Rome Pics

Lunch near the Colleseum:

Inside Colosseo:

Gladiators outside Colosseo:

Rome Pics

Italians sunning themselves on Isola Tibernia:

Dayun

I've told my mom, so now I can tell you guys... I went on a trip to Suez a few weeks ago on a motorcycle hunting trip. I enlisted a couple Egyptians that I work with to be my escorts and negotiators because everything in Egypt is cheaper if you're Egyptian. Suez is about a 40 minute drive north of work, so we burned up there in no time. We checked out a couple "motorbike" stores and finally settled on one in run an old shrew'ish dude. There wasn't a lot of choice, and nothing over 150cc's, whish is probably better for my safety sake (reference motorbike incident in Vietnam). After a bit of haggling I picked up the beaut below for a skinny 3800 Egyptian Pounds, or roughly $675US. Not too shabby. I took the boys out for a celebratory seafood dinner (best meal in Egypt so far). Part of the deal was delivery to the resort where we're staying. So we went back to the joint, loaded the bike in a pick-up (after helping change the rear left tire), and then followed the guy back to the Stella Di Mare (home).

After smuggling it through security, it stays neatly parked right outside the main hotel entrance. Security keeps a close eye on it, and in return I let the security guards take it for a burn around the parking lot every once in awhile. This has been a good arrangement so far except for the guy who ran it into a wall on the 3rd day I owned it. Just scratches though, give it character and a story!

I mostly use to get back and forth between my hotel and the golf course... short shopping trips... and to show off to any Czech girls hanging out front of my hotel.

Roma

Has anyone told you I'm going to Rome this weekend? Well, it's true. We get April 5-9th off and a couple that I work with (James & Alisha) thought it would be a good idea to check out Rome. They asked me to tag along, and it was either that or golf for 4 days straight. So off we go. I booked a flight on Egypt Air from Cairo to Rome for $366 USD. Not too shabby... We've also booked an apartment, so the weekend is shaping up. The apartment is in the middle of Rome, right in the heart of the city where most of the cool stuff is.

I'm looking forward to it. It'll be a good break away from work and the monotony of life at the Stella Di Mare.

Any news from anyone out there?

More Random Pics

Here is a Cairo traffic jam:
Anyone for some Grilled Viagra?
Sprite, cool refreshing lemon lime flavour:

Random pics

Here is one of the Egyptians working with me... we ordered lunch from the site cantina. It consisted of 2 heads of lettuce, 2 bowls of beans, 2 bowls of veggies, 2 bowls of cheese, french fries, and bread (pitas). All of this for 6 Egyptian pounds, or roughly $1.20 Canadian:
This is a repeat of golf, but I can't delete it because Blogger sucks:
This is a mosque in Cairo I took while driving by:
This is people gathering outside after work to get into the buses/cars back to our houses...

Sorry sheesha

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, it's been over 2 weeks now! To date nothing terribly exciting has happened though so I haven't felt the need to rush updating the blog. But stuff has happened, so I will get to it shortly!

To tide you over, here's me and a group of people at the Sheesha bar in our hotel. We head up there around once a week to relax, drink Turkish coffee, and smoke some sheesha. In the instance below though I brought the rest of a 40 of Canadian Club I brought over with me...

Do you like our little hats? They're Turkish, not Egyptian:

Mom, this doesn't count against our "no smoking" agreement:

Stuff!

My shipment finally arrived here... almost exactly 3 months since I packed it in Brisbane, and 6 weeks since it was supposed to leave Calgary. Frustrating, but what can ya do. The more you complain to these people the longer it seems to take.

Main thing is my clubs are here. I've already acquanted myself with them, so hopefully I can get back into the low 80's I once was when I was in McMurray.

