Ryan’s Travels

So, I’ve been quiet on here - but a lot has been going on. Let me fill you in on all the details!

A few months back, Kelly & I made (yes, made) our Wedding rings. We found this place called the Wedding Ring Workshop located in Hatton Gardens. We spent the whole day there, from about 10am onwards making our rings. We started with a single piece of platinum (that’s how I roll!) and after our firing, beating, squishing, bending, polishing and welding, we made our rings. They even look like proper ones! It was such a great day out, and we highly recommend it to anyone who is looking for making their wedding rings even more special. They even plied us with Champagne and Beer and provided us with Lunch.

Since then, I’ve become an Uncle. Well honorary until it’s official On June 24 @ 7:34pm Lil Joe Palmer arrived in the world weighing in at a colossus 8 pounds 13 inches. He’s only little, but he packs a punch. For his 0th birthday, in true nerd style, I bought him a domain name.

What else? Oh our friends Clare & Dom got married up in Cambridge at the lovely Cambridge Arms Hotel where Kelly & I (mainly Kelly) were the official Wedding Photographers. What an honour! We went up the night before, and were snapping the lucky couple from about 8am until 2am that night (I’d say the last few hours of shots were done with a whiskey in my hand ;)) You can check out the finished photos over at Kelly’s photo site. Just quietly, it’s something we’re considering taking up seriously next year. Need your wedding photographed?

Rick & Emma came to visit us, which was super. We were able to celebrate Karpy’s birthday with them, which was great! I visited Ian, Rachel & Gabby over in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada and while there I also checked out Toronto. After that I was in San Francisco (again) for WWDC

So with a Wedding coming up, it’s getting more real. ‘Wedding’ things keep happening, which can only mean one thing - it’s coming up! Kelly had her hen weekend last weekend, and facebook was awash with pictures and videos of Kelly’s cocktail making and cheer-leading. I spent the weekend last with Karpy (he’s had a knee op done) keeping him company (read: drinking beer, playing Wii & Poker)

So it’s going to be a very busy few months now until our Wedding. I’ve got my UK stag up to Newcastle, UK on the last weekend of August, then I’m likely off to Paris for work, followed by Athens for work & pleasure (Kelly’s coming out with me!) and then Kelly’s 30th Birthday!! We’re going to head down to the Fat Duck for Lunch for her day, we can’t wait!!

I will hopefully write soon, with updates on how my upcoming events go!

- Ryan.

So yesterday, I finally did it. After months of training, recurring knee injuries, twice weekly physio appointments, countless litres of water, loads of carbs, and 26.2 miles, I did it. I crossed the line of my first ever marathon - the Edinburgh Marathon. In a time of 04:25:38 I’m super pleased with my time, and the experience. I’m hurting like a @£!$@€# this morning, but I enjoyed it.

I have experienced a new feeling - “The Wall” - at just after 20 miles in, I was tired and I wanted to walk or slow down for a bit, but after doing so my body realised it had me exactly where it wanted me - not running and decided to punish me back by triggering all the joints in my body to cause me pain at the same time. This was the hardest part - between 20 and 23 miles markers, I knew that I still had 6 miles to go, and I was knackered. I wasn’t going to let it beat me, so I kept on, walking and running when I could. The worst thing was, I was probably on 4:00 pace, but I just couldn’t keep it up. I hadn’t done enough training leading up to the race, since I injured my knee in March - my longest run was a half marathon only, and in the 2 months leading up to it, my longest run was only 10km. So I knew I wasn’t going to get any amazing times like 4:00, I just wanted to finish and get my banana, water and medal. The crowd support was pitiful near the end, I could have really done with some cheers between 21-25 miles, but there was no one there. It wasn’t until the last 400 yards or so that there was a crowd presence, and I nearly cried - I was so tired, so relieved and so overwhelmed by it all. Dan was yelling to me from the crowd, but I couldn’t hear him - all I could see were those pressure pads at the end, and I knew I had to get there and it was over.

