Where did we get bed bugs from?

Where did we get Bed Bugs?

This is a difficult question, simply because bed bug bites are similar, atleast in size, to mosquito bites. What distinguishes them is their frequency, as we learned today. It is 4:30 PM on my first lazy Saturday of November. I've passed my time boiling our clothes and freezing the rest of our meager belongings in the fridge. (How many of you have frozen a Quran before?)

Intermittently, I've been practicing my arabic verb combinations with Ahmed, the animated Sultan Hostal Manager. Ahmed is a skinny turkish man who spends most of the day reprimending me while teaching me arabic, how to cook, and how to be a "woman." He has many odd jobs from owning a band, being a party-planner, to being a screen writer/actor. He spent a good hour today spraying the room we lived in with turpentine-y solution out of a spray bottle. When going to my new bed-bug "free" room(A night or two should tell us if we really are rid of the beasts), it's hard not to peek into the room of the long term (8 years) guest next to us; sprawling electrical cords, underware, accompained by the Asian-I've-been-here-too-long smell greet us at the door. The hotel is remarkably priced, 3$/night, which encourages people to stay for many months, as a sort of gateway apartment to Cairo. It is filled with Koreans and Japanese, which makes me think Lonely Planet Asia Edition recommended the Sultan at some point 5 years ago, because all the reading material and signs in the bathroom around here is in Japanese.

The water I washed my clothes in came up an opague murky gray, indicating the 3 weeks I spent prior to this traveling around Masr (Egypt). Jess, Joe and I flew at an unsustainable pace... To be continued...