Still day 2, I have finished my adventures for the day.  We dropped off the tour guide and are stuck in traffic.  It was a great day.  We went to the museum, which was fantastic.  My guide was very knowledgeable, and I saw the entire king Tut stuff you would expect to see, as well as what was left of the other kings.  I walked around the back street “mall” only for about 15 mins, and then I got bored.   Just another mall only this one was full of beggars.  After that we had lunch in a local café (treat of my tour guide).  Either she has a crush on me or she is pretending to have a crush on me.  Then we went to the Citedel of Salah al_Din.  In it had the mosque of Mohamed Ali.

Second day- Not only is this a guided tour, but it is also a personally guided tour.  There is only me in the van.  I have to admit that this makes it a little unnerving at times.  But nothing bad happened.  Please bare in mind that I am traveling with Emeco Travel, through Etihad.  However my guides seem quite competent and reliable.  My guide yesterdays name was Marwa.  We hit the great pyramids in Geza, Imhotep’s pyramid in Shakara, and the digging out in Memphis.  I have butchered all of these names and I doubt Microsoft word will be able to autocorrect them.  I also was taken to some shops and touristy places.  I did get suckered at one of the pyramids out of some money by beggars.  It happens.  The biggest regret that I have is that when I was at the great pyramids I had a great panoramic view of them, BUT it was middle of the day and because of the sun I could not get a good shot.  It was bad.  So I only have close up shots of the pyramids.  I went into the second pyramid (the great one).  It is a good thing I am not claustrophobic anymore.  That would have killed me; small entry way, VERY muggy, and very hot.  It was cool none the less.  I learned the history behind the pyramids and Ramses and Imhotep (who is one of my idols now). 

 I am going to run.  I will download all of my pictures today.

I am going to preface this with I am entering multiple journal entries at one time.  You see I prefer to journal in my book and then post it here, and sometimes I journal multiple times during the day.

April 2, 7:58 am

First day- I made it to my hotel it is old, beautifully old.  The room is gorgeous along with my view of the Nile.  Right now I am in the lobby waiting for my tour guide.  I should say that I got to sleep around 4:00 am this morning.  On the way to the hotel my tour guide was telling me all about all the cool parts of Cairo.  I discovered that the package that I bought is fully guided.  Something else that is cool about Cairo, the roads are not on the ground.  They are all raised up (all of the main ones at least).  Driving in last night I don’t think there was a moment where the car was not on an overpass.  My tour agent’s name is Hysim, the driver is named Maqtar.  I meet the guide in a little while.  The bus/van will be here around 9:00 am.  I have had a nice breakfast and all is well.  My mind is wandering quite a bit partly because of the excitement and partly because of the 3 hours of sleep.  I am going to read a bit now, will journal again later.

I am all settled in now I have a TV and dvd player and everything. So now I really do not have any excuse to not update my live Journal.

My mother has in fact threatened to take my camera away from me since I have not been taking or posting near enough photos. Last week I went out to Jebel Hafeet again (without my camera). During the day it is not nearly as impressive during the day. The night it is very cool and mysterious and the silhouettes are just awesome. Unfortunately during the day it was dusty, dirty and crowded. It was pretty unimpressive. On the other hand on the same day I went to the ZOO out in Al Ain. This was a very cool place. I would rate it on par with the Nebraska Zoo or the Berlin zoo (mind you I had not seen many of the critters). The monkeys got most of my attention, I now admit ignorance I did not realize that chimpanzees where larger than some people. But it had all of the standard “zoo” critters, and I enjoyed it. It was middle of the day and it is very hot out here so the critters were not doing too much, but they still looked very nice.

Last week I finally got myself a TV. In fact I was drug out kicking and screaming to go and get it. I think the girl that I went with got the first taste of what it is like to go shopping with the standard Kading male. I am reminded of a story dad told me of when he went couch shopping with my mom, grandma and aunt. When they were finished someone asked him “so what did you learn”. His simple reply “Well, not much, but they learned not to go shopping with me.” However, it is a nice TV and works.

Last night I went out to the beach and had a grill out with a crew whom I hang out with every once in a while. It was nice and relaxing after a hectic week.

I have been periodically updating my pictures (although I haven't had much to add). All I have there right now are more pictures of my apartment. Tomorrow I will post pictures of my office and other random pics.

Best Regards all

I have made it. I finally got into my apartment. It is very spacious tow bedroom and will be very comfortable. I need to give it a pretty good cleaning today. I will post pictures of it soon. But realize this is mostly to relay the basic layout. I have all the hard furniture that I need but I still need to get some rugs and wall hangings and the like.

