So I arrived in Rome about noon on the 19th and started looking for this hostel that a guy I met in Athens recommended to me. I basically had a street, a patchwork map and a name. So, I ended up turning the wrong way out of the train station and wandered a while without seeing it. I then decided to ask a guy at a grocery store where Via Rattazzi was. He said he didn't know, so I looked for a little while longer. I then walk in the other direction, about 50 meters from the store and see the street plain and simple...wasn't too pleased with that guy, apparently they don't seem to like travelers too much...

Anyway, the place I was looking for was called Guy's Paridise (with guy being the name of the owner I think), it was a little out of way and I had to hunt a fair bit for it. This guy approached me and asked me if I was looking for a place to stay. I asked him that I was looking Guy's Paridise and he said he didn't know of it and that it probably didn't exist, and that there was only one hostel in this area his. After traveling through SE Asia, I know not to trust someone who is trying to sell their own hostel, so then I went into a hotel that was way out of my price range, they asked me my price range and when I said 16 Euros, they proceeded to give me directions...

Yeah, this place is really sweet...the guy who runs it Lorenzo, not Guy, is super friendly and as soon as I enter asks me if I want tea, and if I hadn't had breakfast there are some croissants that are left from breakfast. The place is pretty "cozy, the reception/dining room/internet room is really small, but the real draw is the fact that the people who run it and the people who come here are really friendly and they give you free dinner (2 pasta dishes with at least one being vegetarian) and all the beer/wine you want to drink with dinner. Yeah, you heard me right, all the beer (within reason, as he buys two flats and several bottles of wine) you want to drink. Yes, I did have my fair share to drink the first night and am starting tonight.

So, I get in there and am having a cup of tea when a guy who is in the reception asks me if I want to go to a soccer match - Roma vs. Parma (Italian Div 1). I was pretty tired as I got about 3 hours of sleep but I'm not gonna say no to this.

So nine of us head out to the stadium. We end up getting there about 15 minutes into the game cause the train took a little longer than expected and we were a little slow getting mobile. There were a bunch of scalpers trying to sell us a ticket for about 5 Euro, but there are these big signs right under the ticket window that advertise seat for 14 Euro each, and since we are there for the atmosphere, we get the cheap ticket. This apparently annoyed the scalper and he ripped down all the signs...

The atmosphere was amazing. It was almost all Roma fans and there was this small section with about 100 Parma fans with tall plastic seperating that section (like the glass in a hockey rink). The other 50,000 people were all Roma supporters. The place was electric, it was already 1-0 for Roma when we arrive and when Roma scored their second goal the fans went nuts. There were guys hugging each other, random people lighting flares and fireworks and songs and chants erupting all over the place.

Anyway, the game ended up being a romp, 5-1 for Roma, and everyone went home happy. The soccer was really good to, it was a lot of one touch and fast break stuff, so it was really fun to watch. Quite the way to be welcomed to Rome...

So, after the first night here I decided to move hostels, because despite the fact that I got a four bed room to myself, there was almost no one else in my hostel. This is great if you have a big group, but not so good if you are on your own....

Anyway, I moved to the Hostelling International Hostel just down the road (I would definately recommend this one, it's cheap, fairly nice for the price, and has a kitchenette if interested). I had been by the night before and noticed there were actually people in the lobby...as it turns out, this place was even cheaper than the place I was before and had a guy, Flethcher (different one) from Oz, who had been in Athens way too long, so he could tell me all the cool places to go.

Well, as it turns out, wine in Greece is very cheap. For a liter and a half, it costs about $3...it's not half bad and to add a bit of class it comes in a plastic bottle. Apparently, you can get some for $1.50 that doesn't even have a label on it. So yeah, a bunch of us sat up and chatted about travels and anything else that came out. One of the guys had been through Eastern Europe and had some cool stories about it...and he's actually heading to Cairo after this so I could fill him in a little bit.

