Prequal (Click Here for Previous Post in Series)

March 18th, 2021

T MINUS 1 HOUR UNTIL TAKE-OFF

I don’t think I went over the details of my flights earlier. Well, it was a doozy.

• 2 hour flight to LAX
• 3+ hour layover
• 12 hour flight to Paris
• 7 hour layover
• 5.5 hour flight to Egypt

I had tried to quit smoking (down to 1 a day) but even for a non-smoker, this was going to be rough. But I had a plan (besides the 30 packs of Nicorette gum I brought but never used).

It consisted of Booze & Tylenol PM.

PDX:  20 oz IPA

10:38AM PDX to LAX: Wine and Fireball

1:10 LAX:  3 Double Cadillac Margaritas

4:25 LAX à Charles de Gaulle: 1 glasses of wine + 2 Tylenol PM’s

You know the 1 pint-size Ziplock bag that you have to fit all your liquids in to get through security at the airport? People usually fill them with toiletries and such… I filled mine with Fireball.

The flight to LAX was just fucking lovely. Delta Comfort Section…. Just chillaxin’

Then I rolled up to LAX and found out I was in a tard plane. We didn’t even have a gate…or terminal for that matter. Weird thing is, I get off the plane on the runway and everybody’s fucking gone. No fucking joke- I have no explanation lol.  So, I’m standing there, wondering if I got slipped a roofie by the hot “Stewart”, and what appears before me, but an empty fucking bus! Alrighty then.

In case you think I’m exaggerating….

https://youtu.be/LoRF7e556JM

Long story short, it took me about an hour to walk through this desolate expansion of shit. I swear, there is nothing for like hundreds of feet in a row…. nothing!… So, why don’t you just compact the bitch? This expedition I took was completely unnecessary and not only did I take a bus, but I had the unfortunate pleasure of taking some sort of flying fucking subway that would bring me from one useless space to another. Must be because of Covid, but like 90% of gates and businesses were closed. Fuck, this sucks.

I did finally find civilization: ergo, booze. Spent like $65 on 3 margaritas. While sipping on my sizzer (??) I scanned my email and see that Genevieve (Paris Tour Guide chick) sent me something… I remember thinking “perfect, everything is chill!”. Then I boarded.

Never been on that big of a plane… there were like 3 rows: 2 with 3 seats and 1 with like 5.

I was right by the (soon to find out) self-serve snack bar and bathrooms. Every seat had headphones, a blanket, and a pillow on it. There was hardly anyone on the plane, so I grabbed a few blankets and pillows and started making my nest.

A little bit later, I was brought dinner and wine. Chased that with 2 Tylenol PMs and woke up when they were serving breakfast, 45 min before we landed.

Mother fucker I did something right! My ass even felt refreshed and shit.

I don’t understand why, but the airports literally get exponentially worse as you leave PDX. (We should all send PDX flowers FYI, cause they are a God-send).

All I wanted was a cigarette. And Paris was apparently cool before Covid because they had smoking boxes everywhere but were all closed due to Kate Browns. So I just followed people for what seemed like an eternity , until I reached the surface… Gasping for air, I lit my fucking cigarette and all was right in the world.

As soon as I opened the door however, Taxi drivers were on me like flies on shit.

I was like “Mercy! Mercy! Onshante’!”

No, I’m totally joking but I did have to tell the dude to chill for a second and I called Miss Genevieve.

She says (but way harder to understand): Im sorry,  I have other engagements now, you did not respond to my email”

“What? I totally did, did it not send!?? Oh, no!” …Completely lying on the fly (as I was remembering brushing off her email, not reading, assuming everything was peachy).

Genevieve: Let me talk to him

Me: Okay….

If you’ve never heard people conversate in French, you’d be fucking surprised. It’s supposed to be this romantic, beautiful language, but they just sounds like they’re fucking pissed and bickering all the time. It was surprising.

So, not exaggerating, about 12 minutes later, he gives me bask the phone and starts grabbing my shit.

Me: Hello?

Genevieve: He is going to charge you $50 euro for the. You are going to come pick me up and take me to the theatre. After he drops me off, he will drive you around to see the main sites and back to the airport for your next flight. He will charge you 200 euro. Yes?

