Roman Ramadan

I am spending the first 4 days of Ramadan in the beautiful city of rome.
Coming back to rome was geat - i knew what to expect and i do not have to rush to see everything so i am enjoyng it much more. And work is fun, catching up with really cool and interesting people and having great conversations over delicious dinners!
Today it's raining, and it's kinda cool i finally can use my raincoat and umbrella for the first time since i bought them last summer.

Btw i think foreigners are making too big a fuss about fasting - it ain't that hard, and you can have a nice and productive day without food and water.

My hotel room is microscopically small, i laughed once i stepped in, but it sure beats the yuckie youth hostel they have here in rome.

And EgyptAir kicks Alitalia's ass big time! except for the looks factor :P

Today is the worst day of the year!

Yes,,, it is the day when winter time begins!
We do get an extra hour of sleep - which is so stupid, coz tomorrow is weekend anyway so you could sleep as much as you like. It would be a plus if it was an extra hour of sleep on a working day!
It gets dark early, cold early, they streets are lonlier at night (which is kinda of a plus in a city like cairo).
From now and until the 26th of April i will walk out of my office into increasing darkness day after day after a whole day under artificial lights.
I remember how i felt last April when the day was longer - it was nature's gift to me on my birthday.

Winter has begun.... and it's depressing :(

217 days left

I have covered 4% of the countries of the world - 96% to go

www.world66.com
by next month i will add sudan and libya too :)

Beautiful Stockholm

For a very long time Sweden for me was just plain geography - i know the capital and where it is, just in case i enter "Who wants to be a Millionaire"
This visit to stockholm i decided to spend my friday in Stockholm instead of Cairo - and it was a great call.
The sun was shining so the weather was "beautiful" by Scandinavian standrads (which means a frozen nose, fingers, toes and ass by my sub-tropical standards)
I went on a boat tour to do some sightseeing, and the view was breathtaking - first of all the buildings are all old and massive and look so charming and it's soooooooooo green like nothing i have ever seen before. I also saw the house of one of the ABBA group members =)

Then i went to the Royal Palace to check out the crown jewels of course - it was really nice, but i have to say that the crown jewels of England are way better!
But i find it even more fascinating that in Sweden even though the King has a son, he will pass down the throne to his eldest who happens to be a girl!

And then i went on a mad shopping spree and i FINALLY saw the da vinci code movie. I can't remember the book that much, but i think it's a little different than the movie.
The book was good - not awesome, just good - but the movie was quite average.

After seeing the film i think i support the Egyptian government to sensor the movie. It's not for the christians - i know that most of them will dismiss the film as just a story and as BS coz they have faith. The thing is that some of the extreme muslims will just use it as proof for their theory that the chirsitanity that exists this day is not the right christianity and will thus be more encouraged to think of and possibly even treat christians as non-believers.
And that will add to tensions especially when you have such great egyptian youth whose balls are bigger than their brains
So i think this is one of the few times where i will agree with cencorship and with the Egyptian government - Saggel ya tareekh!

AAAArgh

I shall never buy an electronic equipment again without a guy. Damn you Sony!

the hunt is over

i give up.... i am staying where i am but i will reserve the right to complain as much as i want

Bye-bye Cocco

This is an authentic picture of Nisrin chasing Cocco the Geco out of our house.
The chase was not fruitful untill i joined Nisrin's line of offence to kick Cocco out!
It was a combined group effort, me, nisrin, cocco and the blue stick!