I also found out this sweet place to stay in Rome. The price of the hostel includes breakfast and a yummy pasta dinner. On top of this dinner comes with all the beer you want to drink, and it's a pretty reasonable price to stay there. That should be fun.

Oh, I guess as a little aside, the plumbing all throughout SE Asia and Egypt couldn't take TP, so they had a bin beside the toilet to throw the paper in. Anyway, you would think that Greece, as a European and Western country would not have this predicament. Well, guess again, I was really surprised to see this, not that it's a problem, but it's just not something you would expect. I'm sure you all wanted to hear about that, hope you enjoyed it...

It's raining, well drizzling, a la Vancouver rain (makes me a little homesick :P), so I thinks today may be a good day to visit the museum...

Cheers,
Drew

For the first time in my whole trip I felt like Christmas was coming. Walking into the Metro station in Greece I was greeted with Christmas lights and people dressed in Christmas/Winter type gear.

I managed to find a reasonably priced hostel, with toilet paper and hot water, all sorts of luxury and went out for some Greek food. Had some gyros (mmm, greasy and unhealthy) and then took an early night.

Today I headed out to the Parthenon and the Acropolis. The subway here is not that hard to get around once you understand the basics, there are only about 3 lines and you can get a 24 hour pass for about 3 Euros. They were pretty cool, it was neat to see all the ruins of an Ancient Athens, but a lot of the temples were being restored so they were covered in scaffolding. Even still, it was still great to see them in person. Think I liked the museum in Alexandria more than the Acropolic Museum though.

It's quite cold here, 10 degrees, and really wish I picked up more warm clothes in Egypt. I forgot how expensive Western prices are. The sweater that i thought was too expensive at $13 in Egypt is about $60 here. Oh well, I can rotate between my two outfits and just wash one when I am wearing the other.

Alright, I'm outta here, see you all soon (it's less than a week now)!!!

Cheers,
Drew

So, I've been a pretty busy kid in Cairo. Only have a couple digital pics cause my camera is not co-operating, but have a bunch on a normal camera.

The night I got back, me, Em and a bunch of her American University of Cairo friends went on a felucca ride on the Nile. Basically this is just a (windpowered) sailboat, and the captain navigates it along the Nile for about an hour. It was really nice, got a chance to see the city at night as well as sail on probably the most famous river in the world.

The next night, a group of us went to the opera for oh, about $2.50 Cdn. I mean it was no bear on the little bike of the ballet, but it was really cool. For started, we had to look nice. Now, all the other people going lived here, but me, who was traveling out of a backpack didn't really have any nice close. My nicest clothes were sneakers, a pair of cargo pants that happened to have no rips in them, and a short sleeve shirt with buttons down the front. Needless to say, Em managed to find a suit jacket for me (I bought a sweater as well as I figured I needed on anyway), a tie, but no pants or shoes. I should have taken a picture, there I was standing in line for an opera surrounded by people in nice suits and dresses wearing a suit jacket that was a little small for me, with a short sleeved shirt underneath, a blue tie that did not go with it, a pair of black cargo pants, and running shoes. Well, I guess the tie threw the guy at the door off, and he didn't see the rest of my outfit.

Once inside I changed back into my sweater as soon as I could. The opera was really neat. It was called Aida, which was written for the opening of the Suex Canal. It a love story of sorts set in Ancient Egypt. The costumes, for the most part were fantastic, as well as the orchestra. It was a cool experience, didn't feel like I was cultured all that much by it, but I did enjoy it and can now say I have been to the opera.

The next day was set aside for the museum. Now the Egyptian Museum is set up like museums of old and doesn't label a lot of stuff. They just put stuff that is the same in the same room and let the viewer make up their own pictures. This is good in a sense as you actually examine the objects instead of just reading the descriptions, but bad in the sense that you don't have much of a clue what you are looking at. Luckily, one of Emily's friends, Matty, who is studying Egyptology, and knows a lot about the history of Egypt came with us.

