Fata Morgana

After two months in Italy, I arrived in Egypt last Sunday, where I will be living the next three months, together with 11 girls and 17 guys. This also means I just added a new country and continent to the list of places I've been. That gets me up to 4 continents now, I personally don't think that's such a bad score for my age :)

The first two days we lived in a hotel. Here's a picture by night and by day, taken from my room:

Impressive huh? It's just a pity it's a just a little too cold for the pool. I hope I can try it in March. We're making up for missing the pool by sitting outside and smoking 'shisha' at night. They look (and smell!) great and come in all flavours, apple, lemon, mint, rose... you name it. Yesterday evening we moved into villa's in a compound. They're beautiful on the outside and ok inside. Anyway, I have a room with a wooden floor and a big window with a desert view. I didn't take pictures of yet but I'll do that soon. We have a pool table in one of the villas and English TV (hurrah!) and there's a playstation coming soon :-)

The atmosphere here in Egypt is very different from Europe. There's people outside everywhere, shops don't close till midnight and even though there's definitely not as many cars as in Belgium, the cars there are make a lot more noise at night. The desert road between Cairo and Alexandria seems to be quite a busy place place after all. Oh year, and there's a Mac Donald's along it!

On the whole, I'm not really culture-shocked. I'm more just in a bit of a haze about being here and my surreal life living in a white marble villa that looks like it could have belonged to Alladin. I really like it. Ah yeah, and I like the food too by the way. Lots of vegetables and they really know how to make them! I had egg plant and artichok yesterday, and it tasted brilliant. Even though my taste buds loved the food from the start, my stomach had to adjust to the spices a bit in the beginning. You know, it's that situation where you eat a lot because you like it and then spend the next hour surviving the stomach cramps. I learned my lesson and am taking it more easy on the quantities now :-)

Finally for those of you who are wondering if I still look the same, here's a picture I took of myself with a little help from the hotel room mirrow:

You see? No need to worry about me!