SO excited! Possibly HouseOfReason-age! Everybodyelse-age! COOL! Is it too late for the Baseball match? I was at the final of the Egypt SuperCup (football, aka 'soccer' across the pond) the other week, which was the first time I've been to a professional match. I've never been to (or even watched, come to that) a baseball match, so that would be pretty cool. But probably too late by this point, which is also fine - not like there'll be a lack of interesting things to see and do in SF.
Monteray Bay Aquarium ROCKS. I went there when I was 17 and it was one of my very favourite things about that trip to the States. Hope I might be able to tag along to that.
I went into a travel agent yesterday to arrange my flight back to the Uk via Prague (I have interviews coming up in London [for a Thailand job] and in Prague [for, well, a Prague job]) and I was trying to find out about flights for the F2F.
Meanwhile, turns out that the Cairo Choral Association, of which I'm a member, will be having its next performance (for which we're learing 3 pieces of Hayden, 1 Purcell, 1 Mozart, 1 by IForgetWhom, maybe Schubert?, and 1 truly appallingly difficult set of Bach Cantatas [apologies for all gaffs in this statement - I'm in the choir but I'm a cultural desert when it comes to this stuff]) on the 17th and 18th of May. in Cairo, obviously enough.
Bollocks.
But the performance is but one small part of the overall experience - the months of LEARNING the bloody tricksy bastardly hard stuff is rewarding and challenging and all that in itself, plus the social side of hanging with the choir-istas, and I know that it's helping me to get a bit better at this singing malarky. So I guess that missing the actual performances is doable, although it would be nice if I could make it to the first one. But if it's one or the other, Buffistatime wins out. I just need to figure out what flights are available that fall within my price range.
So I'm maybe trying to fly on the 18th (thus attending one performance, and insh'allah arriving in SF on the afternoon/evening of the 18th, since I'll be flying back in time, type of dealio) or just saying 'fuck it' and flying out on the 16th or 17th or some such. I'll likely stay until the 20th or 21st or so, all being well - most of the airlines have a minimum stay of 4 or 5 days or more.
Um. Anyway, I'm telling y'all all of this because the thing is I'm counting on being able to crash on a sofa or rug at somebody's house - no way I can afford the fare from Egypt and then hotel expenses on top. But I don't want to put people out, and if it's easier to impose on one person for a couple of days and someone else for a couple of other days, that's cool too. Or something. Basically I'm relying on the kindness of Buffistas, which worked fantastically well in LA (A million blessings upon the fair Perkins) but which still makes me wince with the impositionishness of it. But it's all I've got, yo.
Anyone? Bueller?