Greetings from Cairo

I have been away awhile. Sorry about that. I know there is one reader out there who will be happy today. Poor fellow. You really should read more than my one side. Well I am alive. I am now in Cairo, one of the more interesting cities in Northern Egypt. I must say I have enjoyed myself here, but the pollution, particularly the litter, has been a little off-putting. I saw an Israeli movie recently, "Big Bad Wolves," and I think I spent half of my time looking at how clean all of the sidewalks were. I can now see the route to the Arab-Israeli conflict: litter is what it comes down to. The Israelis brought in clean streets and the Arabs couldn't stand the pressure. If there was an Olympic event for littering, Egyptians would win the gold every four years. But besides that I have been enjoying myself. I met someone nice and lovely and we went out for two months, and then she threw me under the bus. The age old saga of me being too old for her. While this was probably true, it also didn't make me feel any better. I am almost fifty and she has just turned 33 so there is quite an age difference. She is also a Muslim and would have needed me to convert. I am not sure I am quite ready for that. But hopefully we can be friendly. So far she has mostly been ignoring me. I will play nice. The school where I am working is quite nice. Great staff, lovely kids, lots of nice teachers to hang out with. I really need to do more hanging out with people, since I can sometimes be a loner. I shouldn't be. I am actually quite entertaining, but I just get into ruts I guess where being alone is the nicest way to be. Have three big trips coming up to Europe and I am thinking of also going to Israel for my April Break, so a great big shalom to all of my Jewish peeps might be in order. Well hope you are well, dear one reader. 2014 has been interesting. Hopefully it will continue in this manner, and hopefully 2015 will be even better. And here is a photo of the oldest synagogue in Cairo.