Welcome Back

Well, I've been in Cairo for almost a month, and I figured it was about time to get this blog re-started. This time I'm going to do things a little differently, though. When I was last in the Middle East, I registered thirty-five posts over eleven months. Not bad, but going forward I plan to cut down on the length of my posts and instead focus on posting shorter posts far more frequently. Needless to say, when I have one of those groundbreaking epiphanies that suddenly allow me to see the Middle East in a new and fascinating light, I won't hold back. In the meantime, this blog will serve as a means of constantly updating you, the faithful reader, on a day-to-day basis. Count on many stories — the funny, the peculiar, the tragic — and some (I hope not too pretentious) thoughts on Egypt and the region. Some posts will be personal, some analytical. In the end, though, I hope that through these posts and the comment section at the bottom, we might be able to all share a little bit of knowledge in the study of this fascinating region.

Now let me tell you about my first month here. I spent my first days living with my friends Tom and Whitney at their place here in Zamalek, which is the neighborhood on the island in the middle of the Nile. I've since moved and found myself a nice little place just down the street from Tom and Whitney, across from where I used to live.

I've started work as a part-time business reporter for a local paper called Daily News Egypt, and you can check out my latest article here. Hey, whoever knew that natural gas could be such a blast. I'm also getting started right now with some work I'll be doing for ABC News over the course of the coming year. I'd tell you what I'm working on for them, but Charlie (you know, Gibson) told me to keep it under wraps. Just kidding.

My friends from Middlebury, Rowan and Justin came to visit near the end of June and we had a great time visiting the sites around Cairo, including the pyramids, the camel market, the Friday market (where monkeys come cheap!), etc. We also ventured to the Sinai for a few days of rest Bedouin style.

I suppose I'll leave it there for now. Nothing too exciting in this post, but I wanted to give you the full update in short order. Many more stories to come in the coming days and weeks.

In the meantime, I've put a few photos in the post below to whet your appetite. You should be able to click on each image to enlarge it.