I didn’t know what to do, it was over. No more running. This was the order of importance: Lie down, Medal, Banana, Water, Shoes off. Thankfully the Speeds were right at the finish line and had all my clothes to change into so I quickly changed out of my shoes into my birkenstocks - ahh! I then downed some weird tasting concoction that Speedy had made me, and he swore by it. He said it’d make you feel like you’d never run the marathon - he assured me it was Cocaine or other such illegal drug, but merely a carbo-load and protein building drink. It tasted like moist concrete mix.

After this, it was straight to GBK for a massive burger and then off to the train station where Dan & I got our train home. I was wide awake the whole day, and train journey - it must have been the adrenaline pulsing through my body - which was expecting more punishment. I got home by 10:30 and after talking to Kelly to find out she was sitting on a beach in Honolulu, I slept what I think was the most well deserved sleep ever.

This weekend I took another big step into adulthood, and I moved in with my wife-to-be, into a new flat. This time it’s a proper grown up flat, with nice bathroom and kitchen and an extractor fan. It even has windows that shut properly.

On Saturday, it must be said that Karpy was amazing. Amazing, why? Jame gave up his entire Saturday to help Kelly & I move and it must be said he is a great friend for doing this. I was up at 9am to go and pick up the rental van and then back again at the flat by about 10am (nothing like driving a medium wheeled based van through Central London!) and then it all began. James and Kelly then helped load the van and then again off the other side. We repeated this process (with some time spent driving to, and buying things in, Ikea) until 2am that night.

So 2am wasn’t the biggest deal. It was the fact that our new grown up pad, is also grown up and is on the 3rd floor This meant carting our very large wardrobe up these flights of stairs, and getting into our room, where the ceiling is only ~1inch off the very top of the wardrobe. You can probably guess, it’s difficult spinning and turning a wardrobe that size in a corridor half the width and about the same height as one of the panels :/

The next morning, I was up again at 8am to return the van. Karpy came with me, as he wanted to be in central London to catch the NRL grand final, and then I came back to the flat where Kelly and I assembled all our belongings and the newly purchased Ikea furniture. 10pm, it was bed time. It’s tiring being a grown up, and we’re still not completely moved in!

So summer in Europe finally made it here. And it’s brilliant! The last few weekends Kelly, James and I have taken full advantage of it and spent our weekends out lounging about in the sun in the park across the road from our flat It’s been lovely! So what else have I been up to?

Well, the 3 of us went and saw Prince the other night - at the o2 Arena which was absolutely brilliant! Such a great night out, I haven’t gone to see a live band in a LONG LONG time. Prince was great, but my personal highlight was the solo during intermission of Prince’s saxophonist who was able to circular breath which made for the most amazing held note!

This week though, I was in Tallinn (again :)) and decided I would try my hand at some Kite Surfing! After talking to many people at work about how fantastic it is, and they all reckoned it was better than Snowboarding, I had to try my hand at it. So Janno and I drove to a place called Roosta (pronounced Roar-stah) in the middle of the Estonian countryside so I could try my hand at some Kite Surfing lessons with Katrin who came recommend to me by a colleague @ work. It was brilliant! 2 hours of lessons at the ‘beach’ (I never thought I’d go to the beach in Estonia) I very nearly picked it up. On my very first go I got up, but subsequent tries I just couldn’t seem to nail it - it’s quite difficult but I quickly appreciated the appeal. I would love to try it more often, but like snowboarding and ice hockey it’s a very expensive sport to get into - which is why the 2 hours (private) lessons were 1500EEK.

So next weekend we’re hopefully off to where Kelly went to Uni - Aberystwyth (pronounced Aber-wrist-with) for the long weekend, so that should be some great fun!

All in all It’s been a great Summer so far!

- Ryan.

So today, I did it. I’m sick and tired of spending £8.99 each month on a game that I never play. The idea of ‘killing off’ my virtual character that I poured hoursdays into was painful, but I finally got the courage up and did it! It’s a great game, but only if you’ve got the time and it’s designed that way. It’s impossible to level up unless you play for at least 4-5 hours at a time of which I cannot afford. The pure time taking to walk about the place just saps time, let alone waiting for others to come online and play with you that aren’t level 60 or 70. Join a guild they say? No thanks!

I’ve found a much better game to play now - Zelda - Ocarina of Time, it’s 9 years old but it’s amazing and I can pick it up from where I left at any time I see fit without paying some mega corporation £8.99 a month for the privilege of!

