Return to Cairo, 2017

This year's trip to our winter getaway in Cairo took us via Detroit and Paris.  I haven't visited the Detroit  airport since my Dayton Hudson Department store days back in the late 1980s and was pleasantly surprised.

There was an excellent pianist playing dinner music near the Chick-fil-A and we stopped in at the Gordon Biersch for garlic fries and soup while we waited for the plane taking us on to Paris.





Airplanes quit getting faster about 1957.  Industry progress now consists of finding a way to get one more row of seats on-board.  Airport amenities are the consolation prize.

The typical approach to Paris' Charles de Gaul airport is from the East and brings us in over a series of small French villages that sit in relative isolation in the midst of farmland.  Here we fly past Juilly, a town which dates, some say, from a visit by St. Genevieve in the year 470.



All together, it was 14 hours in the air but 22 hours from our front door in Bloomington to the front door of our Cairo condo.  Four airports, three planes, and only two security scans.

Speaking of front doors, there were no cats to greet us on Thursday evening.  We put out the welcome mat, though, and Friday morning brought these building cats looking for a handout.


They are likely related to Mishmish (That's Arabic for Apricot) our favorite cat from last year who is quite relaxed around people.


Mishmish showed up at the door later in the afternoon.