Goodbyeee

Cairo!!

Leaving Countdown

Doortje at TGIFridays

We stopped at Fridays for a quick drink last night.

Lunar Eclipse

We posted some pictures on our flickr page from the lunar eclipse the other night.

First Day in the Pool!

Doortje and I went for a swim today, after being in the desert for the last few days and as it's 36 degrees in Cairo today, it sounded like a good idea but the water was freezing.  Still, it was refreshing.  We're going to miss our pool when we are back in Holland.

Last Desert Trip

We are back in Cairo after what we think will be our last trip into the desert. We took the dogs as it was a short 4 days 1080 Km trip, we think they had fun. 

It's Official!

Doortje received her memo from the Foreign Ministry today and it's official, we are to be posted back to Holland! The better news is that they gave Door her number one choice from her list of jobs, that being the finance department at the ministry. But the best news is that they also gave her a promotion! We were hoping for one of the three but to get all was a shock, but a very pleasant one.

Homeless

Shouldn't Have Bothered Washing The Truck

Dusty Truck

We've had a few days of blowing sand, think maybe it's time for a bath.

Cairo Update

We just wanted to let everyone know that all is well at our house. Doortje was home for the weekend and she will be coming home each night as long as things stay quite. She did pack a bag to leave at the embassy, just in case, and I'm leaving a duffel bag packed and the dog kennels/food by the door and extra diesel in the trucks second tank, just in case.

It has been pretty quite around our house this weekend, very few gun shots the last few nights and it's hard to tell if the ones we do hear are in anger or celebration.

Update from Cairo

Doortje is Home!

I am happy.

brian

Update

I have a bit of time and wanted to give you a quick update. As you may have seen in the news the situation has quieted down considerably here in Cairo, many of the smaller shops opened yesterday and one of the larger supermarkets that hasn't been looted is suppose to open today. I even heard Pizza Hut is delivering again, which I am reluctant to order from as this past week I've lost close to 1/2 a kilo, the revolutionary diet plan I'm going to call. But our driver is having trouble finding beer as they looted and burnt out many of the licensed shops that sell alcohol. The only problem we can see for the near future is that many of the police stations/vehicles/weapons have been burnt or looted. Having said that we've never seen a strong police presence in our neighborhood in the past nor have we heard of any people/house having problems recently.

There were a number of gun shots to the north of us last night, I have no idea what was going on but it was small caliber weapons and I didn't hear any returning or automatic fire, which I take as a good sign. The only bad thing is that no one looted the frickin' roosters that the farmer next door keeps as they are starting to get on my nerves with their crowing all day and half the night.

Doortje is staying in the hotel again tonight as we want to see what this day brings and then she may come home tomorrow, if the work load at the embassy allows, even if it's just for an afternoon off. I have no idea where she's going to sleep though as Aliaan has taken on the role of the alpha female and has been sleeping all night on Doors side of our bed. It was mildly disturbing last night when I rolled over in bed, forgetting that Doortje wasn't home, and coming face to face with the fur face beside me.

We want to thank our family and friends for the phone calls, emails and facebook comments as they have meant a lot to us both, and sorry that I haven't replied to all the emails but it's been mind numbingly distracting around here as you can imagine.

So, things are looking better and we are cautiously optimistic that the worse is behind us. Except for the roosters that is.

Brian en Doortje

BBC: 'Day of departure' rally in Egypt

Rosa Navarro, an American who was arrested and detained overnight at the Intelligence HQ, gives the BBC a disturbing account of her detention: "I went out with a friend yesterday to buy sim cards. We stopped by his house and while waiting for a cab we were approached by police officers in uniform. They asked us for our passports, released us and then came back two minutes later and we were arrested. We were interrogated and accused of being spies and in Egypt to bring down the Egyptian government. I was left blindfolded and sitting with around 50 or 60 other Westerners who had been picked up while waiting for a bus, or a taxi or just walking on the street. None of them, like myself, were arrested near the protest."

Link

Greetings from Cairo

I have a bit of time so I thought I'd try and bring you up to date on what is going with Doortje and I. But as there is so much to tell I really don't know where to start. Umm, well, the weather here is really nice, it's been in the low 20s all week.

I just got off the phone with Door and she is quite busy at the embassy. She went to work on monday and is staying at the Marriott Hotel with all the other embassy staff but I'm staying at the house as the hotel doesn't allow dogs, for any reason, so going there with her isn't an option. Doortje didn't go to work sooner as she was just getting over a nasty cold which I suspect is still lingering but she wants to be at the embassy to do her part. As well she says they all walk back and forth from the hotel/embassy in a group for safety and that we shouldn't worry about her. But somehow, I still do.