So the other week Kelly and I visited Hrvatska (Croatia). We decided some time ago to tag along with our good friends - Chris & Diana’s trip they had planned there. So Chris & Diana stayed with us for a few days in London before we flew off to Rijeka on EasyJet via Luton Airport (Which I don’t know why they even call it London Luton as it’s not even in London!) with no clue of any plans what we were to do, or where we were to go for the week.

So we decided (thankfully Diana can speak hrvatski jezik - Croatian) that we would stay as close to the airport as possible since we only had 5 days. We also really wanted to spend time lounging about and at the ‘beach’ (I used this term loosely) Upon arriving we tried to rent a caravan or something equally hippy, only to find out they don’t rent these from Hertz - but the Hertz guys offered to drive us (for 200 kuna) into Krk town and ensure we had some accommodation. It was all rather smooth - within 2 hours or so of landing we were in our newly acquired accommodation and walking about the town! The flat/house was lovely and we had our own balcony and kitchen for about £5 a night each!

Whilst in Krk Town we took a “Fish Picnic”. This essentially involved sitting a boat for a really long time driving over crystal clear water until we stopped at a ‘beach’ (a beach of the Brighton Beach variety - I.e little or no sand) where the boat moored about 200m off shore and we had to swim (or get a small boat) into the shore. But along the way we discovered Croatia’s love of Nudity (I think it’s marked as FKK on the map). We’ve never seen so many old man’s Willies and fat old ladies naked in the same place. Picture a (fat) man in his 60’s spread eagle hanging off the end of his boat - then you begin to get the picture, It was truly amazing. After lunch on the boat - which was the best fish I’ve ever eaten, we visited an ex-Women’s concentration camp, which proved to be the only cultural experience for Kelly & I (except for the nakedness) on our trip to Croatia. We learnt all about the lovely communist dictator Tito, whom the women loved so much they wrote his name in rocks on the hill above (think Hollywood, but with rocks) - quite a strange place, and to think this camp was still in use during my lifetime! You only think these happened back before colour was invented.

So we stayed in Krk town for 3 nights, and then after this we decided to hit another town on the island Krk - Baška (pronounced Bashkah) despite warnings in the guide book about how difficult it was to find accommodation here. After 2 hours of Kelly & Diana walking about, we managed to secure a place in a single room (the other place we had 4 rooms) for the same price.

This accommodation was our first experience of what I’ve dubbed - Baka Mafia. Baka in Croatian means Grandmother, and Diana kept referring to this lady as Baka. I think it was because she was old enough to be everyone’s Grandmother - but Diana said it was because she acted like a typical Croatian grandmother. So when Diana and Kelly were looking for a Sobe (Private room in Croatian) given to them by the tourist agency - this lady asked if they wanted a room, they enquired how much and she told them €40 for 4 persons a night. They took a look and told her they’d better go and see the other place they’d said they would look at first. So the girls went to the second place, didn’t like it and decided to come back. Unbeknownst to Diana and Kelly, this Baka then phoned the Baka at the original Sobe - (the Mafia working it’s talons) and when they said to the lady they wished to book the room, she said it was €53 a night! The cheek! They managed to get her down to €50, but it was hot and they were tired and there wasn’t much else around.

I can sum the other highlights as such: Lots of time spent on Pedalo’s in the blazing sunshine; an afternoon of Windsurfing, nearly breaking my nose and Chris ending up in Italy; Our impromptu pub crawl, which saw us swap names and speak like ze Germans; Miš Maš (pronounced Mish Mash), my new favourite drink which is Red Wine mixed with Fanta - basically a poor man’s Sangria; Seks on ze beach mit umbrella’s; The Aqua Gun water slide; Squid wrapped in Bacon, mmmm; My McDonalds meal in Rijeka - McCountry burger - basically a pork Big Mac; Imitation/pirated sun glasses; and finally the complete lack of variety of food - if you didn’t like Pasta, Pizza, Seafood - you were rather stuck!

