Tag / egypt

by Gibran Cruz

Big Airports And How To Get Lost In Them

Airports are like magical waiting rooms on your way to or from home. Like any magical place, you have to be ready for adventure to happen at any moment. At least that was what I was thinking back on February 5th 2021 after hugging my brother and walking into Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico with Jay as my trusted sidekick.

Once inside, everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going except me. After getting our bags inspected by the USDA and losing the sticker 20 seconds later, we were ready for every safety protocol and flying to NYC. Piece of advice here: don’t put money in your pocket. You’ll look funny holding it in your hands and triggering every single thing inside the body scanner. Let me tell you that I’m not scared of flying. But when you’re in a plane full of people and scared to even breath inside your mask because of Covid, you start playing different scenarios in your head and even think about every airplane accident and how no one survives it. I think I have an overactive imagination or maybe I just need to download more movies the next time… who knows.

JFK International Airport in NY is huge. From skywalks inside the airport to the Airtrain to connect passengers to their terminal I think you get the idea. Security is very tight so we were checking our watches every few minutes and praying to make it in time for our next flight. It took us around 2 hrs to get through security and everything and we even had time to spend $30 (price for 2 combos) in a McDonalds because we were scared to wander away from our gate. We took our time to eat, charge our devices, made some calls to family and friends and to our surprise, there was another boricua (someone from Puerto Rico) taking the same flight to Cairo. Here (PR) we have a saying about that: “you can go anywhere in the world and you will find a boricua”. Turns out “our plantain stain” showed by the way we talked Spanish. We spent the rest of the wait and flight talking and sharing food with Felix (forget about Covid and all). When it comes to food, we boricuas forget about everything else going on; it can be the end of the world and we’d still be cooking and/or eating.

Flight from NY to Cairo is a little over 10hrs. There is no amount of movies, books or music in your device to prepare you for it. Trust me. EgyptAir is an excellent airline. It’s like going back to preschool; they serve you food and then turn off the lights so you can take a nap after eating. Looking at the screen that shows you the map and route gave me enough time to think about planes crashing into the ocean. Luckily, I didn’t have internet to search about it or the desire to know the odds. Let’s just say I have a greater chance of having an accident in the streets of Cairo even if I’m not the one driving.

We arrived at Cairo around midday the next day and our next adventure began. Cairo International Airport is easy to navigate even for foreigners. The amount of security makes you feel at ease and everyone is very helpful – even when the soap dispenser in the bathroom explodes all over you – just ask Jay about it.

There are no words to describe the feeling of walking outside and seeing my husband waiting for me at the door. He remembers the only word I said while hugging him… “finally”. One word to try and say everything my heart was keeping inside. Ten months later (December 17, 2021 to be exact) we got to replay that scene. Only this time he was the one whispering in my ear “finally” while he hugged me once again outside the same door. Feels amazing to be here with him again if only for a few weeks.

by Gibran Cruz

Love Is Not Tourism

Love Is Not Tourism is a global movement dedicated to raise awareness about long distance relationship couples and families separated by travel bans/border closures during the Covid-19 pandemic. Some couples had to wait for a long time before they were allowed to travel and reunite with their loved ones. As of today, some of them are still waiting.

Ahmed and I had to wait because we married during strict measures. But 2021 came full of hope for us so we would like to share some of it…

You can visit their website Love Is Not Tourism If you would like to share your success story or feel inspired by others, then you should check out The Love Visa.

by Gibran Cruz

My Egyptian Adventure: How It All Started

I’ve wanted to share all about my relationship for the longest time. But for some reason, this part of my life feels so special that I wasn’t ready yet. A lot of people had asked me a thousand questions since I came back from my trip to Egypt so I guess it was time I shared a little of it.

