Things to Miss about Egypt: the Airport

Four years of my life in Egypt comes to a close in two weeks. It's hard to believe, but even more unbelievable that I've subjected myself to Egypt for this long. To commemorate time served, I'm teaming up with my cell mate for a few (not so) sentimental musings about this land that we love tolerate.

 Love it or hate it, one of the most amusing experiences I have in Egypt is the Cairo airport. It seems to be a perfect portrait of Cairo: unpredictable, maddening, hilarious, and ridiculous. I've blogged about it on numerous occasions, but thought I would re-visit some of my favorite airport anecdotes.

 Things to Miss:

• Being greeted by a parade of children doing somersaults through the airport entrance. 
•  Breezing through security with the attendant either MIA or face-down on the conveyor belt. You've really got to watch out for all of the workaholics here. 
•  Noticing that you are the only person in the airport not smoking. In fact, the smokers hangout seems to be in front of the rather obvious NO SMOKING sign. 
•  Seeing all 18 million Cairenes (children too, of course) at the airport at THREE AM...not going anywhere in particular, just killing some time. 
•  DIY Egyptian tourist visa stickers. You can put it in your passport yourself and cover up all of those annoying extra pages ('Endorsements') in the back of the American passport. 
•  Getting accosted at passport control. Every time. 
•  Chewing out any/all irritating personnel consequence-free. 
•  Oversleeping your flight and knowing you will still make it in time because the flight is operated by Egyptians. 
•  Paying 1 EGP (16 cents) to some lady for the privilege of using the filthiest bathroom you've ever seen. She hasn't bothered to notice that all of the commodes threw up all over the floor two hours ago with nary a scrap of toilet paper in sight. And soap is definitely out-of-the-question. 
•  Bringing all the liquids I want through security: water, lotion, gin, gasoline...NO PROBLEM!
•  Knowing that the customs "officials" will never ask me to open my bag. I could have five midgets or an entire Spec's liquor store in my suitcase and no one would be the wiser.