All in all during our trip we had a brilliant time. The Croatia I saw wasn’t beautiful in the typical sense, the surroundings weren’t lush, and there wasn’t any sand at the beach but it was lovely all the same. The town (city?) of Rijeka was dull and we saw the tourist sites in about 1 hour - but it was amazing to see all the old communist buildings and the sheer amount of disrepair that had happened. It wasn’t nearly as cheap as people make it out to be, but it was so nice to walk down the promenade and not be bombarded with people trying to sell you things or being yelled at by large groups of lairy British tourists - I think we were the only English speaking people in town (hence speaking like ze Germans).

Big thanks to Diana and Chris for allowing us to tag along and especially to Diana for the Croatian, saved us all both money and time plenty of times!

Why Hello there!

So this is my first entry in some time now, how time flies! My last entry was Chamonix in erm, Feb. So since Feb so much has happened! Most important of which, I’ve recently got engaged to the love of my life - Kelly. I’ve recently been to Tallinn, Estonia about 10 times, Belfast in Northern Island and loads of other places that I seem to forget right now. My lil sis is coming to visit me this November, which I’m super excited about - and most of my time these days is taken up by wedding plans!

So I’ll leave it there and I’ll endeavour to try and update this more often, with less words. That idea you’ll get an idea of what I’m actually upto.

- Ryan.

First snow trip of 2007! It was also Kelly’s first time to the Snow… Kelly & I went to Chamonix with her sister in-law’s family + friends, flying with the package tour holiday group - Inghams. We travelled up to Kelly’s brothers house the night before (Friday) and left for LGW at some ungodly hour (like 4am) for our ~6am flight to Genève where we were to get our 1 1/4 hour bus transfer to Chamonix (yes, like a whole other country!) As soon as we arrived, we dropped our bags in the hotel lobby and the rest of the group - Kelly, Marc, Gill, Chris, Val, Speedy (Mike), Kirstie, and the baby Becky) went out for lunch, and I decided to take myself up the mountain for a few hours of snowboarding!

I went to Le Brevent, as it was within walking distance of the hotel and I hadn’t worked out the busses yet. €32.50 later, I had my 4 hour lift pass and was on a gondala on the way up the mountain. It had only snowed twice this season, so it was very icy - but because of this it was super warm and lovely and sunny!

The next day I bought my “Mont-Blanc Unlimited” pass (€223), and we all (except Kirstie and Becky who stayed back) went to Argentière for the day, where Kelly was to try snowboarding on a mountain for the first time. The others went off to do Red runs and the like, while Kelly and I stayed on the easiest runs possible (Blues - not a good choice for a first timer). Kelly did really well - managing to come up the chair lift with no problem - either the height or the departure. She tried her best - but by lunch time she was very tired and had hurt her knee when I tried to stop her from sliding down a cliff and ended up making her fall over Kelly went back after lunch, and I continues on for the rest of the day. Conditiions were still the same as yesterday - no snow, sunny and warm.

The next day, we all went back to Argentière, but Kelly and I continued onto Le Tour, where they had much better skiing for beginners - more and bigger green runs. Unfortunately - there they had only drag/poma lifts - so it wasn’t so easy for Kelly - but once again she came through and did it fine! But by lunch time, she’d hurt herself again (the knee) and we decided to head back to Argentière and meet the others for lunch. After lunch we all went as high as we could possibly go, and Kelly took some photos - while the others (except Val - she wasn’t well) and I did the long run from the top. After that, Kelly + Val went back to the Chalet.

That evening it began to snow! And it didn’t stop for two days! The next day - Tuesday, Kelly stayed back in the Chalet with Val, while the others and I went up to Le Tour, to get the first runs of the day after the snow. We were at the lift by 8:30am only to find the lifts didn’t open until 9, so we had to wait. Once we were up there - it was amazing, the Piste’s were untouched and the Off-Piste (next to the Piste, didn’t have to go far) was masses of perfect powder. It was the best snowboarding I think I’ve ever had - Speedy and I ended up leaving the others and went over to the more advanced runs on the other side, and did the other side of the mountain (all runs) before coming back and finding the others. When we found them, we’d completed the whole mountain while they were doing the same run over and over We then we had lunch, and the cloud cover became thicker and visibility dropped - we all went back out and over to the other side, where despite not being able to see in front of us, it was amazing Snowboarding, and we stayed out until 3pm, as we wanted to be back for 4.

