travel the world

I’m going to Cologne in about a week and a half! I’ll be there only for two days, but still I’m really looking forward to it. It is a nice break from my internship, which is a lot of fun, but also pretty intensive and I’m tired a lot. So, I thought going away for the weekend would be a great idea.

I’ve never been to Cologne, only to it’s trainstation, but I hear it is a very nice city. Offcourse I’ll go to the zoo there, as I’ve seen they have hippo’s, my favourite animals. I don’t know what else I will do yet, but I’ll figure some things out this weekend.

I’m back :). The trip to Berlin was very nice, eventhough it rained about all the time. I’m back for a while already, but didn’t have the time to update here. Wednesday, a day before I left, the car was fixed. I took it for a ride (because I don’t believe cars are fixed that easy) and offcourse it broke down again! The evening before we were supposed to leave :S. We stopped at a restaurant next to the highway to get something to eat and the gear just jammed. Since it was stuck in reverse (I was parking) and I didn’t see myself driving the rest of the way in reverse I called my dad. He was a bit upset. Not only because the car broke down again, but because it was a 1.5 hour drive too. Fortunately he did come and pick us up. I guess the only alternative was to leave us there and he couldn’t do that either. I guess I was lucky that the car broke down on the parking lot next to the highway and not on the highway itself. Now I at least could sit inside the restaurant and wait for my dad to pick us up. In the meantime I called the friend who was going with me to Berlin and said the car had broke down again. She started looking for alternatives to get to Berlin, but all were over 300 euro’s. Which is about 4 times as much as we paid for the hotel, so we were arguing about wether we should go or not. Because this way the trip was going to cost a lot. Anyway when my dad came he remembered that the car that used to belong to my grandpa was still there. It hadn’t driven for over a year (since my grandpa died), but did get a checkup and new permit in april, eventhough it is 19 years old. My dad and uncle had been wanting to sell it, but hadn’t gotten a chance to get around to it. So, the morning we left, I had to go by my grandpa’s house, which is a 45 min. drive (in the wrong direction), but it is better than not going after all. My dad dropped me off, because he and the boyfriend were going to get the car from the parking lot of the highway. We just left it there the day before. Anyway after getting used to the old car of my grandpa I could finally be on my way. I picked up my friend and we were off to Berlin!

In Berlin we saw a lot of things. We both did an internship there, so we went to see the hospital where we lived, and the one where we worked. They belong to the same organisation, but only one has an accomodation for people that work for the organisation. It was fun to see how it look now. Actually little has changed in the past 3 years, so we both recognized it immediately. Unfortuantely it was raining pretty badly and we got stuck in one of the hospitals and had to wait ‘till the rain would stop, or at least be a bit more mild. Well, then we just decided to shop, a girls favourite passtime for rainy days ;).

We did see all of the tourist things as well, Brandenburger Tor, Fernsehturm etcetera etcetera ;). We had just two days there, so we didn’t get the chance to do stuff for a very long time. We also went by one of the markets on saturday and sunday it was off to Hannover to visit a friend we made during the internship. It was nice seeing him again and getting to practice my German, which is terrible. It was not nice to discover that you can ‘loose’ a language that quickly when you hardly speak it anymore. I’m sure that when I would live in Germany for about a month, I would get it back to my old level. Anyway we had a bbq (well kind of, as we just prepared the meat in a pan ;)) and some of his friends came over. Nice people and it was lots of fun! After the bbq we had to get going again and head home. My friend had to work the next day and she didn’t want to be home too late.

Pff, the story is already long, so I think I’m going to end it here. In summary: we had lots of fun, saw a lot of things, met new people and everything turned out ok with the car :).

Yay, I’m off to Berlin this thursday! If all goes well. Yesterday the car broke down :(. And I really need it to go to Berlin. Fortunately my dad was at home, so I called him and he towed us to the garage. It was quite an experience, I had never been towed before so at least I learned something out of this. Not that it was very hard, but it is a bit weird haha. Turns out something is wrong with the clutch and they need to order a new part. I told them I need the car by thursday and they said it probably would be done before thursday, but it really depends on the part. I hope it comes in soon. Otherwise I have to find another way to get to Berlin. Hmmpf.

I’m going to Berlin for a few days again! Only a month from now! I did an internship there in 2006 and I’ve really fallen in love with the city. It has always felt like home. I haven’t had that in some of the other cities I’ve lived in. In 2006 I did the internship together with a classmate and one of my best friends. We’re going together on this trip too. See the hospital where we used to work and the place we used to live. It’ll be great!

On the way back we’ll visit a friend we made there too. He lives in Hannover right now and is a doctor there. We pass Hannover anyway so we thought we’d visit him. Yup, it’ll be fun!

This weekend, I’ll be in Germany with my dad, brother and bf. We’ll go to Leipzig and Berlin :). I haven’t been to Berlin anymore since 2006 and I’d wanted to go back, so this is a nice opportunity. Eventhough Germany can’t win from Egypt, it still is very nice to go. See you all tuesday!

