4:30 in the morning

All is quiet on the streets round the hotel. I am very tired, my eyes are burning but I can't sleep. Jet lag. Ugh. I am downstairs in the lobby of our Oasis (haha) using their computer. All the keys have been rubbed away so grant me spelling errors. the door man is asleep. He smokes Cleopatra cigarettes. Gave me one. Not helping. the night guy for the room service is curled up on the couch next to the computer in his uniform. everything is quiet cept for the noise coming from the dinning room.

Rob has just come down in his velour bathrobe to look for his own cigarette. I directed him to the doorman. Nice guy the doorman. Maybe I should venture towards the dinning room to watch the news. Ekh. Why bother. they have been showing the same looping images since the last three days. Reminds me of 2006: Beirut, same images from days prior looping again and again, as if trying to reinforce any paranoia that might be taking root at home or abroad. It is all too familiar.

Another restaurant employee has now shown up. Haiy he says. (cant quite get the intonation in english). He must have been sleeping elsewhere as it seems he has just woken up, still in uniform as well.

Rob has just informed me after visiting the restaurant that Aljazeera is blocked and the Tahrir square is lit up. "Full of lies!" he claims.

Well I am not on a political or activist mission. In fact I am not quite sure why I am here at all, but if you enjoy reading this and I am finally writing again, I suppose it is a good thing.

the hotel lobby is dark save for a few lights. Arabic is working just fine with a few stumbles. I wish you could see this "Oasis". Blue lotus metal impressions going up the stairway banister: stained blue carpet following in the wake: iron and marble coushoioned furniture in the lobby: room service menues that declare about their phoenix lounge "rising up with our srevices" (and no that is not my typo): strange mushroom clay light fixtures with holes that look like something out of a 3rd grade hobby class: mismatched prints on boards hung randomly about the dining room, which may I add serves some sort of Egyptian spam with the Nescafe at breakfast: our room is wonderfully ornamented with a random sconce some more of the same prints on wood block randomly placed, a policy paper framed and stuck behind the desk at an angle, at least the furniture matches, but the bed sheets don't: mauve and shit brown stripes accent one wall that is framed by the coushioned golden-mustard head boards that have nothing in common except hue with the bed sheets.

Shall I continue? I wish you could be here.

At least we are continuously entertained with my I Pod playing my random shuffle through the docking station. Playing a great stream of Peter Gabrielle starting with Biko. Awesome and fitting. If you have never seen the movie "Cry Freedom" please get it on Netflix or any other way and WATCH IT!!

Did I mention the telephone that did not have an accompanying cord? And when we did get one, the connection to the front desk was so bad that we had to go to the front desk to make phone calls anyway. Sitting next to their ancient dinosaur of a printer and their DOS system telex machine that shrieks out the time you spend on the phone on a printer that is yellowed with years of Cleopatra cigarette smoke.

It cant get any better than this. I live for this.


More to come... :)