Aberdeen, 8-10 May 2010

Sarah and Simon offered us a bed in Aberdeen (where they were living) so we decided to make that our next trip, to take place in May. The weekend after we went to Bruges was Easter weekend, but we decided to stay home over Easter so we could watch the Putney Boat Race. We were able to watch the beginning, then walk back to the flat to catch the rest of it on Sky. There was quite a number of posh people getting drunk around, and lots and lots of light blue and dark blue balloons around - a very festive atmosphere! The rest of April was uneventful, but we did go to the ANZAC day Dawn Service at Hyde Park which was moving. Then it was my birthday - the big 3-0, on the 29th of April. The night before we had tickets to Ricky Gervais at Wembley Arena, and he put on a great show. We were in hysterics. Then for my birthday night we went out to a Morrocan restuarant then to a comedy club in Soho, so we had a nice night, despite the devastating age! The flatmates also pooled together to get the biggest turning 30 card in the world...
The week before our trip to Aberdeen Georgia had organised to go to Macbeth at the Globe Theatre (for her birthday). The show was spectacular, the acting fantastic, and they had set it up so the "groundlings" - the people standing in front of the stage, were covered with black cloth so only their heads stuck out, and this was used as a prop - for ghosts to emerge from, for a boat to sail on, and the groundlings got plenty of water thrown on them which was good entertainment... The only problem was that we had great seats but our view was blocked by a big ring erected over the stage, presumably for some effect that was no longer working. So we went to the box office afterwards and they let us have complimentary tickets for any other show. We picked Bedlam, to be shown in September.

We went to Aberdeen on the 8th of May courtesy of Easyjet, and got there in one piece. Sarah picked us up from the airport. We went to their massive Sainsburys to get supplies for dinner, and went to a movie that night. On Sunday Sarah and Simon took us on a drive round the Highlands of Scotland. There are some beautiful places, but it was a little chilly. Scotland is about 2 months behind the rest of the UK, and it actually snowed on the Monday where Sarah worked, an hour out of Aberdeen. I had always wanted to try out heather, so had to have a photo lying in it!

We came upon the obligatory ruined castle.

Then we had a tour of Glenfidditch Distillery, which I was pleasantly surprised at. It was more interesting than I thought it would be. Our tour guide was a Scottish woman, probably about 50, who spoke like Sean Connery and obviously liked a tipple herself. At the end of it we got to taste the wares.

We explored a bit more of the Highlands, including this amazing old bridge. You aren't allowed to go on it anymore, which of course was like a green light to Rob... Luckily it held up OK.

We came across some of the natives.
We had a lovely surprise after the invigorating day, as Simon cooked us haggis, neeps and taties. It was really good, and Simon was pleased that we'd taken on the Scottish challenge and conquered it.

The next day Sarah and Simon were working, so Rob and Em explored old Aberdeen. It is very pretty, with cobbled streets and the university there. The spring blossom was beautiful.

Back to Aberdeen proper we were back to grayscale. They say that the granite they use all over the city sparkles in the sun. But you need to have sun for that to happen...

We took a bus out to Stonehaven so we could see the castle Dunottar. It is pretty impressive.

We went home Monday night, unfortunately not overwhelmingly impressed with Aberdeen and the weather, but impressed with the Highlands and our friends' hospitality.

Bruges, 26-29 March 2010

We are shocked and dismayed at our lapse in blogging over the last year. An immediate remedy is to be put in place, albeit many months late.

After Egypt we kept ourselves occupied. We went to concerts - Bat for Lashes in Bexhill on Sea (which is a cute little seaside town where we stayed in a B & B), and Stereophonics at Wembley Arena (an amazing show with brilliant lighting effects!). We also went to Avenue Q, the musical which was absolutely hilarious but definately not PG.

The next big trip we took after Egypt was Bruges, where we went for a long weekend with our friends Sarah and Simon. This was at the end of March 2010. We took the Eurostar which was great - fast, smooth, and no waiting around at the airport, which has got to be good. The Eurostar went to Brussels, and the ticket included any train travel within Belgium. We had a look round Brussels first and eventually found some breakfast that wasn't just pastries (Rob was insistent he had to have a "proper breakfast" - I was happy with pastries!). Brussels had some pretty spectacular graffiti, and some very impressive buildings. We managed to find the famous Mannikin Pis and got the obligatory photo. Eventually we jumped on a train to Bruges and were amused by the fact it was a double decker. We got to Bruges and got on the bus to go to our hotel which was a little out of town (and nice and cheap because of that!). The trouble was is it turned out to be the wrong bus, so we got dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and had to walk miles before eventually finding the hotel. Sarah and Simon arrived not long after, so we took the right bus into town to get dinner and have a look around.