It was crazy seeing some of the history in there. Tombs from 2000 BC, masks, false doors for tombs, pottery and the King Tut exhibit just to name a few. You can really see the different influence among the ages there, as well as the heavy influence the Egyptian gods had on a lot of the archetechture and objects throughout Egyptian history.

After that, Em and I went to Alex (see the Alex entry), and then came back and went to the Pyramids. What can I say, when you come to Egypt you have to see the Pyramids...they are pretty spectacular, huge stone structures that have stood the test of time. I didn't go inside any of them cause it was a little expensive, but just seeing them and the Sphinx was cool.

Oh, apparently they are really trying to cut down on the number of people selling things on the actual Pyramid plateau (inside the gates). I read this in the Lonely Planet book, but didn' t know how serious it really was. Quite serious it appears...a man came up to us and tried to sell us a couple of postcards, and we said no thanks, and he didn't pester us at all after that. Well, about 10 seconds later, one of the police came up to him on a camel and started yelling at him. He then proceed to whip the man. Yes, you heard me right, WHIP THE MAN, once in the face. I can now see why there are not a lot of people trying to sell things here now.

Okay, gonna spend til about the 16th here in Cairo and then head out. Tried e-mail Air Malta twice to see about rescheduling my flight but didn't get a reply. I went today to an office (this was the second one I went to, the first one was no longer an actual office) and found out that I can't get a flight to Malta on the 16th anyway. But, I did find out that it is actually cheaper for my to fly to fly from Cairo to Athens and then from Athens to Rome than it is for me to fly straight from Cairo to Rome. So, if things work out, I'm gonna try to get a two day stop over in Athen and then head to Rome on the 18th and head home on the 23rd...

I love this city...I only spent one day here, but I really liked it. It's North of Cairo on the Mediterranian Sea, was found by Alexander the Great during his conquests and was one of the old capitals of Egypt. The people here are genuinely friendly and it is just and all around beautiful city full of history but with a modern feel.

We didn't get there til about 1 or so in the morning, but managed to get a hotel overlooking the bay. Basically, there is a large oval-shaped bay in the west part of the city with small peninsula's enclosing it on on either side. There is a small break in between to allow ships passage. Along here is a walkway called the Cornish, that was full of men fishing off rocks with these gigantic rods.

The first thing we tried to do was go to the new, modern library in Alex. Unfortunately it wasn't open, so we headed to the Greco-Roman Museum. This place was cool. Everything was labelled (thank goodness), and it was kind of a mix between Roman, Greek and Egyptian design. A lot of this was just uncovered recently (last 25 years) and ther is probably a lot left to be uncovered. Just seeing some of those statues made me imagine what the city might have looked like 2000 years ago. They were magnificent, a lot of Greek Gods (which I knew a little about which was nice), some rulers (Greek and Roman) as well as some Egyptian Gods and Goddesses.

After spending a couple hours here, we headed to the Roman Amphitheatre which was uncovered about 8 years ago when the started digging for an apartment complex (which obviously was never constructed). It was anywhere near the coloseums of Italy, but you could get the feeling of the ancient theatre.

After this, we had some delicious fish at one of the local (and a bit more pricey, but it was delicious so it was worth it) restaurants. After that, we had a sheesha on the Cornish overlooking that bay at night and then headed off to the trains. This train was sooooooooooooooooo much nicer than the Thai one. We took second class (there was no third, not that I would have taken it) and it was really spacious and comfortable. Makes me wonder what first was like. If you are heading to Alex, I highly recommend the train.

ttyl,
Drew

After spending 3 days scubaing in Dahab, I decided on my way back to Cairo to stop off and hike up Mt. Sinai. Now compared to the other two Mountains, this one was much smaller at a mere 2,285 meters. I arrived at the base (well probably about 1000 meters up) around 2 in the morning having been awake since 7 am the previous morning. After finding a place to store my large bag, I set off up the mountain.

