Flu!

Can you catch the flu in tropical climate? Today I unfortunately found out you can...

Damn. My muscles hurt, I got sore throat, fever and I slept whole day. What's wrong with me? I thought that the illness in this part of year is related to the weather in Northern Europe where I usually live. Obviously it's not the weather cause it's still 35° C here and I somehow got influenza. Hate being sick!

Here are some pictures taken yesterday, before it all happened. Let them remind me of the good days. 

My aunt from Poland made a visit.

Whaddup y'all!

"Grrrr..!"

Mosquitoes were everywhere

Prof. Jake tells the story of the Mosque

Staying on the safe side

I've been living here in Sharm on and off for over three months now, and taken lots of photos (some of which you might see here, and other on Facebook and - most important - my Flickr account). My favourite motive has been the sunsets over the beautiful mountains of South Sinai. Once I also managed to shot the mountains at the sunrise (couldn't sleep at 6 am), but that's nothing I'm doing on a daily basis. So. 

The mountains are cool from the distance. But I think it would be even cooler to get there and maybe climbe a little. (Nothing like Kebnekajse or Galdhöppigen! ;)). But there might be problems...

According to pretty much everyone I've spoke to, it's rather dangerous to go there. For various reasons. Some say the police are there and won't let anyone in. That might be because they really are there or they just say it so the tourists don't go there and get harmed by the real dangerous things waiting there. What might that be? Here's a (pretty serious) list of dangerous "stuff" waiting arount the corner in the mountains of South Sinai.

1) Mines - Remains from the various wars in the area in the 60's. I've heard that both Israeli and Egyptians have mined the area. Then as the time went on the land was once in Egyptian and another time in Israeli hands, and both sides added more enforcements, so now nobody really knows where it's safe to go.

2) The animals - according to locals it's best not to go alone in the desert as one might meet some wild animals. Most dangerous are the arabian wolfs they say. They are hungry preditors living in the desert, so better watch out. They look a lot like wild dogs but they're said to be not exacly "human's best friend". 

3) Police/military forces - they're said to be here to protect us (the foreingers in Sharm). But who knows what they actually do when they sit in the middle of the desert 24 hours a day and stare at the sun, sand and dust all around them? Also they're of course fully armed so you might not want to get into trouble with them. 

Anyway. I've also heard that from the point where I'm living (at the edge of the city, so to say) it's only 10 minutes walk to the Ring Road (also called Desert Road). After that road there's nothing there, except the three things I've mentioned above. If I continue I should get to the foot of the mountains in about 1 hour of walk through the desert (not exactly the 40 years Moses and his followers are said to have been walking in the area in the bibilal times). So, one day I'm planning a little walk, with my camera of course. It can't be that dangerous right.. It's just sand?

Egyptian hospitality

Egypt is after all a nice country with nice people. Regardless of what some of the foreigners living here might say, it's good to be here. A sad but true fact I actually agree with having spent some time here is that unfortunately lot of people are not that smart. But that's the education probably, or as I heard people describing it - the social education. The society "teaches" you certain things and you keep doing that cause it's the "right" way. This includes playing stupid in certain occasions and later on blaming the stupidity on misunderstandings of English or saying that something "got lost in translation".. You know. So probably 90% of the people you will meet here are dumb (or play dumb, whatever it is it has the same effect - you think they're acting dumb). But regardles of the IQ, I find the vast majority to be very friendly to me. 

So now it's time to get back to work. I have some PR stuff to do. But first I have to eat up all the sweets Mr. Ahmed brought me. I asked for "a small cookie for tea, and oh..give me something traditional Egyptian". This is what I got:

Next time I'll ask specifically for ONE piece! And you better keep that sleek and smooth memory of me, cause next time you see me when I'm back from here, I might not be as sleek and smooth anymore... =P

Ciao!

Update: I'm feeling a little dizzy cause of all that sugar, but it turned out that the whole thing was a gift (they didn't accept any money) so I had to eat it up. All of that. E-V-E-R-Y   P-I-E-C-E. Not so LEGEN...wait for it ...DARY! (Season 4 of How I Met Your Mother started this week, go and grab it now!) See ya...

Screwdrivers and Israel

Egypt is not Europe. I knew it before I came here. But I had no idea how frustrating it can be to leave the Old Continent. 

My hard drive "died" last week. Surprising, cause I put it in only 10 months ago when I installed Leopard, back in November. The reason is probably burned electronics on the drive - something that might have been cause by the damn electric sockets which are not grounded! That would be nice to have here since they turn the electricity on and off all the time (I literally mean like 10 times a day!). Furthermore, I guess that the current isn't really stable and I can see the sudden peaks and falls of the voltage just by having the lights on in the evening. Anyway, my disk died and I needed a new one.

Before I could change the drive however, I needed screw drivers. More specifically a Philips #00 and Torx T8 which are necessary for changing the hard drive in MacBooks. My first guess after speaking with some natives was that I won't get it in Sharm. So I took a trip to Israel. Thought that would be nice. They are civilized, after all..right? 

