America

Hello Everyone,

so i am feeling a little homesick of the goold ol' USofA and i wanted to just get some thoughts and feelings out on a text box...so i am going to talk about something i really miss from America that isnt here in egypt and that is the squirrel.

Now i know you are all thinking "what?" and yeah but hey its me, i am weird and if you havent figured that out by now well i am sure this post will surely convince thee. So Yes i miss many things from America and many people but its just as long as i can remember squirrels have been a part of my life and have been part of America...i mean squirrels are as american as apple pie! am i right?! Haha, what i mean is i know i am in america when i see a bunch of gray squirrels running around or in a tree or running along a telephone line. Well as most of you know i love animals. I like knowing things about animals and telling people about animals and drawing animals...why i didnt become a zoologist or something is beyond me, either way i am dedicating this post to one of those american favorites...the gray squirrel.

I want to begin with a few demographics on the squirrel:

-scientific name: Sciurus Carolinensis
-where it lives: Like everywhere in America and some parts of Canada
-size: can actually range from 5-36 inches (weird)
-diet: insects, eggs/baby birds, seeds, acorns, walnuts, and umm more nuts...
-lifespan: 10-12 years
-now some interesting facts: a squirrel can actually jump up to 20 feet in the air, and at the same time fall from up to 100 feet in the air without hurting themselves...how? well squirrels have tails right? well the tails arent only for balancing they can be used in such a way as a parachute. Now thats interesting!

Ok so now that you all know a little more about the amazing squirrel i will finish this ridiculous post with some squirrel memories i had throughout my life.

-When i was about 7 or 8 i loved squirrels a lot to the point i wanted one as a pet. Haha, i dont know why but i always dreamt of having a pet squirrel and it just hanging out on my shoulder and i would walk around and it would be cool! haha so i remember one day i wanted to try and obtain a pet squirrel. So as you know i am egyptian and my father is egyptian and part of being an egyptian father is loving and constantly eating peanuts...haha...so i took some peanuts with me and we went to a park one time and i remember doing everyhting i could to get a squirrel. I would hold out some peanuts and run after squirrels(that didnt work) so i tried a more subtle approach where i would sit underneath a tree with peanuts on my shoulder waiting haha needless to say that didnt work either and i never did get a pet squirrel...oh well still a good memory!

-a sad moment involving a squirrel in my life was when i was in the the fourth grade. I was at Harbor Park with a kid named Frank (not frank adams) and it was winter...like for real winter like a blizzard. So we were walking around and we saw the most miserable looking squirrel in a tree he was half covered with snow and shivering. My heart ached for it and i wanted to take it home and nurse it back to health. But i couldnt, do you know why? frank had a tennis ball with him (haha come to think about it that kid ALWAYS had a tennis ball with him...) anyway he threw it at the squirrel and actually hit it! the squirrel must have been so cold and weak it was knocked off the tree hit its head on another branch and hit the ice and all i could hear was a crack sound...yeah that squirrel was dead and i was very sad...

-ok time for a little more upbeat something. So in the fifth grade i think one of the most memorable times i can think of there was when a squirrel somehow got into the building of our elementary school! haha, i remember it well because it was a reason to immediately get up out of our chairs and into the halls to try and find it. It was amazing the teachers could do nothing to stop the mob of children in search of this most welcomed guest. Eventually the squirrel was caught by one of the janitors and we put outside. That guy was crazy he caught the squirrel with his bare hands by i guess faking it out and diving to catch it. He didnt hurt it of course it was weird the way he did it was so...familiar to him it was like he had done it a million times...haha ok well that was a fun time and we missed like 20minutes of class because of it.

-i will give one last memory and i guess end it because this is getting to be a really weird post even for me...so yeah this has a little back story first. In front of my house in mamaroneck there was this bush (its gone now) and in this bush lived a most foul and vicious creature. My friends and i called it "the cat creature". We first discovered this thing on rainy night at about 10pm. It was pouring outside and my friends and i just pulled up to my house to drop me off. The driver was Alex Stein and I was in the front about to get out. In the back seat was Dan Davis and Sam Nia. It was just a regular rainy night i was saying goodbye when all of a sudden something jumped into the head lights that taught us all the definition of horror...THE CAT CREATURE! man it was scary. We all screamed and it jumped into the bush...man if i had to describe what it was...or is...its a cat sure but its a cat with a head twice the size as normal! man those eyes and everything were so big.....ok ok ok so yeah thats the small back story this frightening creature of the night residing in the bush infront of my house. It was really scary having to walk home each day and passing by that bush. So now here comes the memory. So it was a regular day after high school and i was walking home. I was preoccupied with a conversation i had just had with a one Mr. Dan Davis about how "church guy" wrecked him (haha thats a story for another time)....
...so since i was occupied i was walking a little closer to the curb on the side of my house which is also where the bush is. So i was walking when a squirrel from across the way hurled itself from a tree and darted infront of me as i was about to pass the bush. THEN all of a sudden these two paws reached out of the bush and grabbed the squirrel! I jumped back and it was too late the squirrel was dragged into the bush, a few seconds of rustling and then silence...my friends that squirrel saved my life! if it had not been for that squirrel the andrew ghobrial you all know and think is crazy for making this post, haha, would be dead today....


ok so yeah i think you all get the point that squirrels are awesome and that i love them. Like i said i miss many things from america and i definitely miss a lot of people from america (you know who you are...haha kidding i miss you all!) but yeah the common gray squirrel has always been there and it reminds me of america. Ok i have more squirrel stories but i didnt want to go overboard. I hope all is well and may everyone have a good day!