I met Ahmed back in 2019 on a dating website. But before you say anything , no, I wasn’t looking for love in all the wrong places. Someone suggested I check the website out and since I was single, why not look at some profiles? I got a message from that cute egyptian and soon enough we exchanged Instagram accounts. I have to tell you that it was a recipe for disaster: he was looking for something serious and I just wanted to meet people and make new friends, he’s all fit and I’m all fat. A few days and insults later, we decided to delete our dating profiles and give it a try. You can like someone because of their looks you know, but you fall in love with their soul and that’s what was happening to us. You can say we met each other by chance, but stayed together by fate.

He was everything I didn’t know I always wanted. We tried our best to get to know each other using every social and messaging app available to us and of course, we met each other’s parents via video call. Did I mention he was very serious about this relationship? As a heart attack. So it wasn’t a surprise that I wanted to impress him on Valentine’s Day (here’s how) and guess what? It worked! He asked me to marry him that day and I said yes without thinking about it twice. I was more than happy. We made it official the next month and that means we told our families. His family was very happy and supportive about it. Mine thought I had lost my mind. Maybe I did lost my mind for him?

A few weeks after that, the Covid 19 pandemic was announced and it felt like the whole world came to a halt. We saw our hope dwindle as airports and borders closed and traveling was restricted. We never stopped looking for options. Then my friend Sean suggested we get married online. Ahmed and I discussed the option for some time. He still jokes about it and tells me it was worse than a job interview. I mean, he was applying for the husband position after all! We married online on August 10, 2020. Yes ONLINE! Yes, legally. It was kind of a secret. I didn’t want my family to call me crazy until after I was married. To my surprise, they were ready to support me in my decision (after saying we were crazy of course). It took us around 4 months to certify, translate and legalize papers to have our marriage registered in both countries (US and Egypt).

Fast forward to February 2021 after months of texting, talking, video calling and sleeping together “on calls”, my brother took my son Jay and me to the airport. Ahmed and I were finally ready to start writing the next chapter of our love story in Egypt! Our journey to Cairo was a mini adventure… but that’s a story for another day.

Long distance relationships are not easy. Closing the distance takes time. So until then, we will keep writing the most beautiful love story. Our happily ever after.

by Gibran Cruz

Look What I’ve Got!

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Got the most beautiful gift today. When I saw it my heart skipped a bit and I couldn’t help but to fall in love with every little detail about it; from the names to the little drawings… every little detail there spells love.

Thank You Marly for such a wonderful gift. We are both very happy and you can be sure that it will be one of many beautiful things that will last forever. Thanks for the memories.

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by Gibran Cruz

Love Note #2

My problem is that I don’t believe in half loves. Either we do it or we don’t. If we go for it, know that I’m serious about it and I will give it my all. Don’t expect me to forget about things. I’m here to create memories of a perfect life we can build together. my only fear is disappointment and I’m hoping you don’t break my heart.

Fate brought us together… if you choose to believe in that kind of thing. Now I’m hoping that time works on our favor because the future is waiting for us. Thousands of miles apart but what if I told you that you are one of the best things in my life? Without you my world wouldn’t be the same because I thought I could save you when you are saving me instead.

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by Gibran Cruz

Lost in Translation…

The universe has approximately 8 planets, 169 countries, 807 islands, 10 billion people and the internet allows us to connect to almost every place in our planet. Social Media has enable us to reach out and meet people from different cities, countries and cultures and that’s how I met who my friends know as “soccer guy”.

Lostintrans I have no idea how we ended up having each other in a social app, all I know is that he sent a message and we connected… or so I thought. The messages he sent were in Arabic and I replied in English. Didn’t take that long to figure out that it was going to be very difficult trying to communicate and develop a friendship. To my surprise, neither of us gave up trying to get to know each other.

Now here comes the fun part: he is six hours ahead of me, so every time we talk, one of us is falling asleep. The language barrier itself is another funny thing. He speaks Arabic, like 10 words in English and maybe 5 in Spanish. I can speak Spanish, English and a few words in Arabic, most of them romantic or very basic. We can understand half of what the other is saying. We have to make up for the rest. He talks to me in Arabic and I love it but can’t understand 3/4 of what he says. The same with my English, he just looks at me and laughs.

