It's raining!

Yes that's right! There's an amazing thunderstorm here right now and the rain is pouring from the roof in bucketfulls. The whole terrain is flooding over because Egypt is not used to weather like this. I was outside just a minute ago watching it and one of my Arab friends here told me they have weather like this each year around Januari - Februari. And it may last for a week. That's good hope for our practical exercise starting tomorrow... We'll be soaked!

Well, it's been ages since I last posted. And I've done SO MUCH in the meantime. I've been to hospital twice, seen the pyramids, seen the new library in Alex, but most importantly: I've been cruising up the Nile!!!!

Last week we had three days off and me and four others flew to Luxor, saw some temples and graves (all VERY impressive...) and then rented a little boat which took us up the Nile to Aswan. It was a two day boat trip and it was SO NICE. We had a captain and a cook and the captains little son, and all we had to do was lie in the sun on the roof and float along and see some temples along the Nile from time to time. We also swam in the Nile!!!! Quite safe because there's no crocodiles anymore below the Aswan dam. And then from Aswan we started our 18 hour train journey home. I've got to start preparing my practical now, and do another project as well. It's really hard getting back into the swing of work after three glorious days of freedom :-)
I have over 1000 pictures at the moment, whoever wants to come to visit me in Belgium in March can get to see a slideshow of them :-)
I'll post more pictures here later as well, but in the meantime: here's a teaser:

In front of the temple of Hatsjepsout with three of my friends. Nationalities from left to right: Scottish, Belgian (obviously), Columbian and Indian. Add one Algerian girl and our little group is complete.

This is a bar (called 'The English bar opposite the Hilton') in Luxor. We took a horse cart (our main mean of land transport during our trip) to get there. It's the craziest bar I've ever been in. You see those fake fish on the table? Well the table itself is an aquarium with real fish in it. The owner also had a HUGE and beautiful dog. It would pose like a sfinx and allow you to take pictures with it. We thought this place was totally weird when we entered, but when we left about 4? 5? 6? ... hours later, we were all in love with it ;-) (oh yeah, and they had Baileys! My favourite!)

Little boats on the Nile. And probably the most beautiful picture I ever took...

OUR little boat on the Nile! We moored it here by this sandy island to spend the night. Before sleeping (I think if you look closely you can see some of my friends sleeping in the boat) we had a campfire:

Yeah we put some kerosene :-D

It was amazing. Probably the shortest but most intensely enjoyable holiday I ever had :-)