The town is beautiful, with a lovely town centre with a big cathedral (you might remember it from the movie "In Bruges"...).

We managed to find a tiny little restaurant that served amazing food and had a wander before going back to the hotel for the night.

The next day we were able to explore the city in the daylight. The square in the centre is crazy, with horse-pulled carriages flying around corners at stupid speeds.

We climbed the cathedral and got some amazing views.

Being in Bruges, it was essential we sample the chocolate, and the beer, and in one case a combination of the two. We went to a shop that had hundreds of beers of offer, including chocolate beer and cookie beer,
then we went to a pub which had a menu of the beers that was pretty much a novel - here are Sarah and Simon enjoying - well, Sarah's not a beer fan, hence the wine for her...
The next day we had a healthy breakfast...
The horse and carriages chilled out while waiting for customers - this was one of the occupants.
Being spring, there were daffodils everywhere. This is the Beguinage - a nunnery. It is a lovely peaceful place.
We took a canal ride, unfortunately just as it started raining, but on the plus side it meant the boat wasn't packed with tourists like it usually was. It did clear up about half-way through as well so we got the last laugh.

It was great getting to see all the beautiful buildings from the perspective of the canal. Another must-do was the Chocolate factory in Bruges, where we learnt about the history of chocolate and got to see truffles being made. On Monday we had a bit more time in Brussels, and I had to use some French in a pharmacy to buy some cough medicine when the assistant couldn't speak English. It was more sign language and coughing than speaking French - but it was still fun. We left Belgium with full bellies and a suitcase full of chocolate, mm-mm!

Egypt, 8-13 February 2010

After experiencing a good chunk of the coldest winter in London for a loooong time, we craved some sun that would give us some warmth... There were a lot of January travel sales and so finding a place to go wasn't easy. In the end the cheap all-inclusive hotels in the resort of Sharm El Sheik drew us in, and we picked a hotel with a massive water park.


We arrived at about 4pm on the Monday and were a bit disconcerted to find that it wasn't far from getting dark, because of course it was winter in Egypt. Summer gets up to 45 degrees so winter's the best time to go if you want a nice late 20s type of temperature. The hotel was huge, and our room very nice, with a view over the pools.

After we gorged ourselves at the buffet we went to the bedouin tent where they had events every night, and that night happened to be a magician... For some reason we both got picked to go up and help and so got treated to him pulling ribbons out of nowhere and disappearing coins.
The next day in amongst swimming and sliding and soaking up the sun, we organised the rest of our week - quad biking and camel-riding on Wednesday, flying to Cairo on Thursday and going on a glass-bottomed boat on Friday (our flight home was on Saturday).

Wednesday afternoon we were rearing to go at reception, and after a minor incident involving the guide asking us where our scarves were (to protest us from the dust), and us saying we thought they would be provided - well, they aren't! The guide obviously thought we were stupid foreigners, and pointed out that he'd showed us photos of people on the trip, and they were wearing scarves! So Rob raced back to grab my sarong and some money to buy another one. Unsurprisingly, after we'd already given the guide the money and arrived at our destination, they were giving everybody scarves without any money changing hands... That behind us, the guys put our scarves on for us, showed us how to operate the bikes, and after an age we were finally off!

We were surprised at how many people there were around. There were several different companies operating out of the same patch of desert, with quad bikes, arabian horses and camels. In our group there was about 15 bikes, and we had to go single file. We went at the back, so had the opportunity to slow down a bit then go for a real blat to catch up to everyone. We got to an "authentic" bedouin tent were we stopped and an old man came out with a chilly bin full of beers and soft drink. Unfortunately Rob got the wrong end of the stick and the old man had opened 2 beers before we realised we had to pay for them, and that we didn't have enough money. There was a bit of a belly-churning awkwardness before a British couple sitting next to us gave the man the rest of the money we owed...
We were the only ones in our group to go on the camel ride, so while everyone else chilled out for a bit, we got on our camels and got led around the "block" a couple of times. They were well behaved and it was a nice little novelty.


I would've loved to ride the Arabian horses, but was fully aware that my muscles wouldn't be up to it and could well put me out of commission for the rest of the trip. We got back to the group, and drove our quad bikes back to the start, taking in the sunset on the way.

