then even the project manager so im designing the pricing scheme for a combination of new advertising products that were coming out with - as well as getting my hands into just about every aspect of the project from page design, page flow charts as well as getting into the branding of each of our advertising products. Its really really hectic and i always have a LOT of work on my hands there are days that i stay in the office until 8pm just because theres so much to get done and the deadline is basically - NOW.
Its crazy hectic - lots of work - but atleast its quality work. Im learning a lot, my work environment and my coworkers are amazingly friendly and helpful and whenever i need anything there are multiple people ready to lend a helpful hand. Though yeah if i had a paper pushing job i would be more relaxed have more time on my hands to do things and basically not come home from work exhausted out of my mind :P but this is quality work, REAL work where the decisions that i get to make actually make a difference in the grander scheme of things. That allows not only for my work to be fulfilling to a certain extent but it also means that i learn a lot of different things from various different people.
CAIRO
Cairo? Well... everyone who said that Cairo is a lot like Karachi was perfectly right. The traffic interestingly enough better - but traffic jams here are worse because in Karachi you have the advantage that if people get stuck, they always find a way around and so traffic is constantly moving... here when it gets jammed it gets REALLY jammed :P The style of the shops, the fact that you have to bargain for just about everything and the fact that when they see a foreigner they automatically try to rip them off is the same as well :P one of the advantages i have though is that for SOME reason every single person i meet automatically assumes that im Either egyptian or at the least arab. Which is why when Kent goes out shopping he ALWAYS gets ripped off, and when i go out shopping people take a good 5 minutes to understand the fact that i dont speak arabic! (Even though im constantly repeating la arabi la arabi i.e. no arabic over and over again :P I have to specifically point to myself and say PAKISTAN before i get an... ahhhhhh... pakistAAAniii and then we proceed to bargain and haggle with numbers and hand signals :P
LIFE AFTER WORK
Every day after the office is something or the other... at the least you go over to a friends place or people come over and you just hang out. The rest of the trainees here are great and are constantly looking for something fun to do. At the most ill get out somewhere to do something special, either getting out for sheesha (they have an AWESOME variety of flavors here, the other day i had CANTALOUPE flavoured sheesha which was absolutely awesome!) I havent been to very many touristy places yet... im basically thinking that i have six months to look at tourists sites... though i did go to this one special place which is basically a really high spot on the outskirts of the city where you can ssee ALL of cairo spread out below you. It was beautiful and for the umpteenth time i cursed myself for not carrying my camera along with me. (Our plans are mostly along the lines... lets get out for a bite to eat and then they just develop and modify into something larger then that :PJust yesterday what started out as a few friends heading back to our place just to hang out and chill turned into something like 15-16 people showing up... half of whome i was meeting for the first time incluDING a new trainee who had literally JUST gotten off the plane from Turkey. The poor fellow stayed for so long he eventually fell asleep on one of the couches :P The event turned into a dancing gaala with my trying to teach miguel how to dance like a pakistani (i.e. move his SHOULDERS and not his hips :P) followed by him trying to teach all of us latin dancing (MOVE YOUR HIPS not your SHOULDERS!!! hahahahahaha) which was an absolute failure :P I swear mexicans have more joints in their hips then we do :P We then got a performance from Harrision (an absolute crackpot of a trainee from Nigeria who has just gotten a fulltime job here) who showed us a traditional Nigrerian dance! The best thing about ALL of this... SOMEBODY decided to grab my camera and videotape the entire event!!! Talk about absolutely hilarious viewing :P
FOOD
Hmmm the food itself was DEFINATELY a surprise. My best explanation for it is that almost ALL of the food here has been very similar to desi food... and while definately full of FLAVOUR... cOMPLEtely lacks spices. I end up pouring chilli sauce over just about everything just to get a bit of spiciness in the food and this is ME... the guy who never put spicy sauce on ANYTHINg cause our food was spicy enough. There is a whole collection of food that we have no equivalent of in Pakistan and im having a great time basically closing my eyes and picking something just to see what it tastes like. The rest of the trainees get a major kick out of the fact that i can READ arabic (even though i cant understand a word of it :P) and so i can generally navigate around a menu (NONE of which are printed in ANY english).
hmmm Well its midnight here, and though so far there hasnt been a night that iv slept before 4 am... tomorrow is the first day of Ramadan and im inshallah going to be fasting. I dont know if ill be able to continue considering the fact that my stomach is still settling down to the water here... but tomorrow i definately plan on fasting. So i better crash now if i plan on getting ANY sleep whatsoever.
Keep checking in here for more updates.... ill write whenever i can.
And yes, pictures pictures pictures... ill upload them whenever i get the chance too... things have just been crazy hectic here so far - especially work. So soon ;)
I hope everyone, anywhere in the world is reading this is smiling and happy and having a blast. Vicky get off your butt and start having a good time :P your not gonna get to go through this experience again :)
Hey you!
It was good to get a PROPER update finally haha. It's great to know you're having a good time. Send me pictures soon! And oh upload the dancing video. :P
Keep me updated! =)
-Reen
p.s I forgot the time difference. You're three or two hours behind? And send me your number properly!! I still can't figure it out. I'll call right after your sehri sometime. I'm bound to catch you awake and not busy then. :P
Posted by Reeny | 8:05 PM
Actually no, I'll either be in SCHOOL (stop getting kicks out of it. You were in school THIS SUMMER okay! It wasn't too long ago. And I will graduate before you can laugh at me again :P) or I'll be asleep. I'll figure something out. CITY+COUNTRY code etc to pehlay bhejo :P
Posted by Reeny | 8:07 PM
yay no gothic cherubs! hahaha
Posted by mina | 12:33 PM
Great stuff Salman! The job seems fantastic! Post pictures!
Posted by Huzefa | 1:11 PM
sounds like you're enjoying it :)looking forward to some pics...
Posted by nida | 4:25 PM
salmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!! dude im loving ur blog :P heheh.. its like a complete news update. aand the way u describe things with all the itwsy witsy details... its incrdible. i HAVE to apologize for not being able to write earlier. ive been too damn lazy and busy too 2 have sat down and read ur news update (which i luvvvv).
and im soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy and satisfied that ure having one hell of an expeirience. and that u made friends so easily, and quickly and that ure havng a ball out there. its awesome. having a quality traineeship is wat we all dream of and yes, our dream has come true i feel. i just hope n pray that u continue being happy and satisfied. keep ppl around u happy and be very accomodating for others for ure setting an impression of a pakistani that will last on their minds.
btw, did they like ure presents u took for them??? im sure they'd ve loved em.
also tell me smth, how is work going? (i havent read ur entire blog yet :S so dono if uve written abt that already). do u get to interact with externals? and do u get to socially hang out with ur colleagues at work?
best of luck dude. we are all proud of u and v v happy for u. keep us posted. write me if u need anything or have any queries or problem! im always here for u.
take caRE!!!!!!! ciao
Posted by HasaN SheikH | 7:12 PM
I am Kent's mother and I am even whiter than Kent! Anyway, its good to read about your experiences as what you write about is very different from what Kent writes about in his blog.
So keep up the good work!
PS In case Kent hasn't told you, its his birthday on the 15th.
Posted by Miss Canthus | 6:24 PM