I am fighting the idea of getting a TV. It is somewhat relieving to not get a TV but then again I probably should just so that I have something for when folks come over.

Anyways things are going well,

Josh

So, I have a flickr account where I upload my pictures to. And one of these days I really will sit down and write a caption and description for each. Unfortunately whenever I have time anymore I spend it either out or sleeping. So I must apologize for the lack of interesting quips that goes with them. I have recently uploaded the pics of my trip with Xenia to Emirates palace (the museum/hotel). I could not take pictures in the Islamic art section, however, I took pictures of the sustainability expo that was going on outside.

The move in date for my apartment has been pushed back another week (and we are all shocked by this).

I did see Sweeney Todd last night. I think Tim Burton and Johny Depp were the absolutely perfect people to pull of a screen version of that musical. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I would not recommend it to mom or dad.

I made it into February. I have been putting in the crazy long hours (like I do). In fact I need to go back in this afternoon to work a bit more. Mind you it is weekend here so me going into work today and tomorrow sucks. However, I felt the need to inform you all that I am still alive and well. This week a number of fun adventures have occurred. First and foremost I left the on Sunday. Mounir and I drove out to Oman and back after work. While we were out there we Stopped in Al Ain and drove up a mountain “Jebel Hafeet” that was gorgeous. I have posted new pictures on my flickr account.

The office also decided for everyone to bowling on Monday. To some of you what I am about to say is no surprise, but I have a confession to make. Bowling was not my calling in life. As Mike said, “if a monkey was trained how to bowl he would break 70.” We played three rounds and my high was 64. These things would make me cry if I actually cared enough. I will say though, I was doing great for the first half of the first round. I was getting a strikes, spares or high numbers. I then got bored. Gutter balls the rest of the evening. But a fun time none the less.

Last night I went out salsa dancing and realized (again) 1. Salsa is more fun than any other form of dancing 2. I have long since forgotten everything I know about Salsa 3. Liqueur just makes things better.

Today I am going to try to hit an Islamic art gallery before I head into work. So I will say goodbye and talk to you all later.

I spent new years eve hanging out with Jesh and Stefan, grilling out on Stefan's patio. It was great just like a standard grill out. We cooked up steaks/ kabobs/ and some veggies and of course plenty of beer as well. There were about five or so fireworks displays, however all of them were pretty small. They were not far away and they barely made it above the horizon.

New years day was spent driving down to Liwa, in southern UAE. The drive was very nice once we got far enough out of the city. We stopped along an automobile museum. If we Americans think we can overdo better than anyone in the world take a look at the picture of the truck in the pictures I took. This is a fully functioning mobile home that does get taken out on the desert. The museum was on the was to the oasis (Liwa). We sat around the hotel for a while and then went out to the dunes. Not just any dunes mind you the LARGEST dunes in the UAE. They were camped out for a long calibration for the new years. There was a lot of dune buggies running around and a few 4-wheel drives that were dune bashing. I was driving my rented accord so I could not take it off of the paved roads, but we got out and started to hike up a dune. About five or so paces after we got out of the car a local came up in his shiny suburban and gave us a ride up to the top. I now see why everyone out here loves dune bashing. It was a lot of fun. Beyond that we hung out at the top for a bit and then drove home.

The above is a little on the tedious side to read but it is what we did and it gives the pictures more of a context, which are on my flickr account. As adventures come around I will tell more about them.

ABU-YA!

First and foremost to those of you who do not already know I have made it to Abu-Dahbi.  I have been here about a week know and I am finally starting to get settled.  Being the workaholic that I am, I have recenlty only gottne settled in at my job.  The hotel that I am staying at has all the niceties of a small apartment with few drawbacks.  I am in no real hurry to move into an appartment because the market here is a bear.  I have heard a great number of horror stories about moving into appartments and getting set up that I am actually kind of putting it off.  

I have found out that eating here is increadalby cheap.  I went out to an Italian resturant with some co-workers last night.  Very nice!  Mind you I don't go to the hole in the wall places, because of food poisoning.  This was at a very westernized hotel.  I am running into a number of culture shocks that are bombarding me left and right.

But, if I want to feel american I have about half a dozen malls that I can go to within walking distance from my hotel.

Saddly I have nothing real eventful to report other than I am working a lot (and taking pains so that I don't burn myself out).  But otherwise I am doing great.