Hungary

We've just arrived in Florence, Italy, (I think we've stumbled into the spanish district though..) and soon will get to our hostel. We left Prague on the train and headed onto Austria, to visit Alice's friend Nicole and her Husband Adrain, and their two children, one of whom is very new. It was so good to have a break from the typical travelling, we got to stay in a real bedroom and have real home cooked food and have real conversations with people we knew (I didn't really know them prior to this). It was such an excellent time. The place we stayed at was about half an hour south from Vienna, in a lovely little village. We went swimming in possibly the coolest pool I've ever been in, and also went to a celtic festival. Turns out that the celts didn't just inhabit Scotland, but also a hell of a lot of Northern Europe too. It was a great time, I tried my hand at ordering drinks and food using the best German I could speak and failed. It was a pretty good experience, and probably something we never would have done if we'd just travelled there alone. Staying with Nicole & Adrain was such a highlight of this trip. Unfortunately I was also recovering from being sick, so I wasn't quite up for everything.

We got on a lovely train from Vienna to Budapest, Hungary. Wow, what a cool city. I don't really know exactly how to put my finger on what was so great about it, but it was one of our favorite cities we visited. It has a lot of history from the wars too, we visited a WW2 bunker up in the citadel, and Alice got lots of Hungarian souvineirs. We spent 4 nights in a hotel for a change. It was so sweet, to have our own room and privacy and our very own toilet and shower! The food was pretty cheap, and the city was just lovely to walk around.

Unfortunately we had to leave, we hopped on the sleeping train yesteday afternoon and spent the trip talking to a med student from Germany with perfect english. We got into Zurich this morning and tossed up staying there or coming here to Florence, and coming here won out. We've yet to get to our hostel, they don't open until 4, and then have an explore of this city which so far seems pretty nice.
- Andrew

Seems like such a long time since we have had a chance to write here! Prague for us fizzled out after our day there. We tried to go out to this huge nightclub we had heard about but ended up getting there too late for cheap entrance, with no map and no idea when the bus home finishes. The club was 5 floors high, 4 of which were empty when we arrived and slowly filled up with skanky tourists. Staying with Nicole, Adrian, Emilia and Marlon was great, thanks guys!!! such special times.
For me Hungary was amazing, a city so recently effected by communism and war and its scars still visible. It struck me that although this is the case the biggest souvineir market was childrens toys. It was pretty nice to stay in the Ramada too!!!
-Alice

Prague

Here we are in the confusing Czech Republic. It seems quite a party town, at least at the hostel we~re at anyway. Meet some nice people and stayed up till quite late. Andrew is run down again so is having another bed day. Its hard at this place though because the concenus seems to be that lights on and talking are ok at any time of the day. Tomorrow we are going to visit Nicole, Adrian, Amelia and little Marlon!!! So excited! Anyways here are some more photos for your visual pleasure....................

Here we are, sitting on one of the pyramids. Check out our authentic arabian hats.



Heres Andrew, and a girl Linda we met. In Luxor, in front of a ruined statue.



Ooo, riding camels! Must have been like 5am, thats why its dark.



Alice, in our sweet as swimming pool in Luxor



Andrew taking a nap under a big ole rug up Mount Sinai, before the sun had come up.



Andrew & Alice, at the lovely park in Amsterdam



This is the best tasting ice cream I~ve ever eaten. Its totally in a class of its own. From this wee ice creamery in Amsterdam thats been making it since 1930s.



With our new friend Haitham who took us out for shisha on our last night in Cairo.



The felucca sailing down the Nile. Most of the day was spent lying around in and out of the sun.



The swimming spot we stopped at, our guide told us it would be AWESOME................



Andrew with some massive statues at Abel Simbel



Finally the memorial for the Jewish people killed in the second world war in Berlin. Best memorial Ive ever been to. Amazing the way it makes you feel.

