Canada Geese

This is from before Egypt, on a walk along the Ottawa river. This goose took serious offense to the pictures and eventually chased me off

Bonjour Montreal!

As we approached landing

Almost Home!

Every so often on the plane, they would post a picture of the flight path on a map on monitors through out the plane, which is the only reason I know this next picture is somewhere near Iqaluit.

Cairo from the Sky

I took these pictures very shortly after take off. It really hits you when you see the land from the sky how much greener the Canadian landscape is

Eleven and a half hours of plane ride

I took a direct flight from Cairo International to Pierre Elliot Trudeau International in Montreal. Going to Egypt was a 9 hr flight, but coming back, the wind is not on your side, and the trip is about two hours longer. Add to this my laryngitis and the fact that every time I tried to lie down, I coughed up my lungs, and the final result = no sleep. On the bright side, I practiced my Arabic reading subtitles for "Memoirs of a Geisha", which they aired. Every so often, I would open the little screen to look out my window at the clouds / sky / land beneath. Here are some of the results.

Alex at Night

I only realized once I was back at home that I had no pictures of Cairo at night and no pictures of Alex during the day... Oh well, too late for this trip I guess

Mediterranean Near Alex (Fakhr Al-Bahar)

We spent two days at a spot 40 minutes from Alexandria called Fakhr Al-Bahar on the Mediterranean. The beaches were closed for swimming because the waves were too high, but it was still beautiful to look at

Blackberry Ad in Arabic

This is one of my favourite pictures from the trip. Despite the advertising, I only know one person inEgypt who has a PDA, and it's not a blackberry, though just about everyone has a cell phone.




I took the next two pictures as we were approaching Alexandria on the highway, trying to catch the cars and the buildings on the other side of the road. Alas, as the daylight was fading, I used night mode and the movement with the shutter open had the effect below. Though the buildings were actually quite beautiful and I'm sad I couldn't capture them, I quite like the final result.

Pyramids from my window

Cairo Streets

The bus ride from Cairo to Alexandria is 4 hours long, although two of these hours is in Cairo traffic. The pictures below are scenes from my window as the bus winds its way through the city

















The Meridien Heliopolis lobby

More Egypt Pics

There was at least one wedding a night at the hotel we were at. This was the car that one bride and groom were going to leave in. My cousins and I tried to look get a look at them at their "zaffa" but the crowd was too big.




















The heat was really bad around noon so no one would come out to sit in the garden until afternoon.


























Grand Tiba Rose






















Garden outside the Grand Tiba Rose


























Fake palm trees. There were green ones too.

Trip to Egypt June 06 - Day 1

The view from our gate at Trudeau Airport in Montreal

Traffic in Cairo on the way to my aunt's house

From the window seat in Cairo

The mosque by the airport

I have a blog!

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!