Leaving the Middle East

Well, we made it out of Israel and back to Cairo without any major incidents. We are glad we went and hope that things will eventually quiet down over there again. At the same time I have to admit that I will be very happy to get out of this region of the world, with all it's retarded politics and issues.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of a trip to Israel was just seeing all the diversity. Lots of Jews from all around the world, so you can just walk down the street and see Russians, Moroccans, Americans, Ethiopians, etc. but they are all Jews somehow. It was also surprising to see that as a result of that diversity there are 4 main languages in use in the country. Signs are written in combinations of Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and English. It sort of depends on where you are but I was surprised at how often English wasn't written. I don't know why but I expected it to be more common, although it seems like everyone except the older Russians speak English anyway. I thought it was kind of cool because all 4 languages have different alphabets, and at times when English wasn't written I'd have to try to decipher the Russian or Arabic since Hebrew makes no sense to me at all....
Tonight we fly to Manila in the Philippines in search of sun and sand :)
Ammon