Amsterdam

Well we have been incredibly fortunate with our trip to Amsterdam this time. After taking a sleeping train to the middle of nowhere and changing trains twice in the early hours of the morning we arrived here at 0820hrs. At least one person we know didnt make the connections and we think prob woke up in Paris by accident. We didnt have anywhere to stay here in Amsterdam so we headed over to the old fav, the flying pig. We didnt know this but at 0830hrs they sold all the beds that we left over for that night. We JUST made it, pretty much after us everyone was turned away. We got a double bunk too which is perfect. Since then we have had to get up early every monring to secure a bed for the following night. So far the job hunting is going slowly. We decided we didnt want to be illegal immigrants so we're only looking for jobs with either a visa attached or just for room and board. We'll leave tommorrow night if nothing eventuates. Still, its been another great time in an amazing city. Being the weekend is a bit different, have to avoid the tourist areas and leave alot of time for getting home through the crowds. Andrew calls this the Vegas of Europe but I reckon that once you get out of the tourist areas this city is magical.

Berlin

Such an amazing city!! Did a free walking tour yesterday and saw all the amazing memorials and buildings here. The parliment building has this glass dome on top that you can walk around that looks right over the sitting politicians. Pub crawl last night was fun. Learnt heaps about German history and particular about the cold war and Berlin wall. So so so interesting. Today I visited a former concentration camp. I dont think I could write anything to describe it, or that would be respectful of it so I wont. Very humbling experience. Anyway we are off to Amsterdam tonight (surprise!!) to try and find a job (surprise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Barcelona again

We said goodbye to Egypt last night. Our 'khabibi' Haitham (wrong spelling I'm sure) took us out for shisha and a goodbye Egypt drink to one of the local places. He explained to us why EVERYONE yells out to Andrew that he is a lucky man and how cats are respected in Egpyt. During the day we went to the market and bought some earrings and last minute nick nacks. I think we are pretty good negotiators now. For the third night in a row we had no sleep flying back from Egpyt.
We arrived here in Barcelona at 5am and had to wait till 12 to get a bed to sleep. The shops dont open here till 10 so we spent the morning reading mags and then headed off to the Havaiana jandals store. The man there was very nice but he laughed at my request to buy a right jandal only. You would think they could sell me one with all the jandals they had there. Anyways I'll keep the old one in case of similar incidents in the future. We have just now returned from a delightful secondhand english bookstore run by this eccentric american man. There are hundreds of books all piled in no apparent order and you can get tea and cookies while he talks your head off about history and consipacy theories. This afternoon we are gonna take an afternoon stroll to the beach and have tapas and sangria at the hostel tonight. Tomorrow to Berlin.

The rest of Egypt

It's now the end of our trip. It's 7pm, and at 10pm we leave to go to the airport to get our plane. I'm going to miss this place, but I'm really ready to move on. Now, we left off in Aswan

The next morning, we get up at 3am, to get on a bus and go in a military convoy (because we get so close to the Sudan border), and drive through the desert right down to a place called Abu Simbel which is a tomb, which has been moved from it's original place. It's probably the most impressive old thing I have ever seen. It's not as large as the Giza Pyramids, but it's just so much more amazing. It's 4 people engraved into the side of a mountain, and it's absolutely incredible to imagine this was done such a long time ago. But you can only look at it for so long, and then back on the bus for another 2 hours. We got a flat tire on the bus, and we had to get out. I have no idea how people survived in the desert back then, I mean, all of Egypt is basically a big desert and rocks, apart from the Nile which is where almost everyone lives next to.

We got back to our hotel, just in time to leave and go on a Fulucca boat trip for two nights. I wasn't too sure of this before we did it, I thought it could get very boring, but it wasn't. We jumped on the boat which is like a small sailing boat with a small roof and a padded area for lying/sleeping, and left off. It doesn't move very fast, only as fast as the river does, but this was probably the best part of the trip for both of us. We met some really cool people, and we stopped for the night on a beach thing, they served up their food (simple, but I loved it) and got some blankets and just slept. There was a roof, but no walls, very very simple. It gets kinda cold at night. Woke up to the sunrise, and then I got into the Nile and went for a swim. Not as warm as you'd think, but so refreshing. Sailed again very slowly for another day and then parked at night by a swamp. (there was no toilets, so we had to use the side of the shore, and the swamp was the least nice..) We stopped during the day and visited a camel market, the biggest in all of Egypt. Was OK, not nice to see the way they treat them, but was a prett unique time. We then woke up, and learned the guy had already started sailing. I know it sounds like it was quite uneventful, but just the simplicity of it, and the people. One of the top experiences of my life really.

