Traffic and Trinkets in Cairo
‘Don’t cross the road unless you have life insurance’ – that was my sister’s piece of advice before I went to Cairo, and I soon realised that she wasn’t kidding!
When I arrived, my airport transfer driver pulled out of the car-park and set off the wrong way down a one-way street. Amazingly, the locals are apparently unaware of their mortality and step out in front of the cars, inching their way ‘lane by lane’ across the road (the roads are far too busy for you to ever get all the way across in one go). That said, lane markings seem to be considered merely decorative – coming off the ring-road there were two lanes marked but there were five rows of cars trying to squeeze onto the slip road!
The traffic in Cairo means that it is impossible to estimate how long it will take you to get somewhere. It is ‘rush hour’ all day long, with traffic jams everywhere. To get to the pyramids from the school, it can take you half an hour or it can take you over an hour – you have to adopt the Egyptian mentality and not worry about schedules!
If you choose to attend a course in Annecy, be sure take a good camera as this is a particularly photogenic town!
I think it is about time that I tell you my genteel readers and loyal audience (yes I am talking to those two people actually reading this 🙂 ) about my living arrangements here in Barcelona. I, like many others here, am sharing a flat. We are four of us at the moment with two Spanish girls who work, a French girl who is currently learning Spanish and wants to soon start a semester at a university in Barcelona and myself.
My short visit to Munich is rapidly coming to an end and so I reflect on my fortnights experiences in this big yet small city. I did not have many expectations before I came… well except that I would probably eat sausages and drink beer!
As a single woman traveling alone, I can honestly tell you that it is normally quite difficult to go to restaurants and sit alone, walk along the beach without having men come up to you thinking you are available, and have to endure the endless questions like “Where is your partner?” and so on…
Antibes is a charming town on the French Riviera. There is everything we need to enjoy a nice life. For instance the little café where we can drink an espresso, talking, while our face is warmed by the sunbeams. My god, everything is perfect!
As I mentioned before, I was expecting to get many visitors here during my ‘exile’ in Spain. And indeed they came, or at least some of them. My mother visited me some weeks ago. Although I had to work most of the time when she was here we tried to get the most out of our time together. I am not really into the touristy things but for my mum’s sake I tagged along and now feel as if I have fulfilled my quota of cultural activities for this year.
Like the rest of France, our dear Stephane is shouting out the phrase: ”Beaujolais Nouveau has finally arrived!” Every year on the third Thursday in November the new wine is published, and not a minute before. In France this is an old and strong tradition, and it is also famous in the rest of the world. The ritual is the same if you are in Lyon, Paris, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, London or Oslo, and also in 
This place was always on my list of “must dos in life” as I had heard and read so much about this place, such as “it’s one of the most naturally beautiful places on Earth”, “the Amalfi Coast is one of the most spectacular coastlines that exist” etc. but I was determined to see it and judge it for myself despite what Byron, Caruso, Goethe, Wagner and many other famous visitors had written!
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