O & O

March 9, 2007

Another weekend, another 36 holes of golf… I bought a membership at the course here and might get my money’s worth faster than I than I thought. Originally today the plan was to play a round in the morning and then hit the beach but it only got to about 27° today… I didn’t think that was warm enough for the beach so I stayed on the course. Good thing I did too… A couple of the guys at work have a villa near the 16th green so as we finished up there we drove the carts up and hopped the fence where we were greeted with an awesome bbq, “southern” style. Loyd, who doesn’t golf, had spent the day cooking steaks, bbq, chicken, jambalaya, cornbread, and beans. Decidedly the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been here. It was a welcome sight too because I think all the local food I’ve been eating had caught up to me a couple days ago. After too much food, a couple beers, and some ropin’ lessons from Ricky (one of the many benefits of working with Texans) we hopped back over the fence and finished our second round of the day. I shot an 80 and 86 today… Not bad considering I’m still using rental clubs because my shipment hasn’t arrived yet. It’s supposed to be here tomorrow (exactly 3 months since I packed it in Brisbane), but I’ll believe it when I see it.

A few people from work went to do the pyramid tour and such this weekend… I was starting to feel bad about hanging out on the course so much, but I figure the pyramids aren’t going anywhere soon. Besides, I worked 64 hours this week and didn’t feel like battling the masses in Cairo. I think I’ll eventually spend one of my ‘rotations’ touring the Egypt, the Nile, pyramids, etc. I’ll spend the next few months brushing up on my Arabic… hah!

Anyways, hope all is well with everyone… drop me an email and let me know what’s new. Phone calls are tough due to the time change and our weird work sked (Sat-Thurs)…

Later,
Ry

1.5 Days of Sun, Sand, and Divots

Here's a few pics from the weekend (Thursday & Friday)... This one is Calle, Jim, and Andrew. Calle is the golf pro at the course, Jim is one of my bosses, and Andrew is a South African building a boat at the port here, it's a 100 foot super yacht being built for around $60 mil.
Here's a couple of da boys on the course:
The course... a little flat in places, but a challenge nonetheless:
Me teeing off on #1:

Photogenic

I don't know what's better... the pose or the amazing background.

Anyway, here's me at the job site. That's going to make ammonia when it's done. Saalam.

1 week down, 77 to go

The first week has come and gone and after that it appears that there will be enough to keep a person busy here. Mostly I’ve just been working a bunch… The work week is Saturday to Thursday, and I’m at 5am to get ready for the day. I head to breakfast at 5:45 for half an hour of your standard breakfast buffet with an Egyptian twist, then onto the bus which leaves at 6:15 to head to site where I start work at 6:30. Saturday to Wednesdays are 10 hour days plus an hour lunch, which means we leave site at 5:30. Some days I’ve worked 12 hours until 7:30, those have been tough but so far there’s only been two… Thursdays are half days, of which I’ve only had one, and I spent it warming up for a golf tournament put on by KBR on my first Friday off. It was a stableford style tournament and I may have underestimated my handicap because I came in 2nd. I still maintain it was a good day… On the Thursday I shot a 98 (shut up), but on tournament day I pulled in an 85. I gave myself a 19 handicap which means I ended up with 42 points, good enough for 2nd place and bragging rights at work the next day.

Everyday work evenings have been filled with a mix of working out, the driving range, squash, ping pong, sheesha, and a bit of shooting this shit at the pub. So far I’ve stuck mostly to the hotel my villa is at, but there are 2 others within the “complex”. I hear there’s a better a gym and some different restaurants to visit but I’m not sick enough of the ones at mine yet.

Last week I had to make a trip to Cairo for an HIV test… that was an experience. First off, Cairo is crazy. Not as crazy as Vietnam, but crazy in a Muslim Egyptian way. Cairo is a little dirty, too busy, polluted, hazy, old, chaotic, and pretty damn cool. It’s definitely something to see, but the clean streets of Brisbane and Calgary got it beat. But what can you expect from the area known as the beginning of civilization.

The hotel set-up is alright… I stay in a villa away from the main hotel. The villa is made up of 6 units over 2 floors and it’s an alright set-up. It’s a decent size with a good shower and a king size bed. Actually the bed is two singles pushed together so it’s not really a king size, so it sort of sucks come to think of it. The main complaint about the living arrangements is the fact there is no internet in our rooms, so I have to come to the main hotel to blog and surf… This is why I haven’t been as connected as in the past, but that just means you’re not as bored reading this.

Hah! Well, I’m off to play some pong.

