Egypt and Italy.. a Pile of Catchup!

It's been so long since I last wrote something here, where do I even begin?

Let's start with Egypt:

Egypt seems to be calming down, but it's not the old Egypt and still has its moments of instability. Strikes right now are keeping people from taking the trains to Luxor and there was a protest outside of the U.S. Embassy on Thursday (though it was only a couple dozen people).  Overall, living life here is fine. I'm able to get about and do the things I want to do, including running on a regular basis. However, because the security services are still significantly degraded we are required to travel in pairs. Also, the Embassy remains under an ordered departure, so Meg is left in Virginia. We are always hopeful it will be lifted shortly, but the government is a bureaucracy and the situation in Egypt is fluid.  

Monday is Sham El Nessim - Egypt's Spring Festival that apparently has been celebrated for over 4,000 years. So between the school spring break, Easter weekend, and the Sham El Nessim, there are very few expats around this weekend. But a couple of runners are still around and the weather has been AWESOME (65ºF Low - 82ºF High) so we're still enjoying some nice runs in the desert. 

With the ordered departure still in place, Meg is in the U.S. while I'm here in Egypt.  I think we are now over 90 days. Also, I haven't had a break from work or Cairo since this whole thing started. I've been getting weekends off for about the last month, but going to Luxor or the Sinai are still not advised. So it was a great relief to get a week off from April 2-10.  Meg & I used it as a chance to get to see each other and get away from our respective jobs.

So, we ventured off for a week in Gressoney, Italy. This involved flying into Milan (see previous post) then a 90 minute transfer to the small town of Gressoney La Trinite. Europe has not received a lot of snow this winter (unlike the United States) but there was still enough left for us to enjoy some turns. I did a little off piste skiing with some more new found friends at the Telemark Ski Company. The off piste was reasonably decent, but it was incredible to feel the snow conditions change as temperatures, sun exposure and slope aspect mixed to create extremely different snow conditions as you moved around the mountain.

Four Great Things in Italy!

At one point we were not far from this photo coming down a slope and the bowl about 100m away from us (separated by a rock band) let loose in an avalanche! Since we were on the same angle only with more people on it, we hustled off and found a safer slope. Late in the afternoon on our last day, we were doing laps on a certain section of nice, relatively untracked snow. There was a bit of a traverse to get back to the lift. Between our second and third lap, a slide covered our traverse. The slide probably would not have buried you, but it would have knocked you off your feet. As we looked farther, we saw the slide may have pushed you over a cliff into a creek bed. Clearly the warm conditions through the week were making things dangerous so we got back on the piste and decided having a drink was a smarter/better way to spend the afternoon.

Lots of sun and fun was had. After a week though, we had to leave: Meg to the United States, me back to Egypt. When I got back to Egypt, I found it was actually cooler in Egypt than it was in Milan. What's up with that?