Maybe they are. Maybe not. I don't know. But I had no luck with finding the screwdrivers in neither Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Probably I just don't know how to look. All the time I ended up in the Arabic parts of the cities by the way... Where are the Jews?!

So no luck here. But the visit in Israel gave me at least some nice photos...

On the Mt. of Olives a mix of tourists and Israeli land forces. Fully equipped... Shit. 

Oh it was soooo bright!

These children reminded me that the summer's over and it's time for school for some! Too bad...

Meat. Lots of meat. Old City in Jerusalem. Wonder if it's kosher?

Something similar in the background.. you see? Must be dangerous to live so close to lots of gold...
Old City in Jerusalem

I found some Jews in the Old City after all. Turned out the city is divided in four quarters: Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish. At least that's the traditional division.  
No in Bethlehem. Looking for screw drivers. 
Bethlehem is a part of the Palestinian Autonomy. No Jews on the streets here. No screw drivers either..unfortunately.

A view from somewhere in Bethlehem.
And the panorama over Old City in Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives. 

So that's it. Got back to Sharm. Found the screw drivers (at Radio Shack...). Bought an exactly identical hard drive in a computer shop. I got it for 80 euro last year in Sweden. Now I payed 100 euro... Today the same costs about 55 euro in Europe (checked it on the Net). But hell.. what was I supposed to do?

Now thanks to Time Machine (love you!) I'm back and running just where I was! Egypt and technology are however still two very different and incompatible concepts. No Internet at home, cause somebody somehow messed up the telephone cables for the DSL line. And it's Ramadan, so they can't promise it will be fixed anytime soon. 

But still it's 35 degrees and sunshine... At least the life is wonderful! 

Egypt blocking Facebook?

Here's the first of hopefully no more posts about why Egypt actually is a third world country (unfortunately after the recent day's events, I have some more themes for blog posts about why sucks in Egypt).

I hope I'm wrong now, but it seems like the Egyptian government is blocking Facebook. Not a big deal, huh? Maybe not, but it's still narrowing an individuals options for communicating with the surrounding world. Seriously, it is a bigger issue, considering why the persumed block is taking place. According to LA Times:

The reason: In April, one group of young citizens mobilized 80,000 supporters to protest rising food prices. Facebook networking played a crucial role in broadening support and turnout for an April 6 textile workers' strike and protest.

OK, now it seems like an issue. Considering that I have found a few more evidences. All from the end of the summer of 2008, where people presumed it would happen. Now it seems like it has. For political reasons. Great... Hard to believe it but it seems like I'm living in a country where basic human rights are not respected. 

Right now I have been accessing the social network site via different proxy servers available, but it looks like the scripts essential for Facebook get blocked, so I can not even send any messages to people. 

Stay tuned for more reports on human rights in Egypt. Hell yeah... bye!

Update: Btw, I've been off for another reason - my hard drive suddenly decided to end our yearlong collaboration and leave my with a 5 days old Time Machine backup (thanks God for Time Machine!). But it took my a couple of days to find anything that I could replace my dead drive with in this part of world. More on this later! 

Late night work

Living in Egypt (or probably any Arab country) may seem a little strange and off for Westerners. In my opinion the vast differences that appear at this time of year might depend on Ramadan (the most important month of the year for Muslims) and the practice of fasting during the day hours. 

When I'm about to eat something out of home, I can't stop thinking about that I'm eating and the people who work in the restaurant aren't and won't be, until about 6-7 p.m. (that's when the sunset is). When I'm downtown among people during the day, it feels unfair to take out my bottle of water, which I always bring with me, cause it feels like I'm offending the people around me by drinking (cause they can't). (And now, forgive me for this rough distinction between "us" and "them", but it will make this whole conversation a lot easier.) So these two example are when it feels like we make them feel bad (although, every Muslim I spoke to insist that they don't want to eat or drink and they don't think about it during the day, not even if they see someone else drinking – so I should not feel guilty about doing it – according to "them"). 

How about the opposite? Are there situations when "we" get disturbed by those who practice the holy month, and have to adjust their whole lives after it? Well hell yes! But let me get this clear first: I personally absolutely agree with the idea of "one should adapt after the local practice, conventions and rules". 

But.. there is this one thing that is different here. Something that is difficult to like, or even to accept, though you might fully understand the reasons of it. It's the practice of working at nights. It seems like every building worker in Sharm lives according to the New Zealand Standard Time (that is like +12 UTC folks...). I really understand that they want to work after the iftar (the first meal of day during the fast in Ramadan), but it doesn't make it easier to fall asleep when they're banging on your roof at 2.30 a.m.! Anyway, enjoy the pictures I just took since I couldn't sleep anyway.

But there's something else that "we" might like about Ramadan: the practice of decorating everything with colorful lights which is soooo familiar for "us" (if you have seen Christmas decoration in December, you know what I'm talking about ;)). Check out those pictures too! 

Why planning is impossible in Egypt

The question could probably be something like "why planning is impossible in certain cultures?", which would be an incorrect way of asking, or like "are there differences between the concept of planning in different cultures?". The last one is at least possible to answer, and the answer is a clear: yes. Want to learn more about trying to do something as planned in Egypt, and hear some funny stories as well? Read on!