Cairo - The Canuck has landed

I'm here. My trip from Calgary to Cairo went off without a hitch. All the flights were on time, I was met at the Cairo airport by someone from the "meet & greet" company that KBR uses, and now I'm in a hotel in Cairo. I'll be here for the night and then picked up in the morning to go the hotel/area near the Red Sea where I'll be spending the next 18 months. Doesn't sound as long when you say 18 months versus a year and a half for some reason.

It's 12:30 in the morning here right now, 3:30pm in Calgary... so I'm going to have a quick shower (21 hours in airports and planes) and hit the hay and hopefully be relatively fresh for the morning here. No good pictures yet because it's dark. hah.

Here's basically what the view would be from my room if it wasn't midnight.

Brrrr...

High of -19 degrees Celsius today in Calgary... I think I'm looking forward to some more moderate temperatures with the Egyptian weather.

Here are a few pics from the window at Bryan and Patti's, whose house I'm staying at for my lay over in Calgary. It's been snowing every day I've been here, with temperatures below -20. But it supposed to get up to 0 degrees tomorrow, how does that work? Imagine what this will all look like when it melts in a 6 hours time span.


Anyways, I get on the plane to fly to Cairo via London tomorrow at 8pm MST, putting me into Cairo at 11pm Thursday. I spend the night in the city and then get picked up to head to the hotel where we're staying... The word schedule there is Sat-Thurs, so Friday will be a day off to try and adjust to the time and have a look around the new hood.

I'm looking forward to it... I hope some more people will be able to make it out that way and visit, but I'll also have more regular time off and will be travelling around more as well. So if you're going on vacation anywhere in the next year and a half let me know you're plans and I might be able to meet you somewhere!

Take care!

Work situ

Quick update on the work/travel situation... I'll be in Houston for another week, returning to Calgary on Friday, February 9th. I'll spend the weekend and the early part of the week there and then fly to Egypt on the 14th. Happy V-day to me. Spent my birthday on an overnight-er from Vietnam to Sydney, now I'm spending the most sinister of quasi holidays flying to Egypt. Actually, I'm alright with that... =>

Loogy

Maturity level of this post: Low

I've had tickle in my throat all week. not a full fledged cold or anything, not even a sniffle... just a tickle.

Today I just sneezed in my cubicle and a “loogy” flew out of my mouth for about 5 feet and stuck to the cubicle wall. I nearly fell out of my chair giggling, only to recover in time to clean it off before my cube neighbours investigated the commotion. It left a wet mark, but luckily it faded quickly.

Cover your mouth when you sneeze, even if you're alone.

The tickle has vanished.

Humour level of this post >= maturity level.

Can my blog entries get boringer?

The answer is yes. By posting pictures of me at work on the 13th floor.

And my view as seen when I assume the "gopher" stance.

Bluetooth for the everyman

You see all those techie-type looking people with bluetooth headsets attached to their head? It's one thing to use those while driving, I understand that, but it's quite another to keep it on full-time. This annoys me, and I wag my finger at said techies. Chances are their mobile device is in a leather case on their belt too. Double wag.


As a show of passive resistence to this trend I've procured my own bluetooth device. I've attached a picture:

Here's a few pics from the last week or so... First one is from a Houston Rockets game:
I was supposed to go golfing yesterday with the boss, but when we got to the course it was pouring down rain. The course was nearby NASA though, so I hit the Houston Space Center, which was actually pretty cool. The Americans have been to space a few times in case hadn't heard. I think they should re-direct all the funds from the war back to the space program, that'd be sweet as. Here's where the astronauts train:
Here's the Canada Arm:
Here's a rocket:
Here's some moon rocks:

Here's me touching a moon rock, wicked:

Here's the biggest rocket in the world, which wasn't actually launched because the Americans waged war in Vietnam and had to divert funds:

Ahh, the memories

Here's our chainsaw videos, I put them together and uploaded them to YouTube. This was me, Frumby, and Peck's first night in our new house on 13th Ave back in the year 2000. We had a hard day of moving and when we were all done we cracked open a case of Kokanee, next thing we know it's 3am and the house smells like gas and exhaust.