I hope Joe got to read this

ps. I suggest everyone to go outside and admire a squirrel or something haha

Always look on the bright side of lfe

Hi everyone,

sorry about not posting more frequently but these coming months are the busiest and i am working with a lot of people jumping in and out of meetings at the office and then preparing for the builds coming up. I will however give you a small story that happened while my parents were here.

So one of the things to accomplish while my parents were here was to get me a national Egyptian ID so that i dont have to pay a ridiculous amount when using the train or wanting to go to a tourist attraction (as i once said its 50 pounds for a foreigner and 1 or 2 pounds for an Egyptian with an ID). So yeah that was thank God accomplished with relative ease (thats a story for another time) but my aunt also said it would be good if i got an Egyptian passport. So we applied for one and after much and much stress and waiting it seemed to be going well until i had to prove i was the only son so i wouldnt be forced to join the Egyptian army. Haha, i am pleased to say i am not going to the army but here is what happened one day....

I was in the office preparing for a big meeting for a build thats coming up when i get a call on my mobile; its my father. I go "hello father how are you doing?" my father replies "andrew you have to come here right now." and i go "umm...what?" basically my dad was at this huge administrative building called "el Mogaama" (eh mo-gamma) which is Tahir Square (tah-phlegm-eer square) that is about an hours away from my office. But i had to first get my American passport that was in my room in the seminary which is another 20 minutes away. So i had to apologize for skipping my meeting and run to a taxi and get my passport, then i run to take another taxi to the metro and go all the way to the mogaama. When we get there there was some represenative for whatever and he looks at my passport for about 3 seconds before he says we need to go to Helwan....haha oh boy. Ok so let me explain some geography first with a little Mspaint drawing.

so the way it works is on the metro the last stop is this place called Helwan, why do i need to go to Helwan? haha because on my Egyptian ID my address is that of my grandfather and he lives in Helwan so i need to go to the police station in Helwan to get this formed signed so i can come back to el Mogaama to finally get the passport authenticated...So my dad, this guy, and I get on a metro and ride for about an hour till we get to Helwan and we go to the police station. We talk to them for awhile and apparently there is this 3 digit number that i need first before they can give us the form and we first need to go to a place called Mohandehsin (moh-han-deh-seen) which is about 20 minutes East of my office...haha that means we have to go travel for about 2 hours get a silly number go back another 2 hours to get the form signed. So we start walking back towards the Metro (oh yeah the guy who was with us left since he lives in Helwan too) and then my Dad finds the 3 digit number we need! apparently we were given it just we didnt know. So we go back to the police station and are like here you go. After arguing with them that this was in fact the actualy 3 digit number and not use just attempting to skip a step the guy at the desk eventually says "sorry we dont have any more forms" we go "uhhh WHAT?" basically they ran out of forms as in no more physical forms they ran out haha. So my dad is like "are you kidding me look here maybe one fell on the floor or something we dont want to have to do this all over again!" and then the guy at the desk says "even if i find a form it wont work since the person with the stamp or whatever left for the day...come back sunday" haha that was it. My dad and I decided right then and there its just not worth it so we go back defeated by the Egyptian system...

haha but thats ok because like they say there is always a silver lining in every cloud. My silver lining was that i got to spend a lot (and i mean A LOT) of time with my father. It was nice just walking around with him and being together. After that ordeal we visited his uncle (my grandfather's brother) and it was cool going with my dad and having him say "this is my son" haha i know it sounds silly or something but it was a really cool feeling that i enjoyed. So though i missed my meeting, though i did a lot of traveling and was extremely physically tired it was great being iwth my dad. Since I knew how much more of an effort my dad was putting trying to get this passport for me so it was very much appreciated. Anyway that was a really long day. Haha but its something that will be looked back on and laughed at which is always a plus. And the experience gave me another story to tell you all so huzzah to looking at the bright side of life!

Have a good day everyone.


I hope Joe got to read this

aaaaaaaand back again

Yes Hello everyone,


sorry about being MIA for awhile but my family came to visit me for three weeks and it was really really busy. Haha i will go into details in my next post i promise, but yeah if i could sum up my time with them it would be a little like this...







and of course who could forget...


and


ok i will post again once i get some free time work is busy with many teams coming to build. Hope everyone is good!


I hope Joe got to read this