Alexandria Green Plaza Hilton

... 1604;الك 78;رونية| العاب اكشن العاب الاكش 06; والاث 75;ره التي تحتاج للسرع 07; و الشجا 93 ...

... with us as our guide Mohammed had graciously said he'd drop us near the Hotel Longchamps where we are staying for 3 nights on the way back to the hotel for the others.

We boarded our mini bus, and put our safety belts on pretty tightly..the traffic is amusing in a large bus where most other cars wont take you on..its a little bit hairy in a smaller vehicle. We all try to have a rest and generally chat. The american couple of Rob and ...

... been great, having learned a lot and seen much of the city.   Alexandria is by far the coolest city I have been to, even though my knowledge of "city greats" is limited to the United States.  I am excited for the trip to progress as I am sure I will have plenty of others.   Well, I must get going as my time in the internet cafe is almost up!  I will be updating ya'll in the morning! P.S.  I do have lots of photos but I will be adding them to tomorrow's photo gallery......

... but a few of us decided to walk into the city on our own. While Neil's mom and sister joined three Canadian ladies on a horse-buggy tour of the city and had a horrible experience, Neil and I joined a few girls we met on the ship including Claudette and Sharon and ventured into the city. The city layout is not that complicated in Arabian standards but the dirty, dilapidated ...

... As we drove out of the city the houses and area improved. The journey to Cairo took 3 hours through very flat countryside with very few buildings. Most of the land here has been irrigated and they grow lots of different fruit and vegetables. Apparently if they stopped irrigating the land it would return to desert within two weeks. We saw a lot of odd shaped structures with holes in and were told that these were people kept pigeons to eventually eat ...

... and I handed my camera to her to look after. When I went to pick up my camera at the end she demanded I give her a different 100 Pound note. The note itself was in good condition but it had been sellotaped by me to repair the tear. I didn't have another 100 Pound note and even if I did I wouldn't have given her it. She was fuming at me. She slammed my bit of paper down with my number on it for my camera and almost threw my camera under the window pane ...

... is shaped like a C indicating that it was a theatre instead of a musical centre that would be shaped like a U. As we walked through the streets of Alex, the labyrinth of the no-name narrow streets is dotted with puddles of water and lined with nineteenth C buildings. There are a lot of coffee houses aka sheesha (water pipes) places and corner food stalls. This is very similar to places that we have visited before in Ghana and China. The ...

Sunday (January 6)

I packed my bags and got going as soon as I could to the train station, and within half an hour I was on the train. I booked a first-class ticket and although the carriage was getting a bit long in the tooth the seats were massive and comfortable and there were a couple absolutely gorgeous attendants serving breakfast and drinks, and their hair was even uncovered... score!

Alexandria is approximately 3 hours north of ...

... So many options... Meanwhile the lives of Mr and Mrs R will be taking on a Groundhog Day-esque sheen of regularity.  So any attempt at regular e-mail updates would be even more tedious than the usual guff we send. Briefly, for the next 8 weeks our lives are going to be:  - get up 07:30,  - start college 09:00,  - spend 6 hours learning Arabic in its various forms,  - go home and hide in darkened room to avoid any more torture-by-Arabic (Mr R's view ...