The photo for this also ties into my recent travels to the Middle East. This row of candles was burning in Saint Virgin Mary’s Coptic Church in Cairo, otherwise known as the Hanging Church. It is the oldest church in Egypt, dating back to 3rd century AD. The candle at the far end of the row was one that I had lit for my Dad when I was there about a week and a half ago.

So, I now get to reflect on the last few months. This trip has encompassed more time away than I’ve ever done, more connected flights, buses, vans, and I’m having a bit of a hard time remembering where it all started, and what I did months ago. I really bucked against the idea of bringing my laptop with me this time, but in the end I am glad that I did because I doubt that I would have written as much about this trip without it.

It is nice to be home. There’s a lot to like about coming home. It’s been said that there’s nothing better than leaving, nothing better than going home again, and I think that’s mostly right. Epic time, I saw lots, did lots, but my own bed and a hot shower were both welcome things. Once I turned the hot water tank heater back on.

You don’t miss it ’till it’s gone away? Indeed. Were there things I really liked having back? Yes, absolutely.

• Drinking water from a tap. Being able to turn a tap and get water that you can drink is a huge luxury that many people in the world do not have.
• The ability to eat fresh fruit without having to peel it. I have probably eaten six apples, a whole mango with the peeling, and most of a bag of plums today. Don’t get me wrong, I love bananas, but eating a half dozen of them a day every day for two months wears on you.
• Humidity. I started getting nose bleeds in continental Europe, and they continued when I was in the Middle East. I think this was part of the reason why I got really sick in Berlin, but more on that in a minute.
• A quiet night’s sleep. If you’ve never been to the Middle East (or Vietnam, I suppose), you have not experienced what I call “horn traffic”. People here in Canada mod their cars with mufflers, spoilers, window tints, and what not. People in Egypt get louder horns, horns that play songs, whatever, and they use that horn everywhere, all the time. Cairo has recently won top honours for “the city that never sleeps”, and I think they really mean “the city that you will never sleep in”. Having no traffic by my house last night was miraculous.

There are also things that I miss already:

• The food in the Middle East. The vast majority of my vegan munchies comes from Lebanon and Egypt. It was an eye opening experience to really see, to finally understand, how it is supposed to look and taste and be served. I will probably never enjoy falafel here in Canada again.
• The people. Everyone who hears that I just spent most of the last two months in the Middle East tells me I am either crazy, or tells me to be careful. I have never felt more safe in my life than when I am in the Middle East. I love the people, their way of life, the way they welcome you into their lives, their homes, and share their culture. Seriously, you need to go.
• So much to see. This also applies to Europe. You could spend months in Berlin alone, and years in Egypt, and not see everything. Technically, this point should also be in my previous category, since there is a ton of stuff to see in Canada also. I need to become a tourist in my own country.

So, was the trip without bumps? No. There are always things that go sideways, and this trip was no exception, especially because of it’s length. The notable things:

• I got really sick in Berlin. I pushed myself like a mad man when I got there, rode every morning with a local bike shop, and spent the day touring the city. Everyone was sick at the conference, and by the time that was over I had the worst cold I’ve ever had. It was like some insane Teutonic plague. I actually went to the hospital, had an ECG done, blood tests, etc, just to make sure it wasn’t really serious. I was given prescriptions for things, spent the first week of October trying to get better, and was mostly over it by the time I went to Dubai and on to Jordan. It was so bad that I actually considered coming home. I am glad that didn’t happen.
• In a previous post, I mentioned that an ATM in Egypt ate my bank card. That was pretty unnerving, and dealing with that was pretty stressful.
• I found out what would happen if I ate dairy products again. I had hummus in Jordan, but I didn’t realize that it was mixed with yogourt. I was ridiculously sick for about 12 hours. Man, never again. I do not wish that on anyone.
• As I sit here, Egypt Air is struggling to find my checked bag. As a rule, I do not check luggage when travel. I pack light, even with camera gear, but this time I had the conference and needed decent clothes so my bag was bigger. They have no idea where it is. This happens to me almost every time I check luggage.
• More frustrating is the fact that my very nice tripod is now gone, for good. When I was in Lebanon I had a bus transfer. The baggage handlers assured the passengers that our stuff would be moved over. Well, the tripod didn’t make it. I was out of the country before it was found, and a friend living in Beirut had it shipped to Cairo, to my next hotel. Well, the UPS driver who delivered it would not take VISA (despite me arranging this a week in advance), it was Saturday, everything was closed, and he wanted almost 3000 Egyptian Pounds (a about $600 CAD) in cash. The fee alone is ridiculous — it was $300 USD to ship it from Lebanon, and paying $600 more would have meant that I probably could have just purchased a new one. Why pay $600 in customs for something you own? Anyway I am back in Canada, and UPS has declared my item abandoned and has scheduled it for destruction. I am super pissed about this, but there is nothing I can do at this point.

Anyway, the point is that things do not always go according to plan, but that is the nature of travel. Good times were had by all.

Main musical influences on the trip were Agalloch, Woods of Desolation, Iron Maiden, Queens of the Stone Age, and Satyricon.