Nothing is as you've planned it in Egypt. There you go – my new motto for the time being. Those of you who know me a little have said that I'm pedantic. Those who know me well say that it's more like it seems like I am, but in reality I'm not. And for those of you who don't know me at all: I'm not pedantic, I just like having my stuff figured out in advance. 

And that is what I was trying to do with this day: have it figured out in advance. The plan was simple: go to bed early (not 3am which I'm used to down here), get up in time for breakfast (funny word, you know it's derived from "break the feast", i.e. the feast after having been sleeping – poor fellow Muslims, no breakfast for them till sunset this month!). After eating I wanted to devote the whole day for some writings I have to do. So that's the plan. Here's reality...

At 8pm last evening, a bunch of workers decide to start doing some work on the roof . Yeah I understand they do it after eating... I would prefer to rest during the day as well if I were them. Sooo hot outside, and they don't eat or drink. Damn. So they work during nights. Well, they stopped at 11pm so I could go to sleep. But by then I got too interested in studying renaissance art and the works of the Great Trinity of Renaissance: Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Some quite amazing works over there. Anyway, you know Wikipedia: one post takes you to another which takes you to a third and you end up at something that seems to have completely nothing to do with where you started (but it has, since you got there someway by just clicking the links!). So there goes my "go and sleep early tonight"...

One part of my plan succeeded: I got up at 6.30. Though I wanted to sleep, but couldn't. They started the work on the roof again. I guess they ate just before sunrise and with the stomachs full it was easier to get back to work. Plus that the sun isn't that hot in the morning either. I'm sure they planned it all – too bad it wasn't in line with my planning. So there you go, the longer explanation to the problem of planning in Egypt: it's not that they don't plan here at all. The planning is just different from mine for at least one big big reason: cultural differences. So when you go on holiday somewhere, don't blame the locals for spoiling your day. You might as well be spoiling their'. 

3pm, and I just got up from bed for the second time today. No more planning today, just start work! 

Ehm.. after I've eaten something first. And oh. I still gotta do the laundry. Oops. 

Back in Sharm!

After 26 hours of travel, and over 5000 km later, I'm back in Egypt. I'm not going to bore you with a detailed description of this "fantastic" trip – still I'd like to share some thoughts. Let's start chronologically. 

First of all, don't complain about the railways in Sweden. It's a fast, convenient and pleasant way for traveling short to mid-long distances. The standard in Sweden is really good (I'm talking from the experience of having spent the last summer vacation on Europe's trains in 11 different countries - so for once, I know what I'm talking about ;)). Speaking of which, I can really recommend an InterRail vacation, it probably is the best way to experience different countries and cultures (as you see more and meet more people, compared with e.g. going by car or just simply flying to your destination). But let's move on now to my recent journey...

I wouldn't recommend sleeping at the Copenhagen Airport (CPH), unless necessary. I've heard something about a sleeping lounge, but it turned out it's after the check-in. Which really isn't of any use if you're flight is in the morning as the check-in usually opens like 2h before the departure. So what I did was spending 6h on a bench. Reading, listing to music, trying to use the Internet (but they demanded astronomical amounts of money, like 60DKK (about €8) for 30 minutes!), talking to people... But no sleep at all. It just wasn't dark and quiet enough (or I wasn't tired enough). 

When I thought that CPH was big and noisy, I had no idea what London Gatwick (LGW) would be like. It felt like it was 5 times bigger and 50 times more crowded than the first airport! I had to spend about 7 hours there, so I found a place to lay down and get some sleep. Seems like it doesn't matter how bright or crowded it is when you're really tired... 

And in fact, the waiting room at LGW's North Terminal (yes, there's a South Terminal and they're connected with... a railway) was way better than anything I could find at CPH. I can especially recommend the "beds" on the ground level, opposite to the WH Smith store in the departures terminal. And oh, one more thing: no free WiFi at Gatwick either! What's wrong with supplying people with that for free? You get pretty much all the basic stuff - warming/air condition, water, even electricity and news from all these randomly placed TV screens - for free at the airports. I really hope that they're soon realize that taking money for such an elementary thing as Internet access is highly immoral! If you know any airports that give away WiFi, let us know in the comments. Next time I'll plan my trips to go via does...

The airlines I flew with (Sterling and easyJet) are pretty much okay, perhaps as good as it gets when it comes to the low-cost airlines (that's a nicer term for basically "cheap airlines", I assume). The planes were new and fresh, there was no problem whatsoever with luggage – not even with the 3 extra kilos of my check-in luggage. A smile and a "come on, it's just 3 kilos... do you want me to take my boots out and carry them as hand luggage really?" was enough to not having to pay the ridiculous €15 for each extra kilogram. 

So now I'm back, just in time for the holy month, Ramadan. I noticed immidietly that something was going on – there are lights and decorations everywhere, pretty much like Christmas in the Western civilization. Back to sun, back to warmth and back to work. As long as it's fun, and as long as one enjoys it, everything is just the way it's supposed to be!