No Egypt trip this year...

Egypt is on hold this year, folks. Kellen gently brought me back from giddy, travel brochure heaven with a reminder that he needs to write a thesis at some point.

The thing is, I've wanted to go to Egypt since I was a very wee child. I wanted to be an egyptologist, one who studies ancient egypt for a living. So when the time came to get a grown-up job and resign myself to two weeks of vacation a year, my consolation was that at least I could travel somewhere cool during those two weeks. Like Egypt.

But maybe it's not worth going broke just yet trying to get there as soon as possible? Kellen is eager to spend some time in Europe with me after he finishes his field work, and that actually sounds like a great idea. It will be cheaper for us and really a bit more relaxed, we won't need to plan the hell out of that trip. So for Vacation 2008 we're going to truck around some European countries in September, don't know where yet but I suspect it's going to be awesome.

Here is why I am pretty excited about deferring Egypt until 2009: this allows more time for some of our favorite people to mull over a trip like that, and save up to join us! Maybe vacationing with us doesn't sound like the best time in the world, fair enough. But maybe some of you are thinking that could be awesome? Because, seriously, what in the world could possibly be better than f***ing Egypt?! Also, a side trip to Jordan and the Dead Sea is in the works along with that.

So friends and neighbors, think about it. Egypt in 2009? Come on...do it! Some ballpark numbers: the tour we want to go on (right now anyway, but we're totally flexible) is a 12 day Egypt/Petra adventure with a Nile cruise, most meals and airfare from New York and back, running about $3500 per person. Really, not too shabby.

I'd post some photos as incentive, but I haven't been there yet. I know it's going to be phenomenal, though.

Assorted minutiae

I think Kellen and I are going to be adding updates to this site weekly. Unless inspiration strikes mid-week, which is certainly possible. This week are a couple of random bits.


One item of news: I hear rumors that my grandmother is thinking about getting herself a computer! So in the event that she does and tunes in here, Hi Grandma! I'm looking forward to exchanging emails with her, I think she's a pretty cool lady. I suck at the phone so don't get to talk to her often.


I think we're in the fourth month of the house next door still for sale. I'll put some pictures on here sometime, it really is pretty amusing. For those of you haven't seen or heard of this thing, it is 3500 poorly planned out square feet on a lot not much bigger than that. They're asking $700,000 for it, which if you lived in Seattle or San Francisco would sound like a serious steal but here, it's a little absurd. I'm not sure who is going to eventually buy a clapboard house on a flood plane, which you can't insure for hurricanes (it's made of wood) that will cost a fortune to cool in the summers. That person who does buy it is a sucker. The American dream, man.


Kellen is in Big Bend National Park this week and will likely have some great photos to share in the next update. He's also finished cutting the wooden thingies (slats? strips?)for his canoe, so will probably start shaping and attaching them to the strongback. I don't know, he'll tell you all about it. Also, his beard is quickly getting out of control. I'm not sure the picture below does it justice, so just take my word for it. He's been growing it out since new year's for a local beard contest (first prize - a nintendo wii, going to the guy with the "best" beard!) and two and a half months of growth is pretty incredible.

Beard getting bigger.

Canoe building. Lots of sawdust.

Just tossed this one because Jack looks so funny with his summer haircut.

See y'all next week!

I've just returned from two weeks in Luanda, the capital city of Angola. Usually when I tell people I'm going to Luanda, they hear "Rwanda" and tell me they saw that movie about it. However, Luanda and Rwanda are quite different, both in situation and geography.

Luanda, Angola is a challenging place to visit. I went for work, we had a variety of meetings and workshops to attend and I gave my first presentation to upper management. Having just emerged from a 25 year civil war in 2002 (which followed an extended skirmish with the Portuguese resulting in Angolan independence), the country is still picking up the pieces. Of course, those pieces would be easier to reconstruct if there weren't so many levels of corruption in the government, a standard story in Africa. It was shocking to walk by the many mercedes, BMWs, Range Rovers, and porsches that line the roads of the city after driving by the jumbled concrete shacks where the general populace live. Granted, we didn't really see heartbreaking evidence of poverty, such as starving, diseased children, but I got the sense those things were there out of our sight.

Our time in Luanda was pretty strictly scheduled, dominated by work (usually because, hell, what else were we going to do?). We were put in a hotel about 6 miles from the office and it typically took us two hours to get to and from there. The traffic in Luanda is something special, for sure. The roads are clogged with cars, but there are no traffic signals or signs to speak of, so you just go when you need to go. If you waited for a safe left turn, you'd die of old age in your car on that spot. There was no food at our hotel so we were forced to eat at the company staffhouse in town (about three blocks from the office) for all meals. Those meals were bleak (however, what is more bleak is that after barely eating anything for two weeks because of the disgusting nature of the food and the raging food poisoning I picked up somewhere along the way, I have not lost a single ounce of body weight. Go figure). We'd finish work and dinner between 7:30 and 8:00 and make the two hour journey back home.

I've posted some pictures below with explanations. Photography is strongly discouraged in Angola, because it is illegal to take a photo that has any police, security or government agent in it. And those guys are everywhere. My reluctance to spend any time in an Angolan jail resulted in a lot of photos taken from our van window. So apologies for the vague blurry nature of these photos.

This is a view of a cross street tantalizingly free of traffic, a pretty clear photo because we had been sitting still on our street for 15 minutes by that point.

Pretty standard Angolan neighborhood, a sea of small houses built of cinder blocks with corregated aluminum roofs surrounding a great big mansion (the yellow building).

A cheerful looking market we weren't able go to.

The only real wildlife I saw the whole time were sad stray dogs and these bats. This whole tree was just infested with them, in the middle of the day! This was in Cabinda, which is the northernmost province of Angola. We were only there for a day, it was actually really pretty with lots of different kinds of trees and green vegetation.

On the weekend we got some beach time in, which was great. The water was pleasant and I didn't get sunburned - that is a rare feat for me.

All in all, my trip was long and tiring. I was somewhat resigned to Angola and all its quirks until four members of my team were held at gunpoint, robbed and then shot at on the street in front of our office. They're all right, the gunmen only shot at their feet, I guess as a warning or something. Apparently things like that happen all the time, most of the people who live there just shrugged at the news. So it is that kind of thing that makes me not ever want to take a long term assignment in Angola, in case any of you were wondering. I understand that muggings happen all the time in the states, but over there you're just walking around with a bulleye.

That's all for now, perhaps subsequent trips will bring more interesting stories to tell. Stay tuned for Kellen's report from Big Bend Nat'l Park, he's going there over Spring Break.

- Sarah