When we got back we had a drink with the nice British couple, Jenny and Phil, who had given us the money for the drink. It turned out they had some insider knowledge of the resort and had figured out how to use tipping to its full advantage to get glasses rather than plastic cups and get drinks brought over etc (which, being kiwis, we still had to get to grips with. Especially tipping the bathroom people at the airport who hold the door open for you and give you paper towels to dry your hands. I mean, I can do that myself?!).
We had to get up extremely early the next morning to catch our flight to Cairo, so it was an early night.
The next morning we were up bright and early, and picked up our little "breakfast box" from reception. At the airport I was extremely tickled to see all the tourists with their breakfast bags, all from different hotels. We got into Cairo uneventfully, and met up with our tour guide who was very nice, and talked and talked all the way to our first stop at the Ancient Egyptian Museum. Much of what he said drifted past us as we dosed in and out of sleep though...
The Museum was amazing, but so so packed with people and artifacts that it was almost overwhelming. Because we only had a couple of hours there, the guide took us only to certain artifacts, but we did have free time to look at Tutankhaman's mask and coffins, and whatever else we could manage to look at. I had to look at the animal mummy room.
Next on the agenda was lunch, which we got to by taking a boat trip down the Nile.
Lunch was a buffet, very similar to that at the hotel. An older couple with their son from our hotel must have had something bad, as the next day we saw them again and they were very under the weather...
After lunch was time for the pyramids which Rob had been extremely looking forward to. They are actually in Giza, which is across the Nile from Cairo, but still really part of the same city. We drove for ages and finally, over some houses we got our first glimpse of the pyramids.

When we finally pulled up at the base of the pyramids we were shocked at the proximity of the city.
We'd both imagined them as being out on their own in the middle of the desert. Instead, you could stand at the base of the pyramid and see the city of Giza stretching out beneath.

Unfortunately, there was a terrible dust storm and it was very unpleasant getting big gusts of sand in our faces, as well as watching all the rubbish and plastic bags being picked up by the wind. We had a look at the Great Pyramid, and climbed up it a bit, but things were definately cut short by the wind.

We decided not to pay extra to go inside the pyramid, as other people had told us it was pretty much just a stuffy, empty room.
The guide told us to explore a bit and meet back at a prearranged time at the bus. As we were wandering around we had to ignore the persistant people around wanting us to buy stuff. Our guide had warned us this would be the case and told us to not talk to anyone, or make eye contact. We were a bit surprised though when we were posing for a photo by one of the pyramids and a tourism policeman came up to us and basically grabbed the camera off Rob and told us where to stand so we could reach over the top of the pyramid. Surely he wasn't going to ask us for money - he was the police! Luckily he got a phone call and we ran away, but he followed us for a good distance calling out that he could take more photos...We both decided that he was after a tip after all...
The next stop was the Sphinx, who has unfortunately lost his nose and his false beard along the way (we learned this is because he's made from limestone which crumbles over time) and looks a bit the worse for wear. There were so so many people there it wasn't funny, and we found it difficult to get a great shot.


We all eventually piled back onto the bus, and while we were waiting for the last stragglers the couple in front of us got seduced into buying a set of a wooden sphinx and Egyptian cat. I liked the look of the cat, and when it transpired someone else wanted the Sphinx I couldn't resist. I was able to bargain the kid selling them down to 40 Egyptian pounds for both, which is around 4 British pounds.
The bus was back on the road, with one more stop to make. This was at an Egyptian essential oil perfume makers. By this time I had had a bit of trouble with some mozzie bites that were starting to get a bit serious. So I wondered if they had anything that would soothe the bites. In desperation I bought some lupin oil on the man's recommendation, but was highly suspicious the whole time after the man had said they would be gone in 3 days. They would be gone in 3 days anyway... But anything for some instant relief. Unfortunately the relief didn't come and my feet were swelling to alarming proportions. By the time we arrived back at the resort I could barely walk, and wrangled some ice off the barman. Anyone squeamish about feet should not look at this next photo... and yes, that right ankle is twice its normal size

The next day thankfully I could walk, and even make it up the stairs to the waterslides.


In the afternoon we had booked our glassbottomed boat ride. While we were waiting someone was feeding the fish potato chips off the pier and the fish were loving them, and Rob's toes.



Once on the boat we got a beautiful view of the ocean depths and we could see how Egypt is such a diving mecca, even if we were both too wussy to do it ourselves :-) Unfortunately the photo doesn't do it justice.

Saturday was our last morning and we were both reluctant to leave the beautiful weather, the waterslides and the copious amounts of food. Cairo was a wonderful place to visit as well to see so much history in one place, but it is not nice in terms of the desperate people, and the harassment they give to tourists to buy their stuff or even just to give them money. The crowds and crowds of people also detract from the atmosphere of the place, but that's just what happens at tourist attractions...