Pics from Europe 2007

Here is a quick link to some pics from the trip... I'll post more and some stories afte some sleep (and golf).

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=56093&l=a12f0&id=666980653

Praha 1

Back in Prague, 2nd time in 2 years (I think, the first time is a little cloudy). Not much has changed, it's a lot busier here this time with it being high season... Jagr's bar is closed, it's now an Irish pub/sports bar. The other change is I'm staying at a full-on hostel this time too, which we did a bit of in Krakow but never shared a room with anyone. This time we are, 2 bunks out of 6 in 1 room. How come the more money I make the cheaper places I stay?? Haha, so far it's alright and has been a good way to meet a couple younger people. We'll see what I say tomorrow after listening to 5 other donkeys snore and toss and turn. It's friggin' cheap tho, I'll give it that.

We're thinking of Berlin in a couple days, we're thinking we'd like to see "the wall" since Munich is likely going Oktoberfest crazy with drunken brits, which we also experienced in Poland. No complaints though, just sayin'.

Anyways, enough key clackin', back to the streets!

Poland

Poland has been an amazing surprise. Before this trip I thought that it would be cool to come here one day, almost as a novelty, and now that I've come I can say that I'm sure glad I did. The country is beautiful, full of history and tragedy, and has still managed to not be fully engulfed in western commercialization. This isn't to say that it's not here, but of all the places I've been in Europe Poland has so far resisted being fully converted. This is probably also a result of it only shedding communism 18 years ago... The people are friendly, the sites and people are beautiful, and there is a definite festivity in the air most of the time. There is also an abundance of young people, mostly here on school trips, learning the history and respecting the past.

After 4 or 5 nights of being up until 5 am we had a sobering day today. We went to Auschwitz, which is everything you imagine it to be, and worse. It is just not fathomable what humans do to humans, even in times of war. I can only hope that we've learned from our mistakes.

More touring is planned tomorrow, and then we're heading to Wroclaw to visit a friend of Mike's who is from Poland. Then we're not sure where exactly, probably Prague...

See you around, Ryan.

Stats

Here's a chart of hits on my blog... I guess most people surf on over on Sundays, but not too many during the week, while at work. But the few I do get I should give a shout out to: Nads, Amish, the Colombians, mom... who else are work-time visitors?

We lose a good one

Last night was the going away of one of the waiters/bartenders at the pub in our hotel... he found a better job eslewhere. We smoked cigars and drank cognac in his honor.

Waleed was Rick's favourite (Rick in red):

Me and Waleed (and cognac):
The afterwork pub gang:

More Colombia Pics II

Mucho Aguilas:
Torture table at the Spanish Inquisition Museum in Cartegena:
Museum again, outside at dusk:
Playa Blanca, 45 min boat ride from Cartegena:
Lime anyone:

More Colombia Pics

The three best men:
Three best women:
Bride and Groom, post nuptuals:
Mud bath on the lip of a dormant volcanoe (I hope), that's me looking at the camera:
The Pinzon-Heinz clan looking at wedding photos:

pillow vs pillow = wicked awesome

Had a good weekend here with the Peck's visiting me in Ain Sukhna. They were supposed to arrive Wednesday evening but they were 20 minutes late getting off their boat and subsequently missed the government convoy that is required to drive up the coast from where they were to here. This annoyed them royally, as us westerners aren't used to being told we can't go somewhere without a government escort. So they ended up arriving Thursday afternoon. We enjoyed dinner at the beach and then went to a friend's villa for some beverages on their rooftop patio. It was a great night with some mild debauchery, but the company was the best part.

Friday was spent making quick work of 9 holes and then heading to the beach. I was a little under the weather (and still am) but as usual the weather was perfect and it was good to relax for a little while. The Peck's enjoy telling stories, so they filled the air recounting their dive trip and other adventures for my co-workers and friends here! But the visit was short and sweet as they had to leave this morning to head back to Rome before travelling to Zambia for their 2 months of volunteering.

Next week I'm off for 2 weeks to galavant around Eastern Europe with a friend from Fort McMurray. We were housemates there (actually he was my landlord) and he's decided to quit his job, sell his house, and go travelling for awhile. So we meet in Warsaw, Poland on the 14th and will be training our way through Poland, the Czech Republic, and Germany for Oktoberfest.

It's a hard knocked life.

Silent film

Quick vid from the top of the Nile Cruise boat...

Roots

Three posts in one day, not too shabby.

It seems like I'm going on a lot of vacations lately, which is alright with me. My next "rotation/home-leave" is 14-Sep to 27-Sep. But, I'm not heading home quite yet. I am meeting Z who was my roommate/landlord in Fort McMurray in Warsaw and doing an eastern European tour ending up in Germany Oktoberfest, which I know is a tourist thing to do but we don't care. I'm flying to Poland and then have to make my way to Frankfurt for a fligth back to Cairo by the 27th... we're training it all of the way, which will be cool. The main goal of this trip will be to buy new golf shoes and maybe some WWII shtuff.

Colombia, get off my back already!

Seems like so long ago already! But here it is... Like I said, Facebook is to blame, there are like 50 pics there of Colombia.

