Arc Tangent

Cur­rently in a hos­tel in Aswan, the Key­laney. Highly rec­om­mended. Aswan far South, up the Nile toward Sudan. Sur­rounded by harsh, unfor­giv­ing desert, it´s a shock­ing blaze of green along one of the cleaner parts of the Nile river. No croc­o­diles though, thanks to Nasser´s dam.

Got here by overnight train. Didn´t man­age to make it out to the tomb of Ram­ses II, which would´ve been cool, but requires one to book ahead a few days and get up at a ridicu­lous hour to avoid bak­ing in the desert heat. Never mind, another time.

Floated up and down the Nile on a fal­luc­cia yes­ter­day, see­ing some of the islands here (this is site of ancient ivory trad­ing sta­tion, many old tombs). Peo­ple here very friendly, espe­cially com­pared to Cairo folk. Got pulled into a shop run by a guy call­ing him­self Anto­nio Ban­deras, just to talk. He didn´t even try to sell us any­thing. Smart, smart kid.

Many sto­ries to tell, not enough time to tell them (yet). Off on fal­luc­cia cruise up the Nile to Kobumbo (sp?) in half an hour, will take 48 hours. Should be beau­ti­ful! Then 1–2 days to see Val­ley of the Kings before we have to return to Europe (life is so hard for me).

:)

(On this key­board, that smi­ley face was a hell of an effort!)

Cur­rently on a bus from Prague to Munich, where Brett and I will be catch­ing a plane to Egypt. Insuf­fi­cient sleep has been had — repeat­edly. Almost over jet lag I think.

First night in Prague was crazy. Whirl­wind tour of city and pubs, exces­sive beer. Par­tied hard. That’s on a Mon­day night. Whew!

Sec­ond night was opera (Dvorak’s Rusalka, told in very cool high-​visual style) at Nar­o­dny Divadlo (the National The­atre). Amazing.

Can’t even begin to write about it all, and I’ve been here but three days. Feels very famil­iar here, like home. Czech peo­ple alike Aus­tralians in many ways (but dif­fer­ent, too). Learn­ing as much of the lan­guage as I can.

Czech women in par­tic­u­lar much less shy than Aus­tralians. Got first phone num­ber within 24 hours. :P

Will try to write more later!