The next day, we took it easy and weren’t on the mountains until midday, so we decided (it was only Marc, Gill, Chris and I today) to go to Brevent - where the visibility was horrible - I really didn’t enjoy it at first as I dug a back edge in and majorly did myself a mischeif to my shoulder + left bum cheek. It got better later on, but not much. I still enjoyed just cruising in the power, but it got difficult as the day went on - visibility dropped and it became more icy.

Thursday - I decided to take a day off and Kelly and I hung out in the town and had a lovely lunch together and then we wrote in the snow outside the hotel ‘Happy Anniversary’ as it was Marc + Gill’s 1 year wedding anniversary. It was a lovely day, and it was nice to chill out as we’d had early starts every day. We also discovered earlier that week that Chris had a fear of Twix as he found the taste ‘Shammy’ - whatever that meant. So Kelly and I bought a large bag of fun sized Twix, and scattered them through his bed, shoes, clothes, etc. while he was out (hehe). It snowed pretty much all day today, and visisbility in the town was bad - I imagine it was worse up the slopes.

The next day, Chris, Speedy and I left very early to go on the tour of Valle Blanche. This was amazing, exciting, super, and horrible all at the same time. We met our group @ 8:30am, and I was the only Snowboarder in the group (I would regret this) and we were all given harnesses + avalanche system things, so they could find us if we got lost. We got the two gondola’s up to Aiguille du Midi - the highest point I’ve ever been - 3842m above sea level. The gondola’s get to this height from Chamonix (which itself is about 1000m above sea level) in 20mins - needless to say I was feeling quite ill + dizzy with the height. From here, we took some photos and then walked across what can only be described as a footpath down a slippery snow slope with a sheer drop either side. While we were all tied together and attached to our guide(s) I was still slighty sh*tting myself. We had to hold onto our Skis + Board, whilst walking down this path. Once we go to the bottom, our descent began. We started at about 10am, and were to get to the bottom at ~3pm, with a ~45min stop for lunch. So all in all we were to be coming down - 1 run, for 3-4 hours! One problem though - as I was the only snowboarder, they took a route suited for skiers - lots of flats, lots of stopping and lots of deeppowder. This was horrible for my board, especially as I had it in duck stance - and I kept stopping and falling over, as I had to stop with the group and if I went ahead I risked falling into a crevase, or if I stayed back I’d run into the the slow skiiers in the group on the flats and then stop - and have to walk in 1m deep powder :/ While the views were amazing, I was throughroughly over it by lunchtime when we arrived to the Refuge point. I wanted to come down in a lift - but there was no such option. So I took some time, got my energy back - thanks to Speedy carrying all our supplies, and I changed my board stance so I was standing right back - and It got better in the afternoon. There wasn’t as much powder, I knew how to ride the snow a bit better, and the board stance was much better. The views were amazing. Eventually we made our way back down to the bottom of the run, through a field of rocks (sorry board!) and we then had to walk up a huge set of stairs (well it was huge after the long run we’d done). One of the girls in the group had slipped and fallen and twisted her ankle or something (I was so tired I was prepared to leave her for dead frankly) but luckily it was when we were quite close to the end, and she would be OK - plenty of people around. After I got to near the top of the stairs - Kelly phones to say she’s hurt herself badly on her first run of the day, was on her own, and was on her way to the Hospital. :/ This made the decision to leave the group very easy - Chris + Speedy and I got the next tram down the mountain to get back in time. As time went on, I found out that Kelly was with Marc (he was on the same mountain with her and had just left her - and managed to find her again) and she was at a Doctors, and had dislocated her knee. She was OK - and I waited back in the hotel for her after returning at about 4pm.

That next day, we got a 7am flight back to Geneva - and Kelly nearly didn’t get on - the tour rep (who was a complete cow, really uninspiring, and ripped us off the Valle Blanche tour (charging us €67 each x 3, when a guide on our own privately is €200! - also telling me I’d be fine in a group of Skiiers, when they have groups specifically designed for boarders - and they take different routes)) over-reacted when she saw Kelly in crutches, so Kelly had to take her knee brace off + crutches and limp on to the plane, and the jam her leg into a plane seat - she wouldn’t even try and see if she could get a seat allocated for her. Anyways, she was crap OK!

