I am back from my honeymoon. I must say that I am not so excited to return back, although I glad to see my family again. But coming back without my Alaa, was very difficult to do. And while I was waiting six hours at the airport in Jordan for my connecting flight to New York, I was deeply contemplating to return on one of the many flights back to Cairo that were being announced through the speakers. I was running like a mad woman trying to find a phone booth that works. I finally found the only phone booth that works in the entire airport, only to discover that it does not take any credit cards. Then the challenge was to find a phone card to buy. I finally found a kiosk that sells very expensive phone cards, and on a different occasion due to principal I would not have let someone rip me off. But this occasion I had to call Alaa, I had to hear his voice and I had to make sure that he is ok. So I purchased the phone cards and got through to Alaa to hear his voice for those 5 minutes.
Although I did not discuss this with Alaa on our short phone call, during those long hours at the airport I kept on playing in my mind how things would work out, if I return back to Cairo and call him to pick me up at the airport. I know he would be overjoyed and he would rush to the airport. But where would life go from there? What would I do and what would he do? And would life become boring if we just went to the beaches everyday and go out every night as we used to do for the past three weeks. All of these things were going through my mind the entire time at the airport. At the end I decided not to take any risks and to go with the plan and board my flight to New York. But maybe some day, I will look back and read this entry and think to myself, what if? What if I had returned to Cairo that day? How would our lives be different? Well, I will never know and that is life.
During those amazing three weeks everything went well and it was an amazing time. Both Alaa and I would agree that this time was even more special than our time together back in 2007. As you can imagine I was so nervous to see Alaa after three years! I didn’t know what to expect at the airport. And although I was overjoyed to see him and couldn’t wait, I would be lying if I said that I was not apprehensive. But once I landed, got my bags and walked out of the Sharm El-Sheikh terminal and saw Alaa all smiling and happy, I was taken aback to the time three years ago. And Alaa and I started from where we began a long time ago, as if there were not three years that separated us from each other.
After the airport we went to a small but very nice apartment that Alaa rented for a week. We ended up going to different beaches everyday and went out at night to a different lounge and/or restaurant. The following Saturday it was time to go to Cairo, in order to get married. We reached Cairo very exhausted and checked in to our amazing suite at the Sheraton in downtown Cairo. We had an amazing room, with two balconies, one of which over looked the Nile river, we also had a living room and than the bedroom. That Saturday evening his parents invited us for dinner. As most people eat dinner late, we arrived at his parent’s house at around ten in the evening. We talked about the wedding plans the following two days and we had an amazing Middle Eastern dinner prepared by his mother. By the time we returned back to our hotel room it was early in the morning. As we could not sleep from the anxiety of having to go to the US embassy the next morning in order to get a permission for me to get married in Cairo, we ended up having a class of wine on the balcony overlooking the still alive city below. Usually, drinking a class of wine helps me sleep but apparently that did not work that day. I could not fall asleep due to anticipation and apprehension of the next day.
