Day 1

So we've finally touched down after a good 12 hours 40 minutes being stuck on the plane (had a transit in Dubai but we couldn't get off as we were docked away from the terminal...NO!!!! to think i've been trapped for 7hours craving for McArabia!).

At an earthly 0530, we go off the plane with our royal wave down the stairs (no, not really) while the magic school bus picked us up to the terminal. Met dear Tina from Aiesec Poland, one of the CCs for MENAXLDS. As it still way too early, we bummed in in Ceasar's Hotel where most of the other delegates put up (because they flew in earlier). Rotted around the lobby but there wasn't much life going on. Our tomb raider instincts kicked in and off we went exploring the area actually, we were really really hungry and were trying to find breakfast).

Guess what we found!



nothing else seemed to be open yet though.

Stuffed ourselves with those freshly made pita and back we went.

Took a little bus with some of the other AP delegates and headed off for another hotel for the opening ceremony. People started streaming in and off we went face hunting...








So anyway we got our asses to this other 4 star Triumph Hotel, which was pretty much swarming with press - there's an up and coming arabic young star clad in a suit replete with shades - very bollywood, very anil kapoor (host of who wants to be a millionaire from SlumDog Millionaire) 20 years ago. Good stuff. So we met our dearest Essa! Who promptly introduced us to the rest of his 6 Bahraini homies at the conference - followed by talks, speeches, etc and we paid our respects to Nadia (MCP of Egypt) as instructed by Mayas so all is good yaarl. Until of course it was time to prepare for Global Village, which saw us escaping from the hotel grounds to across the street to Egyptian Carl's Jr (pictures enclosed) for a quick bite (thank god because the next proper meal was at some pit stop en route on our 7 hour coach ride to the 5 star beach resort at Sharm El Sheikh at an ungodly 2am in the morning later that night) and changed into our sarongs - trudged daintily back in name of decency - sarongs riding down or altogether off is not quite a pleasant sight for egyptians i am sure! Also in archetypal randomness, I wound up offering two egyptian guards cigarettes to stop them from laughing at us. Give me a G for Glamourous honey ("Gee", she's deluded).