Me: Uh, yeah that’s fine… thank you??

Click.

About 45 minutes later she calls again and tells me to put her on speaker.

“Bicker bicker bicker. BICKER WALA…bicker bicker…..”

Genevieve: Is he driving a nice car!?

Me: What?

Genevieve: Is his car nice?

We’re still on speaker, mind you. I look around and its clean n shit, not old, but like a Prius… I’m a little thrown off, not trying to offend someone in another country….

Me: Um, yeah, I guess??

I wish I could have recorded there conversations to translate later; I don’t know how they could have had that much to talk about.

We finally get to her and she jumps in the front seat, bickers with the driver for a minute, then looks around and says, “this in NOT a nice car”….

Me: 😬😳

Genevieve: bicker bicker- Wala! Bicker bicker Wala!

Driver: BICKER BICKER -WALLLA! …BICKER bicker wala!

Side Note: My Paris tattoo ended up being the word “Voila” (the correct spelling of “wala” lol).

Then she busts out this map and has all this shit circled and starts telling me everywhere I’m going but speaking French most the time… then she tells me it was just announced a few hours ago, that they will begin another “blackout”, starting that night. That’s what they call quarantine. That’s apparently why traffic was so bad and everyone was on edge. I gave her 50 euro as she was jumping out.

---

Driving in Paris is a joke. They basically do wtf they want. My cab driver got irritated, turned the wrong way on a one-way, JUST so he could back up and flip a bitch to go the opposite direction as the one way we were just on. Cars were jam packed, nearly bumper to bumper. At times we wouldn’t move at all for like 5-10 min and other times wed be going way to fucking fast for how close everyone was to each other: it was unnerving.

Boy was it fucking beautiful though, Jesus. It literally gives me goosebumps to think about, but I like that kind of shit. It’s disappointing I couldn’t go inside any of the buildings, but I’ll take what I got. A lot of them had the years they were built carved into them.

I also saw that famous bridge with all the fucking locks on it. I think you like make a wish or voodoo someone into loving you, idk, but then you put a lock on it. This has been going on for so many years that it actually became too heavy, threatening the integrity of the bridge, so they freakin’ cut them all off! Sad.

I made the driver stop at a local bakery. I basically got one of everything, then went to a wine shop got a bottle of Champaign. My first bottle of – not-bubbly -but actual Champagne! Fucking fancy shit.

Along the way I saw a stadium with a huge banner hanging from it with some French word. I saw some graffiti later with that same word on it. I asked what it was and apparently there is a group there protesting these blackouts and that was part of their protesting.

Interesting. Not only did I expect a romantic accent, but also a bunch of bitches – and that is why you don’t judge people until you meet them!

We left the airport at like 12:30 and I was back before 5 to catch my flight to Egypt. Miss Genevieve even called me again to check in. Harsh as she may have seemed, I really think she may be considered a sweetheart in Paris.

Note: I really hope I remember to tell you about the Wuhan Klan on my return flight through this airport lol.

The flight to Egypt was packed and sucked a very very small penis. The $200 to upgrade to business class would have been well worth it.

If I didn’t mention it earlier, every fucking customs I’d gone through thus far, had pulled me aside and dusted me with some white shit….Shits going to give me cancer or something, for reals.

Well, they did it again, but this time however, they also took my fucking Champaign! They then looked at me with this ‘ignorant-white-devil-probably-doesn’t-even-know-she’s-going-to-hell’ look, then proceeded to tell me to put on a cleaner mask…

Fuck guys, sorry! Just a dirty-ass alcoholic American coming through!! Don’t mind me! Where’s your nearest McDonalds and Pub!!??

The Egyptian airport wasn’t too bad over all. The only thing that was super confusing is the suited motherfucker that kept talking to me when I was waiting for my checked luggage. He had like a badge on that made me think he was an official or something. He kept asking me where I was staying, did I have transportation… I’m pretty sure he was like the Egyptian Tourism consulate or some shit.  Or he could have just been concerned about this young(ish) blonde female, alone, in Egypt at 2 am. . I don’t care where you are, 2 am is going to be sketch regardless of location (but maybe slightly more in 3rd world countries??).  IDK, at this point though, I really didn’t give a fuck- I just kept telling him I had a ride and a place to stay. He gave me his card. I wish I still had it.

