trip

Scene 1: Tuesday 25, 8am
just arrived at work as everyday. Enjoying last day before travelling, everything is normal. Later on , my mom sends me email saying she’ll go and get the ticket from the office.

Scene 2: around 1h45pm.
My mom calls me from the office saying I can’t travel tomorrow. My initial travel plan was Cairo – Milan – Paris – Libreville and the problem is that I don’t have Shengen visa so I cant go from Milan to Paris cos it is considered domestic flight. And they told my mom that after they issued the ticket (the reservation was done from france) so she couldn’t even return it. To cancel it; I must send the ticket to france. What to do? How will I travel? To many questions with no specific answer. All that and I leave work at 2h30pm. I try to contact people saying the problem.

Scene 3: around 6h30pm
I am told that the solution is to fly to Paris then to Libreville so no need of visa and that the flight is at 1am. I just have few hours to pack everything. At the end, I’ll take the same flight as before from Paris to Libreville, so this means that I’ll have like 17 hours transit.

Scene 4: 10h30pm
I arrive at the airport, my brother is already there, he was studying with his friends and came to say goodbye. I check in, everything is ok. My aunt, uncle and cousin came to say goodbye too.

Scene 5: Wednesday 26, 6am
I arrive at Paris. I change terminals. I have a lot of time so I take my time. I finally arrive to the place where I’m going to spend my day. As I don’t have visa, I can’t go to other place. I feel like Tom Hanks in his movie the Terminal. I check the place, there are seats, 3 shops but still everything is closed. There are people everywhere. I choose a place to sit, and decided to write a little about everything. At 8am, finally shops open. There is one with souvenirs and books, one for perfumes and drinks and a café to have things to eat. I look at the souvenir shop, to see what I can get on my way back to home and have a look around the books. I went to that shop 3 times, I bought some books to pass my time. In the middle of the day, the place was almost empty, no more flights till night. I slept a little, read a little. I have bought a book of Sudeku. It is a game, u have nine squares, each square has 9 spaces, u have to put numbers inside those spaces in a certain way and there is only one solution. Apparently this game is famous in France, it is originally from Japan.
Every now and then we hear announcements, that passenger shall keep their bags with them all the time and that the police will take anything left aside, by the way I didn’t see any policeman, maybe they were undercover…
There was a box aside the wall with donations for the UNICEF. U can see money inside it and for my surprise, I noticed a 1LE and 50pts. I was happy to see that, I felt that it doesn’t matter from where u r, the important is to share and care and that Egyptians care.
Times passes slowly, but finally the time to go on plane arrived.

Scene 6: Thursday 27, 5am
At last, I arrived at Libreville. It took more than hour to finish everything and get the bags. Procedure are really slow round here. I began to think that back in Egypt, it is very good service.