The snow was brilliant (in the end) and I got to snowboard on some real powder - we had a great time - I brought the Wii, and we played that just about every night - everyone loved it, and I think they all want one now! It was a shame Kelly hurt her leg, but she had a good time otherwise, although it was a bit crap for her when we were all out on the snow and she couldn’t because she was hurt.

Check out my photos here

Phew! Got back yesterday afternoon from a very tiring 16 days in مص (Egypt). Kelly and I flew with Luftansa to Cairo, via Frankfurt where we stayed a night in the InterCity Hotel. It was a ~4 hour flight from Frankfurt (FRA) to Cairo (CAI) so we arrived at Cairo in the late Afternoon where we were met by Muhammad (the first of many) and escorted to the Cataract Pyramids Resort which is an Egyptian 5 Star hotel and not nearly as fancy as it sounds. We had about an hour to settle in our room before the tour briefing.

After the briefing we paid all the local fees, paid for the optional tours, and bought myself (Kelly already had a legit one) a dodgy ISIC card for 130 LE. We were then off onto a Nile Cruise for dinner which was a buffet and featured a Belly Dancer, and a dance called Sema, or “Sufi Whirling” which involved a guy in a dress spinning around 800 times (one guy in our group counted) it was amazing!

The next morning, we were up early to go and see the world’s oldest standing step pyramid - سقارة (Saqqara). It was pretty amazing to find such a momentual structure in the middle of what appeared to me like a farming village. Despite Saqqara being one of the oldest building’s in the world, it didn’t quite have the same effect on me as what it was like to see the Great Pyramid’s of Giza, the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient world.

It seems I left this blog entry for some time now, so I figured I’ll summarise what was left. We got an horrible 1st class overnight train that smelt of piss and the door near where I was sitting kept banging and kept us awake all night. Once off the train we arrived in Aswan and checked out the Philae Temple which we go to by going by boat - very cool! It was at this point I reliased how grateful I was we had a guide - once we arrived at the train station we were literally surrounded by people offering to sell us things and simply bombard us. Thankfully we were whisked onto the bus organised by the tour and onto our hotel. We checked in (the name escapes me, but it was quite nice if I remember correctly). After that we went by bus to check out the unfinished obelisk, which we simply parked outside and peered in as we didn’t want to spend the entrace cost to get in as you could see just as well from the outside.

The next day we boarded our Felluca, which in my opinion was the best part of the tour. We spent 2 full days lazing about in the sun on the Felluca, which involved the following: Lazing about in the Sun, Swimming in the Nile (yes I did it and I didn’t die), Pooing on the shore, Drinking beer, nearly getting burgled on the boat, Visting a nubian Village (where we had local food - mmm). It was brilliant - the weather was amazing and we had such a great time. Whilst in Aswan we took a very early bus trip down to أبو سنبل (Abu Simbel) - Which is why people go to Egypt. It was truly amazing, impressive and overwhelming in size and grandeur. We arrived there for sun-up which meant we were on the bus at some ridiculous time, about 5am. This allowed us to be one of the first to see the sight.

We also took a balloon flight over the temple of the kings, which was funny because Kelly forgot she was afraid of heights until she was actually in the balloon on the way up. Amazing views, but another very early start - we were up in the sky for sunrise (we saw our fair share of Sunrises!)

We eventually went over to الغردقة (Hurghada) where we spent a night before getting our horrible speed boat over to Dahab. The boat was so rocky and Kelly and I were nearly sick the entire trip. We thought it would be more pleasant taking this 90min boat trip as apposed to an overnight bus trip - we weren’t so sure!

Once in Dahab, I was convinced to take a scuba diving course with Kelly. Unfortunately because Kelly wasn’t feeling so well and the fact the guy kept yelling at Kelly, she decided not continue - which meant I continued the course without her, which also meant we did not spend Christmas day together (well the evening at least) so that was a bit disappointing. But I managed to get PADI qualified after only 3 days of diving. After our 3 days of diving, we were up very early the next morning (or was it we didn’t go to sleep I can’t remember) for a drive to طور سيناء (Mount Sinai) of Moses’ burning bushes fame.

