What's new in Egypt? From stories collected from other papers, there is a column in the Egyptian Mail called Fun & Tears - which makes light of of life. So in the same paper that has a full page dedicated to the plight of orphans and abandoned children on page 11, here is the blurb on page 2. "A MAN in el - Badrasheen , Giza Governorate killed his son, a pupil at primary school, for refusing to go to bed early. He then ran off from home and his wife reported the incident to the police, who soon caught him. the deceased was named as Ayman , aged eight. His mother, 42 year old Iman , described to detectives how her husband had killed their little son by beating him round the head with a heavy stick. Unlike the deceased, many older readers would probably be only too delighted to get their heads down early a little more often." (Al- badeel ) byline Hugh Nicol. I kid you not, that was word for word as it appeared. For reference on priorities, this was on page 1. Donkey ...
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The hotel is sold out and full of European's on Spring Break. Tour buses and tourists are everywhere and in the middle of all of this are myself and two co-workers. I think we're the only three people here not going to sightsee. This morning the guy brought my coffee and asked what I was doing today. I could only look at him and say "going to the office." There's not much he can reply to that and the reply was, "it's a good day to do that" and I guess it is. Cairo is a city where there is an amazing disconnect between the life of a tourist and the life of a citizen. The parts of town where I'm working are all geared to locals and not a souvineer shop exists to remind you of the outside world. I walk through piles of trash, avoid the donkeys, and hope to not get hit by a reckless driver as my daily existance. I practice the art of dehydration in order to avoid the water in most places. Diet Pepsi in a can is my friend. Bottled water, unless bou...
This morning I woke up to a sort of clear sky, with a hint of the sun glistening off the Nile. I had coffee delivered to the room and I can't even describe how wonderful it is to wake up and have coffee on a balcony, overlooking the river and downtown Cairo. It's 7:30 am and I'm about to have a 12 hour work day. Maybe that's why I treasure the cup of coffee so much because in a matter of minutes I'll be in work mode and at that point, I could be anywhere in the world. All things being equal, my secondary focus as usual is to watch what I eat and drink because this being Cairo, food can have unpleasant results. When in doubt, diet.
The weather forecast today was for Sand. Not the normal forecast that I'm used to but the wind hasn't stopped all day and that's not fog, pollution, or a bad photo, it's the view. The pink is the only indication that it's the afternoon but it's looked like this all day long. Even in the 15 minutes since I took this photo I can see less and less buildings along the Nile. I had to work for a short period this morning and had the afternoon free. I wanted to go for a walk along the river but the wind & sand ruled that out. So, I've done homework all afternoon with this as my view.
Cairo! The pollution & fog are stuck in the city and creating a haze that isn't so fun. If I looked really hard, I could see the outline of the pyramids as I was entering the hotel but they were too far away to show up in a photo. I'm on Day 13 of the trip and am officially on hotel burn-out. (Mainly due to the fact that housekeeping told me I could only keep the iron for one hour and I pitched a fit and now have my iron.) There's also no in-room coffee so I have to wander downstairs and wade through the sea of happy pyramid-hopping tourists to get to the coffee bar. Yes, even in the coolest city in the world, I can be travel-jaded. But I love Cairo and I'm glad I'm here.
Later in Bahrain, it was time to go see how young Brits party. Most of Bahrain's workforce is made up from people from other countries and there is a high amount of young people just out of college from the UK who have made their way to Bahrain. For them, every night is a party night and the only people out of place in this pub were Bahrainis.
It's Tuesday in Bahrain and Day 10 of the trip. Still not 1/2 way through yet but I feel pretty wiped. Probably due to the lack of time off work. Bahrain is getting ready to host the Formula One Grand Prix next week and it appears that racing teams and tourists are starting to arrive. I'm sure it would be a fun event to hang out and party in city but not so much to watch the race. Another long day awaits so I'm off!
Happy Easter! It's a non-event over here since there are no Easter Bunnies, eggs, candy, or decorations to even remind you. Plus, many Christians in the Mid-East celebrate Orthodox Easter which isn't until the last week of April. So for us, it's a morning meeting, afternoon work, and then probably more work this evening. The hotel did send me a chocolate bunny and a plate with a colored egg, some candy and a bunch of nuts. That was unexpected and a nice touch.
Last night we were having dinner at an Italian restaurant that was full of a mixed crowd from all over the world. It was a date scene, business scene, family and friends scene. One of my co-workers asked me, do you think anyone at home would picture this as what you are doing in Bahrain? Since I have no photo of the restaurant, I would guess not. But we could have been anywhere in the world at that moment. Penne Pasta with shrimp was my choice for the night.