I arrived here on my own, and the people on the bus from Dahab were not all the friendly, so I just headed up on my own. Inadvertantly, (cause it was dark at I was just following the crowd at this point), I went up the camel trail. Not bad, quite a bit easier than the steps, and full of camel dung. There were a lot of people climbing at this time, and I was stuck behind a large group. I ended up walking up with one of the women from this group who forged on ahead as well. Her name was Julia, she was from Moscow and didn't speak much English. Apparently there were 50 of them traveling around to monestaries (she described herself as Prevoslava, which I think may be Orthodox Christian?) all over Europe and here.

For those of you who don't know, Mt. Sinai is the mountain the Moses is said to have climbed to get receive the 10 Commandments. At the base of this mountain is St. Catherine's Monestary, which has apparently been around since 400 BC, pretty old. Anyway, it was neat talking to her, although I could understand too much from her. I ended up getting near the top (after a bit of a break) around 4:30 am, I rested in one of the several huts near the top til it came close to sunrise.

Okay, I know it is cold in Canada right now, and I've heard from some of you the "S" word here and there. But, for someone who did not have a sweater in his wardrobe until after he climbed Mt. Sinai, the peak was freezing. Here is me shivering away. Oh, and for those of you who think I may still be wandering around in t-shirts and shorts it is not the case. First of all, walking around in Egypt in a short sleeve shirt and shorts is considered bad taste and makes you stand out as a tourist (which means you get hassled by people trying to sell you stuff A LOT), and secondly it sometimes is only 16 or 20 during the day and dropping down a little lower at night.

Anyway, the sunrise was gorgeous, below are some pics of it...

View image

View image

View image

So yeah, I ended up taking a nap in one of the huts at the top and then took the bus back to Cairo...

After spending the day with Em, doing a whirlwind tour around Cairo, I decided to head for a place called Dahab, on the Eastern edge of the Sinai peninsula to relax and above all else, scuba dive.

The bus ride said it was going to take 9 hours, and they were bang on, which is a nice change from the bus rides in Thailand, here the buses were actually early, crazy...anyway, I got to Dahab around 5 in the afternoon; it's a great little city, right on the Red Sea, and although it is a tourist destination, it doesn't feel that touristy. So, I spent about 3 hours looking for a company to dive with. Apparently, unlike Thailand, you cannot purchase insurance from the dive centers in the rare event that anything happens. However, I was told that all the instructors have insurance, so their's will cover you. After going to about 3 places that told me, oh nothing happens, you don't need to worry about it, I finally found a person that told me that instructors had insurance, and on top of that he was a really pleasant, professional and all around nice guy. So, at 9 at night, I signed up to do my advanced course with a place called Deep Blue Divers (anyone going to Dahab to dive, I would recommend this place, the owner Nasser does a really good job of running his business and is a really great guy).

Before I get into that, they have this wonderful dish here in Egypt called Koshery. Apparently if you have been here for 3 months, and eaten it a lot, it is not so wonderful, but if you are just passing through it's great. Basically all it is is noodles and rice mixed with chick peas, onion, lentils, tomato sauce and if you want it, chili sauce. A large plate of this costs oh, 60 cents. You can also get a huge meal consisting of half a chicken, lentil soup, bread, vegetable and beans for about $2.50. Needless to say I had koshery a fair bit in Dahab, and my fair share of chicken.

So, for those of you who aren't familiar with diving, an Advanced course lets you dive to 30 meters instead of 18 and consists of 5 specialty dives, two of which have to be a deep dive and a navigation dive. The other three that I chose were fish identification, a multi level dive, and a night dive (very cool). Also, for an extra $20 I could get two additional fun dives, so I opted on that for 7 total.

The fish you see down there are amazing, I bought an underwater camera and used it on my last dive, but there weren't as many different types of fish, but I have maybe 15 or so photos which hopefully turned out.

