Four Seasons Hotel Alexandria

... 1577; كره قدم و كره سله و غيرها من الريا 90;ات الجمي 04;ة| العاب اطفال العاب سهله و مف ...

After the amazing scenery of the desert, it was a bit of a culture shock heading back into civilisation in Alex.

Its a massive sprawl of a city but the area around the corniche is pretty relaxed and their is quite a bit to see!

Decided to take it easy and visited the Catacombs and the library (the new one is pretty spectacular so one can only ...

... none of which compare the insanity of Cairo.but amusing and time consuming none the less.

we find a nice little restaurant with a great menu and go to town.service is slow and seeing as how we are the only customers in there,its a little confusing.... and its getting late, so we know they are trying to jet.

all B.S. aside, the food showed up after about 45 minutes.... and it was better than expected. i ordered some ...

... their lights turned off while driving at night!  It really was hilarious driving in this, and thus watching from our chairs at the café.  Another point that is interesting to note is that, while there aren't any traffic lights, there aren't any pedestrian crossings either.  So you are basically playing Russian roulette while trying to cross the street, hoping the on coming car decides to swerve around you.  I can only imagine that I will be discussing the traffic of Egypt ...

... it was the second largest city in the western world if not the largest, first after Rome, then after Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) when the capital of the Roman Empire moved to Constantinople. Only after the Arab conquest did it start to decline in importance, taken over by Baghdad and Cairo further east and inland, the shipping trade through its ports losing importance ...

... In retrospect I was glad I had done the tour. I was able to share my experiences with other people and I don't think we would have been able to travel to some of the places we did without our Egyptian tour manager. This was then end of the first part of my trip. The second half would be much different to the first, something I was ready for as seeing too many temples in such a short space of time it becomes hard to appreciate everything you see.

... fall now and disappear under the rubbish that's more prevalent when you get away from the corniche sea front, so little has changed since then.

a couple of things I've been noticing:
1. I've seen a fair few albino Egyptians and I mention that because its very rare to see any albinos back home. I'd be interested to know how they are treated in Egyptian society.

2. Egyptian people do not like to be in possession of sellotaped ...

... is the link between the times of the pharaohs and the days of Islam. When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, he found Alex to be his capital in 331 BC. It was filled with archenteron to rival the city of Rome and Athens, and became an important halt on the trade route between Europe and Asia. Under Roman rule, Alex remained the capital. But when the Muslims swept in the seventh C. they favored and found Cairo to be the new capital. When Napoleon ...

... and did not get the usual friendly welcome so I believe that most people did in fact have good impressions of New Zealand and New Zealanders. We travelled to Alexandria via the Alex-Desert road which was a 4 lane road with the shoulder lane sometimes covered with sand and/or vehicles driving in the opposite direction. The weather was different to the rest of Egypt, so far, with it similar to New Zealand in the summer around 30 degrees and ...

... went up and down Egypt on a tour with them - the highlight perhaps being 3 days spent on a boat going up the Nile.  Just before New Year Mr R's Old Lass & her Fella joined us (and are still with us). When we are left to our own devices again (sometime around 13 January) we will be living and studying in Alexandria, on the Mediterranian coast of Egypt.  We will be studying a mixture of Egyptian Colloqual Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic for 20 ...