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I had three different beer choices at the restaurant in Bahrain. Heineken, Bud, or Sol. Being from California, I chose Sol. Judging the reaction from three different wait-staff, I was the only person who had ever 1) order Sol and 2) knew it was a Mexican beer. To top it off, I was the first one to call it Sol Cerveza and the wait-staff learned the Spanish word for beer. The first one was served with salt, so I request no salt on the next one. The third one came soaked in lemon juice. I'm not quite sure they got the concept that Mexican beer and Margaritas are two different things but it was fun.
Bahrain
A stealth photo of the first stop after customs in Bahrain. The Kuwaiti's rush to buy booze. It's blurry since I'm pretty sure none of the people buying Jack Daniel's really wanted their photo taken as evidence. This shop is right outside customs and way before baggage claim. I guess maybe some people need a first sip to celebrate being in an open country.
Yesterday I was mildly excited to go to a different part of town that I hadn't seen before and was curious if it would look any different than the rest of Kuwait. The short answer is no, of courses not! What you can see here is how much of a desert Kuwait really is and that when a new community is built the buildings are going to look exactly the same. The flowers in this photo are unique and one of the rare examples of landscaping away from a hotel.
I seriously have no idea how I'm going to make it through this day. It's 6:48 am and I've been up since 2:45 am with a whopping 3 hours of sleep. Today's schedule has me busy from 10:30 am to 11:00 pm. Day 2 of the trip and it's already out of control. Luckily the paper arrived early and I thought maybe I could read myself to sleep. No luck. Another man feel off a building (not pushed) a maid tried to escape her job by jumping off the balcony using a mattress for padding (she only got as far as the terrace) and another maid commited suicide by hanging herself. The maids are pretty abused here, verbally, physically, and rape. The Phillipines is so concerned that they've put a quota on new maids getting Visas to work in Kuwait so now it's the Indonesian and Bangladeshi women who are commiting suicide. The employer holds the passport so there's not a whole lot of ways out until you end up dead or in jail. Herion use among Kuwaiti youth is finally being talk...
Kuwait
Today 's random mosque . I liked the blue tile work on this one . Sometimes I can sleep through the first call to prayer but at 5:?? this morning I was woken up by the mosque across the street sounding out the call . What sounds neat at 7:00 pm doesn 't have the same effect at 5:00 am . I can 't get an ocean shot this time because even though I'm right next to it , I can 't see it . So much dust is in the air and it even sort of sprinkled today that all you can see is dust over the water .
Kuwait
9:07 am. Only in Kuwait does an olive and cheese omelette make sense. It's good eating with the not quite ripe watermelon and the Nescafe. Of course the morning gets started with the Kuwait Times, still my favorite paper in all the world. As usual, the government is in crisis as the entire cabinet submitted its resignation yesterday. Also on the front page, Heather Mills, Iraq, and the new governor of New York. An equal oportunity paper. But the best part is the crime corner (of course the government is corrupt but they don't get arrested for everyday crime). One arrest for drunken nudity - bonus to this guy! Another DUI case (there's a lot of home brew around here), a couple of sexual assults, and one murder as a Pakistani seemed to have been pushed off a high rise. I swear that happens all the time here! More later, my iron and ironing board finally arrived and the housekeeper is bugging me to let him clean the room.
Now that blogger supports Arabic, the first thing that has changed in Kuwait is my blog dashboard pulls up in Arabic. That's not as easy to navigate as blogger in Spanish. Everything is in reverse order since Arabic is read right to left. Well I'm in and I'm in Kuwait. The recent dust storms made for an early sunset. I had this brilliant idea that I'd bring a surge protector with me on this trip for all my electronics. Bad move. I plugged in the surge protector and tripped the circuit breaker to my room leaving me without lights and with the indignity of calling the front desk and asking for help. So much for that so now it's back to rotating around electronics to charge them.
Before I forget, I promised someone that I would provide a link to her Vintage Barbie Collector's eBay page. I was the kid that played with all my Barbies and sufficiently destroyed any collectable value to them and then sold them at a discount to someone else when I was a teenager. Silly foolish action on my part but who knew? So for the eBay Barbie collectors out there: http://www.goddessofasia.com
Amazingly, tequila was not in my future. Red wine was but it was a mostly tequila free night with the 1/2 sip that I took before I knocked over my shot glass. Truly, it was an accident and only two people noticed and everyone else thought I finished my drink! So today, I've been doing the last minute post office, bank, laundry, and all the other things I need to take care of before hitting the road tomorrow. The camera battery is charged and both camera and battery are packed. I can't guarantee that I'll find anything new in Kuwait to take a photo of but I'll give Bahrain a shot.