Here are a couple pic's of some of the stuff that I wasn't able to get photographed.

A Blue Spotted Ray: I saw this on my second dive, really cool.

A lion fish: I first saw these on my night dive, but saw a ton of them after that. Make sure you don't touch the spines cause they can hurt a fair bit.

A scorpion fish: These critters camaflouge in with their environment, and are really hard to spot. My guide had to show me this one. But once you see one, you can get quite close and they tend not to move. However, as was with our case, when they do you can see bright red pectoral fins.

Blue Trigger Fish: This fish has a "Trigger" or a small spike on the top of it's head, and raises it when it feels threatened. Unlike the ones in Thailand, these ones will not attack divers, and I managed to see one raise and lower it's trigger.

Two of the dives were especially cool, the night dive and a dive called the blue hole. The night dive was just me and my instructor Mohammed, and a couple of flashlights. According to Mohammed, we didn't see that many things, but I thought it was great, it's really peaceful diving at night (as in the day but more so) and you get to see things you don't see in the day (like moray eels, these are ugly scary looking things, with big pointy snouts and long jaws).

The other was the Blue Hole. You start by descending down to 28 meters through this small cavern. Once you are down there, there is just this wall of coral with thousands of fish everywhere on it. The depth it's only about 15 meters off shore, and the wall extends 180 meters down so you can't even see the bottom. If you look down, all you see are fish and blue nothingness. The same can be said about looking up too, where you just get a glimpse of sunlight. It's a really sureal feeling, and although I felt really comfortable, I was breathing a lot heavier on this dive than any of my other dives.

Here's an aerial view of it View image

And this is the best photo that I could find of inside the blue hole: View image

One of the interesting things about Dahab is that it has a lot of Bedouins, which are nomadic people who live in the deserts. They mainly raise livestock, and, well traditionally, would roam the desert finding food for their livestock and setting up tents whereever they went. Now, many of the Bedouins have become stationary, partly due to tourism. In Dahab, some of the dive sites can only be reach by camel treks which are organized by the Bedouins and sometimes involve a stay at the Bedouins villages. I didn't have time to do this while I was there, but I spoke to a few people who said they were quite an experience.

On the last day, I hung out with a Canadian guy that was just starting his advanced course. He had been traveling the Middle East (and a bit of Europe) for about as long as I had been traveling SE Asia. It was cool to talk to him and hear about some of the things he had done and seen on his travels. Around 11 pm, I boarded my bus and headed off to Mt. Sinai.

When I can find a place that will let me upload some of my camera pics, I'll post em (although it's been acting a little funny, so I don't have a lot).

Cheers,
Drew

"Welcome to Egypt" is to be said in a deep arabic voice. I actually haven't heard it from an Egyptian yet, but several North American students here have said it to me...the most I have heard, about 7 times from Egyptians is "Welcome"

Okay, I know this makes sense, but until you see it out your plane window, it doesn't register. Flying from Abu Dhabi to is all desert. You look out your window is all you see is brown for miles and miles and miles. First it was flat, rolling dunes, then a bit more hilly, and finally, flying over the Sinai, mountains of sand. Even once I got to Cairo, I could see the Nile, brown/grey buildings, and sand in between them. It's kinda like flying over Canadian cities, when you see the roads and the building with greenspace in the middle, except this greenspace is sand. On top of that, the city is spread out all over the place, it's amazing thinking the amount of history exists under what I was seeing.

Ok, so I arrive at the airport (a little early actually) and line up to get my passport stamped. The when I get to the front of the line the guy tells me I need to buy a stamp (they are actual stamps) from one of the banks as a visa and then I can enter. Problem, all my $$ are in card form, don't have enough cash on me to pay for a visa. There are about 5 banks there, but none of them have an ATM...the ATM as it so happens is on the other side of immigration in the airport. So, I have to leave my passport at customs, and walk across a crowded airport, unescorted, to the ATM. They apparently have a lot of trust that I will return (for obvious reasons, the biggest one being they have my passport, I do).