You may be wondering how we are able to video call and have a conversation. Easier said than done… we use 2 phones, one to video call and the other to translate and show the other (or play the audio). In my opinion, Google Translate gets approximately 20% of translation wrong. It doesn’t help that he is Egyptian and his Arabic is a bit different. We try to get meaning from the other 80%.

He says our language should be Arabic but he will try to learn English or Spanish out of love. He is perfectly romantic (in his language) and he knows I only get half of what he says so he laughs and says “I love you so much” and while I know he doesn’t mean it, it sounds sweet and it’s too damn funny.

While we are lost in translation most of the time, we have fun. We congratulate the other on all the wrong dates (holidays) , we talk about our (yes ours) cat that I think is missing,  the apartment he is saving money to buy because he doesn’t get that vacation means I will go there for like a week or two  and the marriage that I think we both agreed to without realizing what we were saying yes to. Though we managed to clear all the misunderstandings, this is a funny guy I would love to meet.

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by Gibran Cruz

Drowning In The Sea Of Life…

Part 1 – Part 2

There’s a song by Ricardo Arjona that describes falling out of love and a relationship dying/ending as a slow progressing illness. Kind of like what happened to my relationship. Listening to it makes me think about how all the signs were there but either we chose to ignore it or we thought we could work harder to make things better. I even remember a friend mentioning that if we missed a window of opportunity, the relationship would surely die. The thing is that no matter how much you think about it and see the signs, you try to do the impossible to save it.

The beginning of the end. In August 2017,  with the help of my Sis , I planned (and paid) my dream vacation with my S/O in Egypt. For reasons I will not detail here, we ended up canceling the trip 2 days before I was supposed to travel (December 2017). I was devastated but I tried to keep a positive attitude when we talked about it and made all the promises that I knew we wouldn’t keep. It was really hard to come to terms with what happened. In part because we had months to prepare for it and some of the reasons why we canceled could’ve been avoided or worked with if addressed on time (not 2 days before traveling) and the other part is because in a LDR a meeting can take months or even years to schedule due to different life events. In our case we waited for college and then army. Needless to say, it took us some time to get our relationship back on track after that blow.

The second time around. Fast forward to 2018 and me making plans again. I talked to both the airline and travel agency back when the trip was canceled and they both told me the same thing: the ticket was still on hold but in order to re schedule it, I would have to pay a fine. In August 2018, exactly one year later,  I called the travel agency to re schedule my trip to Egypt. I was surprised to discover that I didn’t have to pay a fine exactly, instead I had to pay the difference between what I paid back in 2017 (around $1376) and the value of the same trip at that moment (around $3200). I wasn’t prepared for that. I had saved more money to pay the fine and make extra arrangements but nowhere near the almost $2000 I had to come up with in like 3 days. That’s the amount of days I had to make it work 3 days.  I had enough money to cover a place to stay and all other expenses while traveling but not enough to include that amount and there was no way I could come up with all of it in 3 days. I talked to my S/O about all of it but I knew he was unable to help at the moment. 

Drowning in the sea of life. At that point in our relationship I have to admit that I was evaluating if trying again was the right choice. My S/O was convinced we could make it and didn’t want us to give up.  We thought we’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel when he got a new job. That job put him away from home, in a shared bedroom without free days until after 30 days approximately and further away from each other as a couple. Our jobs, time difference, our lives… our relationship was slowly drowning. I remember his first days off we barely talked because his siblings were home for vacation. At this point, I knew there wasn’t enough interest in our relationship.  Text messages became repetitive, almost like copy paste. Conversations became superfluous. I guess I was just waiting for an imaginary lifeguard to throw me/us a lifebuoy. 