Cruizin'

My posts have been infrequent in the past couple months... you have Facebook to blame for this. Picutres are easy to post there, just click and they upload/shrink automatically. But whatev.

So, since 11-Aug I've done a bit... the Peck's are in Egypt visiting... I joined them in Cairo and for a cruise down the Nile from the 23rd to 28th. That was great, my first visit to the pyramids in the 7 months I've been here, not bad! I wasn't in a hurry tho since they're not going anywhere. But it was a great time, good to see close friends overseas. They're due to my resort here tonight, spending a couple nights before they head off to Zambia. Should be a couple days of beach fun, golf (of course), and good times.

The cruise was great as well, pretty much the best place I've been in Egypt so far is the Nile. Sitting by the pool on the roof-top watching the Nile drift by was soothing and enlightening, especially after the hustle and caos of Cairo.

Last night we had a celebration for our project reaching 50% complete for construction. A good milestone, and a glimmer of hope that one day we'll be finished and get to move on! There is already talk of the next project here in Egypt, but I think my first choice will be to go back to Brisbane for the PNG project which is gaining momentum as an LNG job... my fingers are crossed.

Hope all is well in your part of the world!

Alexander The Great

I know, I know, I have haven't written much about Colombia yet, I'm still waiting for pictures to arrive that will make it easier to describe.

But I did do something out of the ordinary this weekend so I'll write about that... The scenery around Stella Di Mare, where we stay here in Egypt, is getting a little boring so I decided to take a roadtrip to Alexandria with one of the locals here. He travels back there most weekends to the Mediterranean city to see friends and family, as well as partake in the local entertainment such as clubs, restaurants, girls, scenery, and atmosphere. Alexandria is Egypt's second largest city with 3.5-5 million people, depending where you draw the line. And now the Wikipedia version: The city of Alexandria was named after its founder, Alexander the Great, and as the seat of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, quickly became one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world — second only to Rome in size and wealth. However, upon the founding of Cairo by Egypt's medieval Islamic rulers, its status as the country's capital ended, and fell into a long decline, which by the late Ottoman period, had seen it reduced to little more than a small fishing village. The city was revived by Muhammad Ali as a part of his early industrialization program. The current city is Egypt's leading port... Here's the full Wiki link.

I rented a car and left after work on Thursday. Alexandria 450 km drive from where I am on the Red Sea, and we had to travel through Cairo to get there. It was my first real driving experience (where I drove) in Egypt, which is an adventure in itself. First rule of driving in Egypt is there are no rules. People honk at random, pass on the inside, go 4 wide in two lanes, lanes mean nothing, drive the wrong way down one ways with their lights off, speed limits are for foreigners, etc etc. Most cars in Egypt have at least 2 dents and all of them need new shocks due to the crap roads. So anyway, driving was fun and we made it through the whole trip with no incidents or new dents.

After leaving work at 12:30 Thursday (we work a half day on Thursdays) we arrived in Alexandria around 6pm. To start off we went to the Bibliotheca (library/museum) that is famous in Alex. It was a good place to start to get a history of the city and get the lay of the land. Here is a picture of it at night:

After that we went for dinner at a place called The Sixties, which is Hisham's (co-worker) local haunt. Then it was off to the Plaza to meet his friends via the seaside motorway that took us past many historical spots as well as modern conveniences. The Plaza is a huge hotel/shopping complex where we looked around and eventually stopped for a coffee and desert. Picture a Starbucks the size of a Denny's restaurant pumping house music and filled with young couples, groups of girls, and groups of guys staring at the girls.

After a bit of oogling we left to find the apartment we rented in a western suburb of Alex, which was near the nightclubs we were planning on going to. A 10 minute drive on a freeway followed by a 15 minutes adventure on narrow streets, dark alleys, and tree-lined side streets led us to our modest 'villa'. It was a two bedroom flat with basically no amenities, but it was cheap and we weren't picky. We promptly opened the bottle of Bacardi and cracked a couple tall-boy Heinekens. This was around 10pm... around 11pm it was decided we'd have nap for an hour to gain some energy for the evening. After that we were up again to put another dent in the rum while we waited for more friends to arrive. When they finally did around 3am we were on our way and eventually left for the nightclub around 4am. There was 7 of us heading out, 3 girls and 4 guys. Bouncers are the same the world around, so after a bit haggling we were in. The club was right on the beach, playing electronic/dance music and was a balance of European and Arabic. There was no "hard drinks" served there, so if we wanted a taste of rum we had to go outside to the car... We danced until the sun rose around 6am... and then it was off to find some "street-meat", however we settled on fuul sandwiches, which was basically some sort of bean paste with onions and tomatoes in a pita. It was surprisingly satisfying... Next it was back to the flat, where we stayed up finishing the remaining booze and smoking hashesh on a carpet outside as the day got brighter and brighter.... Around 10am my Egyptian friends decided we'd better get some rest before hitting beach, so we had another nap until 1pm. Then it was up again, gathering the troops, and heading to a private beach club where we lounged on beanbag chairs and soaked up some sun. I didn't go in the Mediterranean Sea where we were because it was darker than chocolate milk, gross in other words. I'm sure it's nicer on different parts of the coast, but not where we were.

