Earthquake de' ja vu

Today marked my 4th earthquake experience. Though I didn’t feel the tremors, my wife did and she called me to check if I felt it or not. Sadly, the effect of the “white butter beans with tomato sauce” lunch offset any feelings of tremors or earthquakes.

My first ever encounter with this geological phenomena was in Kuwait. I also had two experiences in Cairo, Egypt.

I was young when the Kuwaiti one happened - it was a light tremor caused by a strong earthquake that hit Iran – I think it was about 20 years ago ... Not much to remember.

The other two Egyptian quakes i remember clearly:

Egyptian earthquake experience 1
I was in the American University in Cairo dormitory in Zamalek. It was the weekend, and I partied till 4 am the night before. At around 6 am, i felt the bed shaking franticly. For the first few seconds, it actually felt good in a very odd way; i think it was due to the fact that i was still in that "twilight-zone" of being between the state of consciousness and the total lack of it.

Then it hit me! It was an earthquake. I was still in my clothes from the night before (remember party till 4am?) I got up, i reached for my passport, plane ticket and my Walkman (don't ask me why).

I rushed to the floor below, and there were my friends: most of them sleeping like logs, I tried to get everyone to wake up... I reached my Lebanese/Australian friend’s room to find him standing in front of the mirror and applying hair gel.

Me: dude! Like …did you feel an earthquake..?
Lebo friend: yes ya man .. can’t you see I am getting ready to evacuate?

Anyhow, we went downstairs to the lobby. Thanks to my Lebo/Auzi friend’s hairdo, everyone got to the lobby before we did. There were girls in bathrobes and others wrapped in bed sheets. There were guys dragging their feet as they came out of other emergency exits and others crashing on the lounge sofas not bothering to find out whats going on.

We hung around until our security people told us to go back up to our rooms.

Egyptian earthquake experience 2
I think it was the same year. I was in uni, anthropology class to be specific. I suddenly felt the chair shaking the same way it would when the restless student sitting behind you rests his leg or foot on the back of your chair.

I remember feeling annoyed, turning around, giving the guy behind me a mean look, and pulling my chair away. I was so wrong..

While noticing that I kept shacking with the chair, i started seeing alarmed students rushing out of classes next door and heading toward the stairs.

Our professor’s reaction, god bless her heart, was very soothing. She stood up, calmly walked to the door and said: "looks like there was a light tremor ... do you guys wanna continue class?" one girl, known for being too emotional, broke in tears and said that she wants to go home.

We stayed in class..