To Egypt, At Long Last

Andrew and Nina at Abu Simbel, December 2017 (photo: M. Farrand)

For years, I resisted all attempts to drag me to Egypt.

Of late, the place just sounded like a mess, wracked by the throes of its post-Arab Spring upheavals, its economy in shambles. But even before the revolution, friends—including the most hardened of travelers—returned from Egypt with horror stories of the street harassment, the aggressive touts at every tourist site, the filthy streets and smog-filled air, the overcrowding and poverty. And even before I knew about all that, I was just another young over-achiever in Arabic class at Georgetown, looking to spend a semester or two in the Arab world honing my language skills and experiencing the culture firsthand. What destination could be more obvious than Cairo—epicenter of the Arab world, the city where nearly every aspiring Arabist had cut their teeth? But, ever the contrarian, I opted—precisely because the choice was so clear—to leave Cairo to my classmates, and instead head off alone to Damascus and Amman.

After the Levant, life led me back to DC, then to North Africa. And that's where I met Nina.

Though German by birth, Nina spent her whole childhood in Cairo, attending

A Year of Arts and Letters: 2018 in Review

@IbnIbnBattuta's Best Nine of 2018 on Instagram

2018 was an exciting year here at Ibn Ibn Battuta, starting with two more viral Arabic-language videos—the first by my friends at Allaqta ("Americans in Algeria Speaking Arabic") and the second on El Djazairia One television ("People and Stories: 'Foreigners Who Love Algeria' Edition"). I also shared reflections on a weighty trip to the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria, while delaying many other travel updates until the new year. (Coming soon!) I had great fun compiling a treatise on photography in the modern era, lists of my favorite photography inspirations on Instagram, a rundown of the best Algerian gifts, and (for the fourth consecutive year!) a new Algeria wall calendar.

Far more importantly, I announced the real-world milestone that defined my year: my wedding to the bold and brilliant Nina!

Then there was also the addition of Chorba to our happy little family. And I published photos in a new hotel in Algiers, a photo in a major museum exposition in Vienna, and a translation of a speech by leading Algerian author Kamel Daoud.

But if you read the blog regularly, you already knew all that! Perhaps more interesting is what's happening behind the scenes...