As for me and the dogs we are doing well. The rich Egyptians on our compound have hired 20 or so men to provide security and they are doing a good job so I feel safe enough. I had been joining in with them sitting outside our gate from 0400 to 1800 but with the way things have turned we've decided that I should keep a lower profile, it's not like I'm adding a lot with my presences anyway. Except perhaps for the appreciation of the guards that I'm willing to sit outside and to eat breakfast with them, this I've been told means a lot to them. I am "Mr Brian" to them which is respectful, and I feel undeserved, but makes me wish I had more food/water/warm clothes to share.

My short term plan is to stay in the house as long as I can find enough food and, well, toilet paper but when the logistics/security becomes too difficult some desert friends and I plan to head to the Bahariya Oasis, if we can get out of the city safely.

I have buckets more to tell you but I'm in the middle of packing the truck in case we do have to leave as I suspect that will be done rather quickly. So I'll leave my stories for another time.

We Are Back From The Desert

Good trip and great weather. Cloudless skies and zero wind for the entire trip.

Cleaning Up After the Sandstorm

Ahmed and Nabil cleaning up. You can just see the square of sand on the bottom of the pool that Ahmed hasn't yet vacuumed up.

Sand everywhere, except the dogs bed, that, I was required to clean first thing.

Nabil beating the dust, and the stuffing, out of our dilapidated cushions. We only have 6 months left so haven't bother to replace them, and you can see why.

The Second Day of This Sandstorm

A sandstorm, strong winds and lashing rains swept across Egypt on Sunday, closing several ports and disrupting traffic in the Suez Canal, officials said

Mosques are seen through fog and cold weather in Cairo December 11, 2010. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah

Officials at Cairo airport said preventive measures were being taken after visibility was reduced to 300 metres (yards).

Twenty-six ships were barred from entering the Suez Canal and 29 vessels delayed for three hours before they could move through the waterway linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

The waterway was hit by poor visibility and winds of up to 40 knots an hour, said an official at the canal, Egypt's third-largest source of foreign revenue after tourism and remittances from expatriate workers.

High waves also closed all eight of Egypt's main Red Sea ports on Sunday for the second consecutive day, as well its Mediterranean ports of Alexandria and Dekheila, officials said.

Meteorologists said the bad weather was expected to last through Monday and have advised people to stay indoors due to a sandstorm that has blanketed the Egyptian capital.

With temperatures having plunged since Friday night, thunderstorms and heavy rains have lashed the north coast, Red Sea region and the Sinai peninsula.

I don't know anything about the heavy rains but we must have half of Libya in our living room. Brian

From Ahram Online

Todays Weather

Never mind the rain icons for Saturday and Sunday, it isn't going to happen.

Myths by Bob Rz

Earth Observatory: Nile River Delta at Night

One of the fascinating aspects of viewing Earth at night is how well the lights show the distribution of people. In this view of Egypt, we see a population almost completely concentrated along the Nile Valley, just a small percentage of the country’s land area.

The Nile River and its delta look like a brilliant, long-stemmed flower in this astronaut photograph of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea, as seen from the International Space Station. The Cairo metropolitan area forms a particularly bright base of the flower. The smaller cities and towns within the Nile Delta tend to be hard to see amidst the dense agricultural vegetation during the day. However, these settled areas and the connecting roads between them become clearly visible at night. Likewise, urbanized regions and infrastructure along the Nile River becomes apparent (see also The Great Bend of Nile, Day & Night.)

Another brightly lit region is visible along the eastern coastline of the Mediterranean—the Tel-Aviv metropolitan area in Israel (image right). To the east of Tel-Aviv lies Amman, Jordan. The two major water bodies that define the western and eastern coastlines of the Sinai Peninsula—the Gulf of Suez and the Gulf of Aqaba—are outlined by lights along their coastlines (image lower right). The city lights of Paphos, Limassol, Larnaca, and Nicosia are visible on the island of Cyprus (image top).

Scattered blue-grey clouds cover the Mediterranean Sea and the Sinai, while much of northeastern Africa is cloud-free. A thin yellow-brown band tracing the Earth’s curvature at image top is airglow, a faint band of light emission that results from the interaction of atmospheric atoms and molecules with solar radiation at approximately 100 kilometers (60 miles) altitude.

Link

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NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010

NASA GOES-13 Full Disk view of Earth September 24, 2010, originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

reddit.com

My dad spent 26 years in the Armed Services as part of Strategic Air Command. He's become a bit of a poet in his golden years. Today he sent me this:

_

In Arlington we lay to rest

our bravest and our very best.

We send our children off to war

defending what we soon ignore.

_

“You’re free to worship,” so we say.

“But if you’re muslim, go away.”

Is this what they were dying for:

Intolerance, and nothing more?

_

Must one be christian to obtain

the liberties that we proclaim?

These soldiers died for liberty.

They didn’t die for bigotry.

_

So look upon this hallowed field,

not only crosses are revealed.

For you’ll see stars and crescents too.

They also sacrificed for you.

_

In Arlington we lay to rest

our bravest and our very best.

They knew what they were dying for.

It’s something that we can’t ignore.

• Joe G

EDIT: I've always been proud of my old man.

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