Em and two of her American University of Cairo companions, Beth and Lynn, are waiting for me, and help find a taxi to get back to the city center. It's a good thing too, because unlike everywhere else I have traveled, half the taxi drivers here don't speak English. They tell me about some of their adventures here, and also about how Western women tend to get groped a lot in crowded public areas, specifically at the zoo...

Now, people must have an innate sense that can tell that I am new here, because as soon as I arrive I am just hounded by all sorts of people. Now, I have been traveling for a while, so I am used to the people coming up to me, and am pretty good at ignoring it and getting them to stop. But, I guess cause I am new to Egypt they can tell... and it is true, after a little while of being in a place, you have a new look and they can tell you are not new anymore and hassle you less (I get less even after 4 days). Anyway, in the first night I was there, I had a small child tugging on my arm for about a block or so, a girl jump and hang on to the side of a moving taxi for two blocks and subsequently kiss her fingers and then plant them on my cheek and try to sell me something, as well as a couple others (one is describe below).

So, Egypt just has a totally different feel to it than SE Asia, not sure if I can describe it, but I just have a whole different atmosphere. First off, you can't get around everywhere with just English (well you can, but it can be kinda hard). Also it is a noticably Muslim country, and even though Indonesia is 90% Muslim it didn't feel so (probably cause I was in rather touristy areas). You notice it a lot more here, prayers are said 5 times a day and there are a lot of covered women (some partially and others completely). I really like it, it's just has a totally different feel than anywhere I have been....oh, and there are cats all over the place...

So we go out for dinner and then head to a bazaar downtown. It's mainly clothing, and it's the ones that the locals prodominantly shop at so there isn't as much touristy craft. The girls all bought scarves, but I was a little tired and not so much in the shopping mood, so I just looked...probably go back next week. After, we went out for Shisha, which is flavoured Egyptian tobacco smoked out of these giant contraptions. They are quite delicious and come in many flavours, quite tasty. Anyway, as I mentioned before I seem to attract people selling things, so this guy comes up to me and is showing me this postcard with Egyptian coins on the back. Unwittingly, I decide I am gonna try to sell him something, a Malaysian Ringgit (as it was all I have on me). I pull it out and ask "how much you give me for this" completely joking. Well, this guy gets obsessed with it and asks everyone around the table how much it is worth. After getting shoed off twice by management, the guy comes back a third time and just won't leave. Finally, to get him to leave I trade him the bill (worth about 30 cents Canadian) for the postcard and coins (which by them selves are worth about 60 cents Canadian). After that I decided not to play that game anymore...

To end the night, we went to a party at Christian's (an AUC student's) house. There were a fair number of people there, and I got to meet a number of students attending AUC (from all over the place), and talk to some Americans about the election among other things (haven't met many Americans traveling, so it was nice to chat with some people who are also upto date on it). All in all, it was a fun first night in Cairo...

Not sure if I have mentioned this in a previous entry or not, but my flight from Jakarta to Cairo had a transfer in Abu Dhabi, and as it happens, my connector flight got changed, so I ended up having to spend the night in Abu Dhabi.

Em had warned me to make sure that I wore long pants when I arrived in Cairo, as it was a Muslim country and wearing shorts makes you stick out even more. Well, fine, I packed my pants for Egypt, but wasn't thinking and arrived in the Abu Dhabi airport in shorts. Not that I wouldn't stick out in the first place, but I was a really sore thumb. No one, not one single person wore shorts, and many of the men wore those long, white arabic robes (not sure of the name off the top of my head) or were in nice suits.

