Arrived Safe and Sound in Cairo

Well, I've been in Egypt for going on 5 days now.  Everything has been great so far with no major issues.  The flight in was long, but ok.  I'm not sure how much I like Lufthansa airlines though...  Well, it's not so much the Airline them self selves but more of a dislike for the Airbus plane I flew from Frankfurt to Cairo.  I brought all of my camera gear with me on this trip.  I have everything stuffed into a Lowepro Vertex 300 backpack which is a fairly large bag, but is small enough to be carry on approved.  So, I had no problems with the bag on the previous two United Flights.  I was one of the first to get on the plane, so I just stuck it into the overhead compartment.  But, on the Lufthansa leg I was one of the last to board....  There was room in some of the over head compartments, but not enough for my bag.  So, I tried to shove my camera bag under the seat in front of me.  That didn't work out so well because there was NO room, I mean even if I had my normal laptop backpack it would not of fit under there.  The seat was very low and there was a box in the way which held all of the electronics for the LCD monitor.  Sure, it was nice to have on demand TV/Movies and Music to watch, but not having leg room or room for stowing my luggage was a pain.

Enough of complaining about not having room on the plane.  Onto the small scare I had when I arrived in Cairo.  I had scheduled a "meet n greet" service with the hotel.  The service includes a greeter to meet you before immigration to help ensure you understand how to fill out the paperwork, get your visa and so on then drives you to the hotel. As I'm walking through the airport, I see a few people holding up signs with names, but I don't see mine.  I'm thinking, "dang, they forgot to come pick me up and I'm screwed!".  I pull out my laptop to get the hotel's phone number and called them up asking where my driver was.  It turns out that the meet n greet service will only meet you before immigration in terminals 1 and 2.  If you arrive at terminal 3 they meet you after you go through immigration and then help you pickup your bags to go through customs.  Of course the hotel had forgotten to tell me this when I booked the service.  After I figured out where to meet my driver, I went up to immigration and handed the officer my passport.  He starts flipping through and asks me, "Where is your Visa?"  "Visa?  I don't have no stinking Visa" is the thought that goes through my head, but I politely tell the immigration officer that I do not have a visa.  This is where it gets strange.  You have to have a visa to get into Egypt, but you don't have to have one before arriving.  You just walk up to a so called "bank" which is located before immigration and pay them 15 USD.  Then wallah, you have a visa.  Sounds like a racket to me....  No back ground check, no paperwork to fill out, nothing of the sort.  They just want your money.


When I finally got through immigration the meet n greet guy was standing there holding my bag.  He told me he was concerned that I had missed my flight but had looked through the bags and saw my name.  From there I hopped in a Mercedes and we were off to the hotel.

The hotel, well it's pretty nice.  I'm staying at the Hilton Pyramids Golf Resort.  I have to say, the staff are very polite and it was a breeze to check in.  I have a room over looking the pool, so it can be a bit noisy in the afternoon with all the families playing in the water, but it's not terrible.  Here's a video of my room and my view.  Please excuse the mess, I took it after waking up the other morning, so the bed wasn't made yet.


Well, that's all for now.  I got a chance to go explore some around Cairo on Friday and will be posting my photos later.

New name, new mission, same blog

So, for those who are still following me from my old blog 9 Weeks of Freedom, thanks for sticking around.  For the new people who have stumbled upon this blog, welcome and I hope you stick around.  As you can see from my earlier posts, I started a blog to talk about my travels during my Sabbatical.  I enjoyed talking about where I had gone, the photographs and so on, so I figured I'd continue blogging about my weekend adventures looking for a great shot.  9 Weeks of Freedom didn't make sense anymore, so I changed it to Shields Photography.  I've actually thought about selling my photos and am working on setting up a website to do so.  Why the plain name of  "Shields Photography"?  I guess you could say it's for sentimental reasons.  My Grandpa Shields had a shoe repair shop in White Salmon, WA called "Shields Shoe Shop".  Sure, I'm not starting up a repair shop, but I'm carrying on the name.

For those who don't know me, my name is Greg Shields and I have this semi-serious addiction of photography.  As a kid growing up, I always wanted to get into photography.  When I was around 10, my Grandma gave me a small Kodak 110 film camera which I used as much as I could, but when you're a kid and money is tight, there is only so much film/developing that you can purchase.  Then in middle school I wanted to take one quarter off from Band and take the photography elective but couldn't due to the fact that I had committed to my other passion, music.  My parents had purchased a trumpet for me that year with the condition that I had to stick with music, no matter what.  Since I only had 1 elective in middle school, it was band.  For some reason, my high school didn't have photography, which I always thought was kind of dumb.

So my photography aspirations started later in life when I purchased a Minolta 35mm SLR.  Due to the fact that you're waiting days to see your results, I didn't really get serious about my photography skills.  Then the promise land was in sight: Digital SLRs.  Of course when DSLRs first came out, there was no way I could afford one, but Canon came out with an affordable DSLR called the Canon Rebel and I just had to have one.  I bought one with the kit 18-55mm zoom.  It was a great camera and took wonderful pictures.  I shot with it for around a year and a half.  Then Canon came out with the 20D.  I started investigating the 20D and decided that it was the way to go.  I wanted more control over my photos and the Digital Rebel just wasn't cutting it.  I still have the Rebel though, it makes a good backup when I go on long trips.

Anyways, enough of the history and let's start looking at what's coming up.  To support my photography addiction, I work for a company that sends me around the world.  On this Monday, Sept 21 work is sending me to Cairo, Egypt.  Yep, that's how lucky I am.  I'm taking my camera gear with me and hopefully will have some time to get out there to explore and shoot some photos.  So stick around, I'll be talking about my trip, posting some photos and video.  I picked up the Creative Vado HD video camera to shoot some video of the locations I'm at.  No, I don't plan to talk much, but hopefully I'll get some cool video to share along with my photos.

Well, I hope you guys/gals enjoy my blog and keep coming back.  It's time to start packing for my trip.