Tequila is in my future. It's a wonder how completely opposite my job is when it comes to drinking. Tonight I'm headed to a work event where the host is stunned by the concept of people who don't drink. Sunday I head to a country where alcohol is illegal and people are stunned by the concept of drinking. It's such an odd extreme either way. We're on a bus so we don't have to worry about driving. The bus. I'd take pictures but once again my camera is at home and not in the hotel with me.
Here I am at Harp. I'm so pale and washed out that I am going to have to get a little sun (with sunscreen of course) soon or I'll look like a total goth. I have now entered United flight miles back to 2005 on flight memory and have to start looking at scrapbooks to get older flight info loaded. I also found an old stack of random airline mile updates and can add those. My goal is to add what I have, go back and look up all the vacation boarding passes for the last 7 years and then give up on the past and keep all records updated going forward. I may have to add in a few trips minus the actual dates just to make the map look right. After all, I'd hate to leave Rhode Island without a flight after all the trouble it took me to finally get there!
Nothing much going on today. An easy workday if somewhat a slow pace. I think I'm almost ready for the next big trip but less ready for Friday's Tijuana night. After two years I finally picked up the other printer off the floor and plugged it in. It works better than my expensive officejet so I'm glad I took the 3 minute effort to plug it in.
Yesterday we attempted to hear Irish music at Harp's (formerly OB's ) only to learn the band was stranded in Ohio due to the snowstorm. We had already ordered food so we hung out for a while and sad to say, the fish & chips sucked big time! Should've stuck to potato skins! We then headed to Gallagher's to give it another chance and a Reggae band was playing but it took forever to get served. At least the group of us had a chance to hang out for a while and enjoy a Sunday afternoon and recover from the time change. I can fly to a 10 hour difference time zone and be okay but that stupid hour every Spring messes me up. I'm on the bandwagon of getting rid of DST for once and for all!
Home again and I can feel Kuwait closing in around me. I'm making coffee this morning and my mind flashed to the Holiday Inn Kuwait and how I'll be brewing the instant Nescafe and making a mental reminder to pack my equal and creamer. No one should be able to visualize a hotel so clearly but when you're in Kuwait, if you're not at work then you're in the hotel. There's simply nothing else to do. But Kuwait is only for 3 nights so I'll survive and move on to join a group in Bahrain so at least I'll have company. As usual, today is a 2 paper day so I can enjoy tomorrow. I've got myself set up to download all homework assignments from the road for the next 4 weeks by writing all the papers a month ahead of time. It reduces the stress of worrying about Internet connections and time for school while on the road. This is the last wonderful Saturday morning in my own house for 4 weeks. I can't believe how good the coffee tastes, the ocean looks, and I...
I worked in an office today. I forgot how draining and distracting it was to do that. I am so glad for the opportunity to work from my own home office. I may put in long days but at least I feel good about what I've done at the end of the day. Tonight, I was ready for sleep at 5:30 pm! There will be no FlightMemory updating tonight!
Sorry about the skewed format. I loaded in all my trips for the year including future trips to chart 2008 flights. I have to redo a MEX trip later since I changed planes in DFW but here's how my airports stack up so far: #, Airport , % 1, IAD , Washington , 21.7 % 2, LAX , Los Angeles , 13.3 % 3, SAN , San Diego , 10.0 % 4, KWI, Kuwait , 6.7 % 5, ZRH , Zurich , 6.7 % 6, MEX , Mexico City , 6.7 % 7, FCO , Roma , 5.0 % 8, BAH, Bahrain , 3.3 % 9, ORD , Chicago , 3.3 % 10, CPH , Copenhagen , 3.3 %
I have been an online addict since 94 or 95. I'm sure AOL can provide me the exact date of my sign-up. No one in our family could have guessed way back then how one simple desire to find other Star Trek cruisers would change all our lives. With a cd install and few clicks, I was plugged in and stayed there. In the past few months the blogging has escalated to myspace and facebook for various reasons of their own. SciFi fandom (related) for myspace and facebook was because the continual efforts of friends overseas to get me to join networks finally wore me down and I gave in. Facebook is good for sending virtual drinks and having a party. myspace is a pretty decent site when used right. The family online calendar is easier than trying to write down notes or look through e-mails to see where everyone is. But nothing is as great as obsessive travel networks. Let me repeat - nothing is as great as obsessive travel networks!!! Dopplr now has fully got me and for those of you ...
Mission Trails Park San Diego. I went semi-hiking today in the park. Sherry got to pick the hike and she chose the one that went to the climber's area. About 1/2-way there I realized I didn't bring a camera but at least the sun was right for the cell phone. It's been a while since I hiked dirt and rock. My muscles are sore and my hands are scraped but it was a fun workout and a great day.