Books for the Kindle included a whole lot of Jo Nesbo and Peter Temple.

I’m going to go and eat another apple.

I loved the Western Desert area of Egypt. You’re not in a city, there is no ‘hassle’ from people trying to get you to by trinkets, and the lifestyle is laid back and everyone is truly, genuinely friendly. Now that I am back in Cairo I find myself wanting to go back there. I miss it. A lot. While the cities in Egypt have been an experience, I didn’t find myself enjoying my time in most of them. They are, for the most part, very dirty. There is a lot of garbage, it is piled up in the streets, and there are millions of flies everywhere. I don’t want to put a negative spin on my time in Egypt because I really do enjoy it here, but that sort of infrastructure and education needs to be put into place. I suppose that priorities need to be set, and perhaps things like elections, better governance, need to come first. Perhaps the other things will spring forth once those basic criteria are met.

In other news, NaNoWriMo has started again. I am obviously not participating this time since I just don’t have the time to write, but I am pleased that my short story has been worked on while I’ve travelled. I have a fairly clear idea about how I want it to finish up, and will probably finish it before I get home. Then I have a week before I get back to work and I will do some revisions during that time. I would really like to submit it to Asimov’s Science Fiction, but I am probably kidding myself.

Anyway, I think it’s time to finish up the post with two photos and perhaps a track of music. First, the track. I’ve been on the road a while now, and Wasted Years, by Iron Maiden, has to get the nod. The lyrics are incredibly powerful and mean a lot to me. I grew up listening to this track and every time I go back to it there are memories that come flooding back.

From the coast of gold, across the seven seas
I’m travelling on, far and wide
But now it seems
I’m just a stranger to myself
And all the things I sometimes do
It isn’t me but someone else

I close my eyes and think of home
Another city goes by in the night
Ain’t it funny how it is
You never miss it ’til it’s gone away
And my heart is lying there
And will be ’til my dying day

And now, the photos. Two photos. The first is a sunrise photo I took when I was in Sinai, in Eastern Egypt. The sun is rising over the mountains of Saudi Arabia, across the Red Sea.

The other photo is the obvious one when people think of Egypt, the Sphinx and the pyramids. While they are cool and you should probably see them if you visit, they were not the highlight of the trip for me so far. But still, here we go. The pyramid in the back is the ‘middle’ pyramid of the big three in Giza. It is smaller than the great pyramid, but is on a higher hill so it looks taller. It still has some of the original limestone cap.

Anyway, there’s more to that whole drama, but it’d take too long to type it into a blog post. Suffice to say, the story also involves a bank ATM eating my bank card at midnight, and me still having to catch a bus so I had to take a cab back from my hotel two hours away the following day to get my card back. So much fun, but that is life on the road.

Alright, so I spent two days on the shores of the Red Sea in Sinai, visited St. Catherine’s monastery, climbed Mt. Sinai (second tallest peak in Egypt), and then took a 9 hour bus ride to Cairo. To get to Cairo I had to cross under the Suez canal, via 1600m long tunnel. Very cool. The canal splits the divide between continental Asia and Africa. Cairo is a zoo. It is a loud, insane zoo. I was there for two days and I will be back there in a few days so I will talk more about that later on. Obviously, I did the pyramids and the sphinx. Cool, and yeah, if you’re here you should see them, but honestly, not mind blowing. Abu Simbel was better. More on that in a second …..

Long night train to Aswan after that, 1100 km away. Spent two days there, visiting some of the temples in the area, and especially Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is a Ramses II temple complex that was in danger of being submerged when the new high dam was built, so the government dismantled the temple block by block and moved it to a new spot on higher ground. The whole process took four years. The temples are amazing, and worth seeing if you ever visit. Went sailing on the Nile (it is how I spent my birthday, actually), and this morning I drove for three hours to get to Luxor. In about 20 minutes, I’m going out to see the temple of Karnak, and then visiting the Valley of the Kings tomorrow.

So, in summary, crazy busy so far, but worth it. I have a lot of photos to go through, and maybe I’ll get a few up tonight if I have time. Tomorrow night I am back on a night train to Cairo and then an early morning bus to Alexandria (yes!) to finally see the Library. It’s been on my list of Egypt things for a long time. Can’t wait.

I’ll include one other photo from Jordan, since I don’t have any Egypt pictures ready. This was taken on a high mountain pass and shows some of the very dry, sparse landscape that is Jordan. The body of water on the right is the Dead Sea. Behind it is Israel.

More coming. Perhaps later tonight if I can get some time.

Anyway, Aquaba is a nice little place. It’s a coastal city, so there is a breeze, although right now it is 31 degrees outside and you feel like dying when you walk anywhere. Tons of banks, modern shops, and restaurants, intermingled with old souks, gives it a really unique sense of self. Reminds me a lot of Fes, in Morocco.

The photo for this post is a sunset over Petra. I took it a few nights ago on the way into town. The red red red sky is caused by the tons of dust and sand that get kicked into the air by the wind each day. It is hard to see in the photo, but on the top of the highest peak to the right, there is a small building, a shrine to Aaron, the brother of Moses. It is 2200 years old.