Ok, so I have so many memories I don’t know what to put here. I’ll just start with the Cairo part. As you can see from the photo in the previous post I visited the piramids! This was the first day of the trips, we started by going to the step piramid in Sakkara. This was the oldest piramid in Egypt (or one of the oldest, don’t remember exactly). The funny thing about the piramids is that they seem to be so small from a distance, but when you actually stand at their ‘feet’ they are incredibly huge! This, and the fact that I was looking at a REAL piramid kind of overwhelmed me :). We also went inside a small piramid, the piramid of Titi. I am a little bit afraid of close spaces so I had to really grab myself together, but I wouldn’t want to have missed it. Inside it was really beautiful with hieroglyphs and on the ceiling there were pretty yellow stars on a blue background. It is hard to believe this is over 4000 years old. After Sakkara we visited Memphis, where the statue of Ramses II is. The statue was very big and it was nice to see :). Later on in the trip I learned Ramses II was kind of full of himself ;). In the afternoon we visited the piramids of Giza. This truly was the most wonderful part of the trip. I even got the chance to enter the great piramid. Something I had said I wanted to do before we left, but Jurjen told me they would only let 300 people a day in. I really thought we couldn’t go in then, but it was possible after all! Man, that really was great. Again, a lot of tiny spaces and you have to crawl your way up, but it is so huge! Inside the piramid is kind of sobre, no hieroglyphs or other drawings, but the size of the bricks alone is enough to make me really filled with amazement.

The second day we visited the Egyptian museum. To make a long story short, the most beautiful thing there were the treasures of Tutankhamon. I saw his sarcophage and mask with all the gold and gemstones. He must have been a rich boy ;). The museum was pretty big, so I didn’t have time to look at all the pieces they have there, but that was ok, I came there mainly for Tut’s stuff :).

On the third day in Cairo we went to the zoo. This was a very weird experience. First of all, let me say that the animals were treated ok! I read stories on the internet that people saw the caretakers hit the animals, but I did not see that fortunately! I must admit that I had thought a long time about wheater I should go or not, because I can’t stand people treating animals in a bad way. Inside the caretakers continually come up to you and ask if you want to take photos with the lions and monkeys. They even showed me photos of tourists holding baby lions and baby monkeys. So, I realised in this country a lot is possible if you have money. I didn’t take a photo with a lion (is that even safe?), but I did feed the hippo’s as you can see in this photo. Hippo’s are my favourite animal and this was a chance to touch and feed one. I’m still happy I did that, but the sad thing is, the caretakers send the kids away and only let the tourist in. I felt bad for the kids, because they wanted to feed the hippo too, but they had no money :(. Unfortunately there were too many kids, otherwise I would have given them some money to feed the hippo’s too. We didn’t stay long in the zoo, because after a while the Egyptian people started noticing us and the constantly came up to me and wanted to take a photo with me. It was fine at first, but in the end they stopped us every two metres and they followed us around everywhere. I did not feel comfortable with that. They were looking at me more than at the animals, so we left.

I still didn’t sort all of the photos, but I will very soon, so I’ll try to post a couple more :).

And it was wonderful! Egypt truly is the most beautiful country I have seen so far! The two weeks went way too fast. Saw a lot of old temples and offcourse the piramids. It is hard to believe those things are over 4000 years old. The people are all very friendly, nothing like the stories I had heard before. The stories that say the Egyptian men are very obnoxious and follow you and touch you. Fortunately, they did not do that. Eventhough the boys and girls did want to take a photo with me many times, but according to the guide, it was of my white skin. It was a weird experience, because I cannot imagine what is so special about that. Some Egyptian people are almost as white as me, so what’s the big deal? It was funny though and I was happy to make them smile :).

I also had the chance to ride a camel. I made up my mind of doing that before I went and so when we got to Aswan I finally went and rode a camel. It was very funny, the camels walk in a strange way, so it is a bumpy ride, but so worth it :D. We went through the dessert and had such a nice overview of the city and the Nile river from a sandy mountain top. Egypt is all sand, except the part near the Nile, that is very lushious green, the contrast is beautiful. Unfortunately it was quite hard to photograph, because the air is very dusty, so photos don’t turn out so well :(.

I still have to sort my photo’s, but here is a photo of me and the great piramid :) in Giza.

When I got back, snow was awaiting me, blegh. The weather back home is cold and today it is raining. I want to go back to Egypt now haha. It was very warm, almost 30 C and the suns is shining everyday. So much better than this gray weather here.

Blah, I have so man good memories, I don’t know what to put here, so for now I think I’ll leave it at this :).

and ready to go!

Egypt here I come. See you all in two weeks!

Today I got some of the vaccines I need for Egypt. Hepatitis A and DTP (Diphteria, Tetanus, Poliomyelitis). Now one of my arms is sore haha. If I go back in 6 months and get another Hep. A vaccination I’m protected against the virus for at least 25 years. So, I’m definately going to get it. It comes in handy for further travelling :).

Guess what…... I’m going to Egypt! In two weeks :D. It kind of was a last minute decision, but yesterday it was confirmed by the booking agency: I’m going there! I wanted to get out before my internship starts and I’ve always wanted to see the piramids! I’m really really really looking forward to it! Yesterday my bf found to memory cards for acmera’s in the snow. They turned out to be empty, so we didn’t know to whom the belong. We decided to keep them, so that means lots of space for photo’s! Woohoo!