Climbing Mt Sinai was one of the most physically training hike Kelly and I had ever undertaken, and hopefully will ever taken so ill-prepared. Keep in mind we’re in Egypt - you think of Deserts, Heat, and Pyramids - you don’t think about Snow, Cold and Sub-zero conditions. We started our walk at about 1am, and it took about 3 hours to get to the top. As we neared the top, the conditions worsened so much so it was down to about -12°C. My feet were wet from the snow, and I was cold, really cold. Near the top Kelly was really feeling tired, but we had no choice but to continue as it was pitch dark and we had no shelter if we went back. We were willed on by the fact that we knew there would be shelter at the top, and warmth. Well, when we got there we were crammed into a small ‘hut’ with no power and the kind of blankets you get at hostels for warmth. They were trying to charge us for these blankets - it was mayhem. We went to lay down but they said we had to get up as another hundred or so people were to huddle into this shelter in a few hours. We couldn’t believe it - I was shivering like I never knew - teeth chattering Kelly (one of the reasons why she’s a keeper) made it her mission to keep me alive and warm - I really felt like just going to sleep and I couldn’t get warm - what with my cold wet feet it was all through my body. She kept me close to her, and made sure I made it through until sunrise. In the morning, it was mayhem again - hundreds more people were up there, and all had taken the good vantage points for sunrise. It was amazing view, and so satifying knowing that we made it up there, but I couldn’t help but be mentally scarred by the expedition the night before. Then we found the worlds worst and most horrible toilet. This toilet was out on a ledge (covered in sheet ice) that had a few hundred metre drop on each side. If you were to make it inside the toilet, due to the wind - your poo wouldn’t successfully make it in the toilet, but rather on the seat. There was more poo on the seat itself than I’ve ever seen in one place. At least it was frozen so it didn’t smell. Pee just blew in the blistering wind.

The trip down was easy - it was warm and satisfying knowing we were going to somewhere warmer, with toilets. May I suggest if you read this because you plan to do this trip, I suggest the following:

• Take warm clothes - I meant it
• Wear plastic bags over your socks inside your shoes - it’ll keep your feet warm and may save you
• Time your walk so you arrive at the top with 15 minutes (not hours) of sunrise. Sleeping up there is HORRIBLE
• Go to the toilet before you leave, I mean it.
• Be aware of the children at the bottom wanting to swap you your gloves and other warm clothes for souvenirs, you’ll need the warmth and it’s junk.

After this mammoth walk, we went into St Catherine’s Monastry (as it opened) and I got to see part of what is believed to be Moses’ burning bush. Amazing. We then got a bus back to Cairo (via the Suez canal) and into the same hotel we stayed at before. On our second last day we decided to take a day trip to Alexandria (which I strongly do not recommend going with Travel Talk - it’s a rip off, you can get yourself there for about 1/10th the cost). The day we decided to go happened to be the حج (Hajj) which basically meant all the tourist sites were shut, and those that were open were rammed full of Children (who all seemed to be called Mohammad - we met a group of about 25 kids and i think 19 of them were Mohammad). And outside the tourist sites, everyone was slaughtering their sheep on the streets - it was horrible. Needless to say we didn’t see very much except for dead sheep and Mohammad’s.

On our last day in Egypt, which happened to New years eve - I hoped there would be some awesome New Years celebrations in Cairo. I was very very wrong - Egypt being a muslim country doesn’t really follow new years eve and doesn’t drink (i couldn’t buy alcohol during the Hajj) so Sameh very kindly invited us around to his place for the night for a Egyptian feast. We had some very yummy dinner and then watched some Egyptian tv, and then at midnight - a coke ad came on counted down from 10, and then normal TV resumed, It was bizarre. We then called our cab and headed back to the airport for our 4am flight back to clean, english speaking, polite England.

All in all we had a brilliant time, with the Felluca being the highlight - but it was somewhat ruined by the rude and obscene locals at times. I highly recommend Egypt as a travel destination, but please be prepared.

This time with Video evidence.