Off the boat, and onto a bus (with the people from the boat) which would go to Luxor, and drop us off at our Hotel. This Hotel was nice.. We immediately got into the swimming pool and cooled off. These places really are hot. We enjoyed a bit of a half day off, wandered around and found some local markets and some egyptian fast food restaurants.

Next day was just a relaxing morning by the pool overlooking the nile, and then in the afternoon we met our guide, an egyptian girl called Amy, and went to visit Karnok and Luxor Temple. Strange situation though, somehow this girl tells us that it's actually meant to be her wedding day but that just yesterday her fiancee married some other woman, although he onl wanted to marry her for a month or two, then divorce, then marry this Amy girl. Why was she at work?? Made the day unusual, although the places we visited were nice. Karnok temple was so incredibly big, would have been impressive when it was two stories high. What's interesting is that these places over the years had been covered with sand and then had a graveyard on top of it! Then someone discovered a massive temple under it. I'm sure there's more stuff they haven't discovered yet.

Another night of relaxing and then getting up early to go with this girl again and see a few other things, Valley of the Kings being the highlight. Was a cool thing to see, and I hate to sound so negative, but you get "templed out" if that makes sense, all these things are so impressive, but unless you have a personal interest in them there is only so much effort you can give. This was our last temple visit though so.. Met a friend on that trip who more or less was going the same way as us for the next few days. Always makes things a lot nicer

Last day we visited the guy we got to know at what we'd call a corner dairy at home. He had christian pictures on his wall, not islam (it's hard to explain just how much that stands out here) and I asked him about it, and he showed me a tattoo he had been given by the government for being Christian and not Muslim. Not easy I think over here, Islam is so ingrained EVERYWHERE. Went to the takeaway bar and got falafel (had lots of it here) and it was only .50 egyptian pounds each, or $0.12NZ, so was very cheap, even for here. Good meal. Considering we had spent 100 egyptian pounds on one meal in an attempt to eat out fancy, which was really average anyway.

Left on a "16" hour sleeping bus. Was so so annoying, I wish they'd turn off the lights. So uncomfortable, and in the end it took 20 hours. I got out at a stop and had "beans", thinking it'd be like maybe mexican beans or baked beans but it was like mashed broad beans, and my Mum knows just how I hate broad beans. Was cheap though. Arrived in Dahab at lunch time and checked in.

Dahab isn't in the big block of Egypt that's in Africa, but on the Sinai Peninsula, in the red sea. It's more of a backpacker town than anything else. Not quite fancy enough to call it a "tourist place" but also not egyptain enough like any other city we went to which were all cities in their own right. Basically this town wouldn't be a hell of a lot without backpackers..

Was such a cool place. They had a line of hostels, then a boardwalk, and then all the restaurants/bars just next to the ocean. Because it rains less than annuall in egypt, it was fine to not have walls, but the ocean breeze meant you didn't need A/C or anything. Such a relaxing awesome place. Met two of the people from our boat trip, which was like getting instant friends. First day we just relaxed and walked around, the second da we planned a trip to two places to go snorkelling, as the red sea as quite a repuation for some of the best snorkelling in the world. We stopped at this place called "the canyon" and got geared up, moved slowly into the water (those flippers make it hard) and swam around. So far, this was the worst snorkelling I have ever done, and I haven't done a lot. I was so disappointed, and it wasn't sandy but rocky and I cut my foot on the way out and was so pissed off. Got in the car with a bad attitude and went to the blue hole. I wasn't going to give up, and when we got there, saw a man made easier way into the water. Sat down and Alice and I counted down and jumped in and WOW..

I have almost never seen something in nature quite so beatiful. It was a massive hole that went down further than we could see (visibility pretty amazing here in the red sea, so they say) and coral and tropical fish everywhere. Swam around for a while and got to the edge of this hole, to another drop off of 2000 meters.. Had an awesome time there, can't really describe it in words.