I’m not going to lie; I was super excited to see a dude in a black tux holding a sign that said “Beshore” by the exit lol. The hostel I was staying at provided an airport pickup service – hopefully in a tux with a sign…

Spoiler Alert: He didn’t have a sign – or a tux.

I’m assuming he was told to told to look for the white bitch. I also glow-in-the-dark, so this guy had no issues finding me.

He swiftly walks up to me and smiles really fucking big then offers me a cigarette. He then grabs all my fucking bags [somehow] and leads me out [an uncomfortably long distance] into a dark parking lot, and finally,  to a POS- like 1983 Pinto or something. Then offers me another cigarette.….

Ok, at this point I’m like, this dudes alright lol.

THEN- he told me to sit in the front seat!

I looked at him like a deer in the headlights for a bit, then immediately felt like an asshole and overcompensated by losing all self-preservation instinct’s and I sat in the front seat.

Videos of my drive from the airport.

Backstory: When researching Egypt, specifically things such as; sexual assault, sex trafficking, “is it safe for a woman to go to Egypt alone”, the one thing I ran into over and over, was “don’t sit in the front seat of a cab because it’s like an invitation [if you will]…” . I was not trying to send out invitations.

But besides (being from a country I was unfamiliar with and)  a couple missing teeth, the guy really did seem perfectly harmless. He was actually a pretty cool dude….

Ok, I was over it.

We start cruising into Cairo and well, it’s fucking Cairo right? They got important shit in Cairo! I was expecting a somewhat normal or more advanced city… no.

No, no, no….lol. I saw 3 cool billboards and a couple average highway system overpasses…. But then shit got not second, but third world real quick like… Donkeys everywhere! Baby Jesus in the stable… lol…. Jk, jk…For reals though, Cairo is beautiful in its own way but it looks like the aftermath of WWIII. It’s the smoggiest place you will probably ever encounter. And don’t forget -OLD AF! Mory, who you will meet later, informed me that the building I was sleeping in, was older than our country…. I don’t even have a smartass comment for that. Shit’s deep.

Anyways, about half way through the drive he stops and asks if I want a picture on The Nile. The last thing I wanted to do at this point is stop… I had been “OTW” for like days now, I just wanted to be there. But, fuck it. I had been  in the same clothes, hair, and makeup for like an ungodly amount of time though so I filtered this bitch 🙂 

The entrance to my hostel!

About hour or so (and 13 cigarettes) later, we pull up to the Hostel. I try to get out of the cab but quickly realized that people here have manners… After my door was opened, the driver proceeded to grab all my shit with one pinky finger, when the “manager” or whatever he’s called, steps out and smiles..

What a cute little shit.

His name was Mory, though he looked like a bald Aladdin. In which I told him later, assuming he wouldn’t get the reference. He did lol.

He was one of those people you can’t tell if they’re 18 or fucking 40.  He was adamant on being 21 though, so we’ll go with it.

The first thing he asks me is if I have cats. WTF?? “Ummmm, yeah… how did you know?”.

He then points at my hands, that were currently covered in scratches from my possessed demon kittens and laughs.

I like this fucker.

So, I need to take a minute and backtrack a bit before I continue…

I was done checking-in and heading to my room. I turned around and said “hey” (gesturing at my short sleeve, loose fitting, pant romper), “can I like wear this shit or no?”  He knew what I was talking about.

He laughs and then tells me, “You can wear whatever you want, people are just going to look at you like you’re naked.”

Hmm.

When I stepped in my room, I just stared for a moment. The I looked in the bathroom, Then, I opened the large double doors to the balcony. I had a flash of panic run over me all the sudden and I started laughing uncontrollably. Like cray-cray-possessed-bitch laughing….

“What the fuck am I doing here, I am fucking crazy”

I actually got part of my meltdown on camera.

Then, the shit show began…