Track for this post is Regular John, by Queens of the Stone Age. I’ve been listening to their first album a lot on this trip.

open up your eyes
open up your room
open up your arms
open up your door

Right now, I am in Petra, near Wadi Rum, in Jordan. It has been a crazy few days. I arrived in the capital of Amman yesterday morning and today I took a local bus first to Mount Nebo, a high spot in the geography where you can see the Dead Sea, Palestine, Jerusalem, Jerico (the oldest walled city in the world), and the river Jordan. It is a crucible of religion and civilization. It it also a poignant reminder of why things need to get worked out in the middle east if any of these countries have a chance to grow. The owner of my hotel in Amman lamented the fact that his country, Jordan, had some of the oldest ruins in the world, was the birthplace of society, and today it struggles to stay afloat amid a sea of extremism, ecological disaster, and political turmoil.

Anyway. I am now in Petra, near one of the new wonders of the world, Wadi Rum. I plan to spend the day in there tomorrow, getting there early, before it gets too hot or too crowded. It will be a highlight of this trip, I am sure.

Doing this trip, with a little less than a month to go made me realize that there is a quote that perhaps defines my life. “The desire to attain something decreases as the difficulty to attain that something also decreases.” I like going after the hard things, I think. This trip is bound to push me to my limits, in terms of my mental endurance, my physical endurance (it was over 40C when I visited a 6th century crusader fortress today), and my ability to bend and glide around obstacles. So, I make this promise to myself. Yield more. Be more flexible. In Buddhist terms, I need to be like the water. Water is one of the most powerful forces in the world, and yet it has no shape. It moulds itself to fit in any spot, in any space, and I need to do that as well.

Two photos for you. The first is a shot of the village of Becharre, in Lebanon, taken at sunset. The second shot is a photo of a section of the ruins at Biblos, one of the oldest Roman ruins in the world.

More to come, I am sure.

Anyway, incredible flight from Berlin to Dubai, which was a pretty mind bending city. It is the opposite to what I’d consider my lifestyle to be. It would be impossible to live there without a car. Utterly impossible. The Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world, and you can see it from the airport, which is 50 miles away. It defies the curvature of the Earth.

Anyway, the main attraction so far has been Beirut. I have been here for almost three days now, and a lot of assumptions I’ve had have been flipped on their heads. Well, maybe not assumptions, but definitely preconceived notions. The city is an incredible mix of new and old, ultra modern and broken down, rich and poor. The discrepancy between the really rich (mostly immigrants or business folks from oil countries like Saudi Arabia or Bahrain, or Lebanese living in Dubai), versus locals who live here all the time is shocking. The minimum wage here is less than $400 US a month and yet an apartment in the downtown section of Beirut can cost more than 20 million dollars. I’ve spent the last few days talking to local business owners who express their frustration with many things — the inability to create change, the corruption in the government, and the length of time it takes to get anything done. On that last point, smoking is banned in restaurants and public places now. But the Ministry of Health wants a year to implement the law. People smoke everywhere, they don’t care, or don’t know about the law.

But anyway. The city itself is fantastic. The people are really friendly. I spent one day the other day visiting several members of ReefCentral who live here, looking at their aquariums. At every stop, their wives would immediately ask us what we would like to eat. Lebanese coffee, dates, cookies, crackers, juices, everything. By the last house, I had to say no, and the wife of my friend at that point looked at me, put her hands on her hip, and gave me the “Why not?” look. I had to tell her that it was because I’d had 10 cups of coffee in four hours. She laughed and made me decaf. I am serious.

Anyway, today I drive south to Siwa. It is an old UNESCO heritage site, and I will probably be completely off line for the next few days. I have much more to say about Beirut and Lebanon in general. More to come, when I get online again.

I don’t really have any parting thoughts on the city. I’ve tried to see as many things as possible, but I still have a laundry list a mile long and could easily see myself coming back here. The weather has been fantastic, which is such a nice departure from the way my last visit to Eastern Europe went. No rain, no cold — just sun and warm.

Wanted to include one final image, which is of the TV Tower and West Berlin, at Sunset.

Next post will be from somewhere significantly warmer!

I guess the big news for me is that I am leaving the University of New Brunswick when I return in November. I’ve given my notice, so it’s Public Knowledge now (heh). Why am I laughing? Well, because I’ve accepted a full time position with the Public Knowledge Project. It is a mind blowing opportunity for me, and something that I felt as if was an inevitability. I will continue to live in Fredericton for the time being, since there is no requirement that I move out to Vancouver. It’s a life changer. I am glad that it’s happened, finally, since the work load I was trying to maintain on my own, with UNB and also PKP part time, was probably not sustainable over the long haul.

Fitting, then, that the track for this post is Bohren & Der Club Of Gore – Midnight Walker, a new band recommended to me by one of my new co-workers. They are a combination of black metal and film noire jazz. Very cool.

I am in Dahlem for two more days, and on Friday I switch hotels again, moving back to the centre of town. I have a few things left to do, things I purposely saved, since a friend of mine is sticking around after the conference too. I would like to get up the TV Tower, and perhaps do the inside of the Reichstag.

I did manage to visit the Botanical Garden the other day. Incredible.