Got home, realised we're both incredibly sunburnt, and I actually feel ill, which isn't good, because at 11pm we're climbing Mt Sinai, which is the highest mountain in the penisula, where moses got the commandments. Think it was sun stroke or something.

Got on the bus at 11, and drove for a few hours to the base of the mountain and started our climb. It's a rock mountain, no grass or dirt, maybe rocky dust. Was about 2am climbing, by moonlight and torches. I was starting to feel sick again, don't think my body was ready for all the excersise, and I actually threw up a couple of times on the way up. We finally got to the top at like 5am, and tried to sleep, but we couldn't because of a woman who was singing, and then the sun came up at about 5:40am. Was a pretty amazing sight, amazing looking mountains, completely unlike anything at home. Also my birthday up there. Just a shame I felt so sick. Then we started out descent at 6. Got down, and waited until 9am to visit "St Katherine" monastary. Waited like an hour and a half, and once again, hate to sound negative, but was probably the most boring thing I have ever seen. They have the "spiritual successor" of the burning bush from the bible. Lame. Some people were climbing over other people to touch it. Got on the bus back and crashed for the afternoon. Had some relaxing before getting on another sleeping bus (terrible sleeps both sides of my birthday, and I couldn't even find an iceblock which was the only think I wanted)

Got back to Cairo this morning and crashed until 2pm, went to some markets, screwed the sellers over (they were expensive markets, but we'd learnt over the course of the trip the value of everything) and then came back, and I jumped on the internet.

This place has been so amazing, has really inspired me to travel more of the Middle East, the culture here is so unlike the western world at all.

Well, onto Barcelona tonight for one night then Berlin.. Fun time!

New: Random Observations.

This isn't really stuff we've done as such, just stuff we've experienced.
It's like the locals have gone to an english school, and everyone gets taught the same stuff. On our first day we got amazed when some random guy asked us where we were from and we said NZ and he said "Kai Ora" and we were amazed, haven't heard that anywhere else. Took us into a store and told us he had to drink "coke, sprite, fanta, 7-up, 7-down".. cheesy. I've now heard that joke like 3 or 4 times. Also people on the street markets say stuff to you like "how can I take your money" and we had one guy say "come into my store of rubbish, come see my crap". Sometimes I'm not sure they know what they're saying exactly. The people really are nice to you when they don't want your money. Some people are really poor though. The have an amazing sense of humour, it's a hell of a lot simpler than ours, but everyone gets in on the jokes and laughs with you, it's nice. It's hard to explain just what they find funny, but it's just simple play. Once you get used to it, it's actually quite fun to talk and haggle with them.
I saw the two fattest egyptains I saw the entire time yesterday, both at a place called Hardies, which is like Buger King. I think it's too expensive for most of them to eat there, I think people can earn like 100 pounds a week, but a meal might cost 20 pounds, so only rich people eat there. And then they get fat.. Interesting. I actually thought of heaps of things to write here, but then I got on the computer and forgot. Typical

Aswan

Aswan is even hotter than Luxor is apparently. I heard it was 42 today, and the other day it got to 55. Anyway, we got the "sleeping" train, which was a non sleeping train, at 10pm last night, and arrived here at 12.30 with an OK sleep and sore bodies from conforming to the train seats. It was alright though, I've slept much worse places (I'm still haunted hourly from Madrid International). The hotel we're at is nice, and has A/C, and the guide met us soon after and took us to see a massive Dam, which sounds boring, but it's incredibly big and the important role it plays in Egypt is quite large really. Pretty much prevents Cairo from being swallowed under water. We then saw our first Egyptian temple, which was really interesting, and having someone with us who really knew their stuff was a great help, learnt a lot all about the Egyptian religion and their view on the world and why all these things were there and how it linked into their Monarchy and basically shaped the rest of their lives. Very interesting stuff really.
-Andrew
We are learning a bit of arabic here, just enough to ward off the hagglers and appreciate our helpers. Our guide took us to get a feed of this traditional Egyptian meal, Koshari, after our day out the other day. It was so yummy but I got confused and instead of saying thankyou I said Koshari. Andrew thought this was hilarious and teased me all the way home.
-Alice