The good thing about having your flight changed, is you get everything comp. This probably won't sound very exciting to you, but to me it was fabulous. First off, I got a nice taxi to the hotel, and the cab driver, a Jordanian, told me all about Abu Dhabi (see below). I walk into my room and it's 2 double bed with proper matresses and a box spring (these were, by the way, the comfiest matresses I have slept on by far). On top of that, they had TV that had English (UK and NA) programs. And then, I had a bathroom, a proper one, with a tub and hot water. So basically this is maybe one step up from a Best Western, but after living in bungalows for 2 months, it was a nice treat.

Dinner, oh dinner...it was buffet style and they had all sorts of meat, aside from pork obviously, pasta, cheese, bread, a typical nice buffet. Ate so much, so yummy. For breakfast it was the usual fare, but they had something that I had not found my entire trip, maple (or at least some type of) syrup. Needless to say, I did feel spoiled for the day.

Now, on to the city itself. I now know what having oil does to a city. This place was posh. According to my cab driver (he may have been embellishing a little) everyone, with a small exception, drives a BMWesque car (there were a LOT of nice cars). On top of that, their highways were state of the art, buildings huge and picturesque, beautiful large homes and palm trees brought in to liven up the drive. Yes, I now know what a rich country looks like.

Alright, am in Egypt now, it's really cool but VERY different from what I have seen in SE Asia. I'll write a bit on it when I get a chance. Gonna head out to Dahab tomorrow for some diving and a place you can actually lounge about. Good luck with finals....talk to you soon...and goodbye Ken Jennings, it was a valiant run....

So I just finished my 3 days of hanging out and surfing in Bali. The surf was great (even though I was told it was the worst in 3 weeks, it was fine for a beginner), although the place was quite touristy.

I arrived somewhat late in the afternoon, so my first night there, I was pretty tired so I pretty much just had dinner, did some reading and went to bed. The next morning, I met a guy named Phil having breakfast. He's here for 2 months on about 400 pounds and spends just over $8 CDN a day - crazy. Anyway, he asked me if I wanted to go out surfing in the afternoon. Sure, so I went and rented my board for the day for about $3.50 and headed out to try surfing.

Apparently the surf was pretty bad (probably the same as we had in Ko Pha Ngan) but it was fine for learning. He had been doing it for a while, so he showed me a couple pointers, mainly that you want to catch the wave a little before it's breaking, not as it's breaking like I was doing before. (If you catch it as it's breaking, you get slammed into the water, not so much fun...) After about a couple hours of this, we headed out for a little food.

That night, one of the girls he had met, was having a get together, he invited me to come along. I ended up spending most of the night chatting with an Indonesian guy named IW (pronounce "E" "Weigh"). Really cool guy, he's an artist (IW is how he signs his paintings) and moved from place to place every 6 months setting up new gallaries. Then, he lives off the money he makes from selling his paintings for 5 or so months and then starts up again. Kinda nomadic, but he likes it...

Went out after to a club called M-Bar-Go. They let foreigners in for free, but charge all the locals, we argued with the bouncers for a while, and then one girl who did a photo shoot there a couple days ago talked to the manager and he let all the locals with us in. Decent place, beers were expensive in Indonesian terms but cheap compared to local terms...all in all a pretty fun night...

Next day did some more surfing, waves were a little better, maybe 4 feet or so?? not too sure, got a little sunburnt on my face, and a little more tanned. Note to those who are learning to surf, not only does a shirt help you not sunburn you back, but the wax on your board is not too pleasent after about an hour of rubbing against your chest. Luckily I found this out the first day, and reacted accordingly the second.

Just finished my 24 hour bus ride to Jakarta, sans valium. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, they fed me and I managed periodic sleep during the night and one and a half John Grisham books and my newly purchased best of "Guns & Roses" and "Dire Straits" albums kept me occupied the rest of the time. Heading out to Abu Dhabi today, the airline messed up, so I need to spend a night there (at their expense) before flying to Cairo. It may not be such a bad thing, cause this will probably be by far the nicest place I will stay in during my whole trip. Hot shower and large clean bed here I come.

Talk to you again from Africa....

Cheers,
Drew