Winzrik Hotel Tripoli

After 4 hours at the border, finally managed to make my way into Libya only to have some jerk go through the contents of my bag and then ask me for money for the pleasure! Libya is such a surprise. The people are so friendly and reserved (unlike Egypt!) and there is so much to see here. I first went to Tobruk and visited the war memorials there. It is so sad to see all the Aussie graves there - such ...

... pearls as possible. I didn't wear it for long, it was actually painful the weight of gold on my head. The necklace I was wearing was apparently worth about 30,000AUD, it was very heavy. Lance said next time they dress me up like that to run away :) So sorry all the pics are of me but I wasn't allowed to take any of the women. I hope you can appreciate though how beautiful the traditional dress is.

So here are some pics of our new house and new dog!! Sorry Meg for this taking me so long to upload. New house was due to a giant mosque which now overshadows our old one and the new dog is because the poor thing was dumped on the farm. Mohammed found him and brought him to us covered in tics and fleas and starving. He said we should keep him as having a dog will keep away the rats and mice - (much to Mohammed's disgust he only ...

Mum and Dad came to visit in November last year for 2 weeks. We kept them busy with trips to Leptus Magna, Sabratha, markets and our kind Libyan friend organised a 2 day tour of the medina! We also had an unfortunate incident with the police, they thought dad was taking pictures of ...

... where is big fish?". Of course I didn't understand the answer but it was either: a) "It escaped over there out of the harbour." (good news) b) "We killed it and put it in that boat over there." (c'est la vie, I'm sure it didn't suffer) or c) "Can you believe this ignorant westerner? He doesn't even know that whales are mammals." (I dooo!) Tripoli, or Tarabulus as the Arabs call it, is a cool city but perhaps not as cool as it ...

... quite violently - I guess trying to free the mother who was trapped inside, and who, I think, was already dead. Quite sobering, but it didn't change the way the drivers continued on - all in the hands of Allah I suppose. It was late afternoon by the time we got back to the hotel, we met the men for a cup of tea and then had a quiet evening, everyone was tired. Libya is a completely dry country, and although Kym laid claim to the only beer in the bar fridge, he was ...

... alcohol! everyone gets high on sugar... not really my style but i gave it a go. At about 10.30 we were served macaroons and sweet camel milk that had a marzipan flavour which really helped get us in a party mood. There were about 250 ladies attending - no men at all and me the only blonde. There was a very noisy arabic singer, she was so loud my ears hurt and the water glasses vibrated. All the girls got up to do their shakira dancing and then got us up and stood around us clapping while we ...

... and giggling at it like a little school girl. So in honour of B (B, pass me the ball) I have included two very ordinary prawn jokes for your comedic pleasure: The first is just one that I found and think is quite possibly the funniest joke in the world (well, nearly as funny as 'What's the difference between a truckload of bowling balls and a truck load of dead babies? You can't unload the truckload of bowling balls with a pitchfork!). The second ...

... involved in the preservation of historical sights in the Mdina and written a book on it's history. The best part of the tour was looking inside the Mosques, each quite different in design and history, the main thing that struck me about the mosques were that they were all very colourful.

... difference in there. I walked around on a friday recently and found it very quiet until prayer time then everyone seemed to some out of the walls, and lay their prayer matts down on the paths which literally stopped me in my tracks. Not amazing shopping in there but some interesting ones and lots of friendly children.. and cats. many more picture oportunities in there, this is only the start.