The end (December 3, 2018). Like i said at the beginning, it was all about seeing the signs, but doing the impossible to save it. In the end, I found the courage to ask an impossible question: When did our relationship ended? He never answered when but he agreed that our relationship ended and that we killed it. After that I had to ask the next impossible question: What do you want? his answer was clear. 

drowning

After everything is said and done you are left with more questions than answers. You are forced to think about how it all went down and ask yourself if there was something you could’ve done or should’ve done to change the outcome. Your answer will always be yes and you will torture yourself replaying all of the possible scenarios in your head because after all, you know what they say… pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. Maybe I will talk more about that later. 

gibypea3

 

 

by Gibran Cruz

Drowning In The Sea Of Life…

Part 1 – Part 2

There’s a song by Ricardo Arjona that describes falling out of love and a relationship dying/ending as a slow progressing illness. Kind of like what happened to my relationship. Listening to it makes me think about how all the signs were there but either we chose to ignore it or we thought we could work harder to make things better. I even remember a friend mentioning that if we missed a window of opportunity, the relationship would surely die. The thing is that no matter how much you think about it and see the signs, you try to do the impossible to save it.

The beginning of the end. In August 2017,  with the help of my Sis , I planned (and paid) my dream vacation with my S/O in Egypt. For reasons I will not detail here, we ended up canceling the trip 2 days before I was supposed to travel (December 2017). I was devastated but I tried to keep a positive attitude when we talked about it and made all the promises that I knew we wouldn’t keep. It was really hard to come to terms with what happened. In part because we had months to prepare for it and some of the reasons why we canceled could’ve been avoided or worked with if addressed on time (not 2 days before traveling) and the other part is because in a LDR a meeting can take months or even years to schedule due to different life events. In our case we waited for college and then army. Needless to say, it took us some time to get our relationship back on track after that blow.

The second time around. Fast forward to 2018 and me making plans again. I talked to both the airline and travel agency back when the trip was canceled and they both told me the same thing: the ticket was still on hold but in order to re schedule it, I would have to pay a fine. In August 2018, exactly one year later,  I called the travel agency to re schedule my trip to Egypt. I was surprised to discover that I didn’t have to pay a fine exactly, instead I had to pay the difference between what I paid back in 2017 (around $1376) and the value of the same trip at that moment (around $3200). I wasn’t prepared for that. I had saved more money to pay the fine and make extra arrangements but nowhere near the almost $2000 I had to come up with in like 3 days. That’s the amount of days I had to make it work 3 days.  I had enough money to cover a place to stay and all other expenses while traveling but not enough to include that amount and there was no way I could come up with all of it in 3 days. I talked to my S/O about all of it but I knew he was unable to help at the moment. 

Drowning in the sea of life. At that point in our relationship I have to admit that I was evaluating if trying again was the right choice. My S/O was convinced we could make it and didn’t want us to give up.  We thought we’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel when he got a new job. That job put him away from home, in a shared bedroom without free days until after 30 days approximately and further away from each other as a couple. Our jobs, time difference, our lives… our relationship was slowly drowning. I remember his first days off we barely talked because his siblings were home for vacation. At this point, I knew there wasn’t enough interest in our relationship.  Text messages became repetitive, almost like copy paste. Conversations became superfluous. I guess I was just waiting for an imaginary lifeguard to throw me/us a lifebuoy. 

The end (December 3, 2018). Like i said at the beginning, it was all about seeing the signs, but doing the impossible to save it. In the end, I found the courage to ask an impossible question: When did our relationship ended? He never answered when but he agreed that our relationship ended and that we killed it. After that I had to ask the next impossible question: What do you want? his answer was clear. 

drowning

After everything is said and done you are left with more questions than answers. You are forced to think about how it all went down and ask yourself if there was something you could’ve done or should’ve done to change the outcome. Your answer will always be yes and you will torture yourself replaying all of the possible scenarios in your head because after all, you know what they say… pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. Maybe I will talk more about that later. 

gibypea3