This put us at 4pm on Friday and we had to be back in Sukhna in order to get some sleep before work on Saturday. We left Alexandria about 6:30pm and were back on the Red Sea coast by 11pm...

All-in-all it was a good roadtrip... lots of laughs (even if I didn't understand the joke because they were speaking Arabic), good company, a good change of scenery, some action at the nightclub, and an interesting driving experience. It was a welcome change of pace although I sort of missed golfing... haha.

On another point... The Peck's arrive in Egypt on the 22nd of August... I'll be meeting them in Cairo on the Thursday where we'll spend a couple days doing the Pyramid thing, then I'm joining them for their Nile Cruise from the 25th to 28th. We fly to Luxor, board the boat, then disembark in Aswan and fly back to Cairo. Then they leave for southern Egypt for a diving trip and I go back to work.

This damn work thing, keeps getting in the way of my exploring Egypt and my golfing... oh well.

Maa el salamaa

Colombia, soon...

Colombia was awesome. It was a great holiday and great 3 weeks spent with friends to celebrate Brent and Lina's wedding! We had fun everywhere we went, saw the sites, partied hard, relaxed, shopped, etc...

I will post pictures, but I'm waiting for them to arrive. I took some pictures but Frumby and Bryan had way better cameras so I'm waiting for those to arrive in the mail to post some of them.

So I will be making a better effort to tell everyone about the trip, but not right now... another factor is that I've downloaded the Sopranos, which is killer, and it's been eating up my evenings. I'll try harder.

Where have you been??

Well, it's been awhile, my apologies. But there's honestly not that much going on here lately. Working 5.5 days keeps me out of most trouble, and my days off have been spent golfing, playing poker, golfing, frisbee, beach volleyball, and some eating thrown in. That pretty much sums up my weekends lately.

However, I'm leaving tomorrow to head to Colombia for Brent's wedding. I'll be there 3 weeks hanging out with Brent and Lina, the Pecks, John and Vanessa, and I think Scot Rose is going too. I'm sure we'll be hooked up with some Colomian relatives of Lina's to show us around.

I'm meeting the Pecks in Paris where we'll board a flight to Bogota. We'll connect to Bucaramanga where we'll be from Thursday to Tuesday for the wedding. Then we're all off to Cartegena for 10 days for some beach time (and apparently the filmed Romancing the Stone there). The we're all off to Bogota where I'll spend 5 days before returning to Egypt for another "rotation" on the 23rd.

Good times. Hope to have a few pics to post when I get back and of course some stories to tell.

Take care,
Ryan

Scramble

Second place at the Summer Scramble here last weekend:

Hairdryer

It was 43-46 degrees here a couple of days ago, on account of the hot desert wind blowing through. It was like a hairdryer set on high blowing in your face. It was so hot the shafts of my golf clubs were almost too hot to touch. Good times

No cell phones!

I went to my first embassy on Thursday. The "Canadian Club" was holding a pub night at the Canadian embassy in Cairo so me, James, Greg and his wife (the Canadians on our job) decided to go drink some Kokanee and listen to some Quebec rock music. We didn't know about the Quebec rock music before we went, but apparently most of the staff that work there are form Quebec so they got to mix the tunes. We also feeded on some pork roast and gulash, which was also a welcome reminder of life outside the mid-east. It was a good time, and I got a glimpse of nightlife in Cairo at the same time. While we didn't head out anywhere afterwards, there was a lot action on the street.

Friday was spent golfing in the morning, then off to the beach where we played some fris in the water, then some beach volleyball, then some water polo/rugby. Basically I run the old-farts I work with through a physical routine on Fridays in order to keep their tickers going and to clean out some of the beer and KFC they consume all week.

I've stopped doing the Pizza Hut / KFC thing at lunch... now I head to the Golf Hotel in our complex and do some putting practice while I wait for my food. It's pretty relaxing because the course is dead during the day and the weather is typically beautiful. So eating lunch on the terrace with the birds in the background staring at a green golf course is alright. Now all I need is someone to have lunch with! haha.

Anyways, life goes on in the desert. 25 days until Colombia.

Working in the oil industry

Working in the oil industry:
1. We work in weird shifts ... Like prostitutes.
2. They pay you to make the client happy ... Like prostitutes.
3. The client pays a lot of money, but your employer keeps almost every penny ... Like prostitutes.
4. You are rewarded for fulfilling the client's dreams ... Like prostitutes.
5. Your friends fall apart and you end up hanging out with people in the same profession as you ... Like prostitutes.
6. When you have to meet the client you always have to be perfectly groomed ... Like prostitutes.
7. But when you go back home it seems like you are coming back from hell ... Like prostitutes.
8. The client always wants to pay less but expects incredible things from you ... Like prostitutes.
9. When people ask you about your job, you have difficulties to explain it ... Like prostitutes.
10. Everyday when you wake up, you say: I'M NOT GOING TO SPEND THE REST OF MY LIFE DOING THIS SH * T"... Like prostitutes.The only difference is the prostitutes can take Christmas and New Year's Eve off and they actually DO make a lot of Money!!!

6 string magic