I had hoped to post photos of the various counterfeit car brands this week (Tayota etc; my favourite is GoNow) but my laptop's battery died and I'm working on a shared PC now, so no access to photos.
I have figured out why I have had so much trouble reversing here: I have kept the habit of looking behind over my left shoulder. Here, this means I'm looking down the side of the car rather than the centre as with a right-hand drive. Even having realised this, I still have to remind myself to look right instead. (Homer: lucky you got looks, Marge).
Anyhoo. In season: peaches, figs, grapes, excellent mangoes, plums, melon etc.
You might have gathered this place kind of runs on rumour. They knocked down Souk Thalat to build a park, a car park or a new train station for the trans-North Africa railway (hah). A woman got deported for complaining about jet-skiers who turned out to be more well-connected than she was. Certain hotels and restuarants have been invited to apply for a license to serve 'touristic' drinks (this is a rumour that pops up regularly, but then so did the rumour about 4WDs becoming legal, and then that happened). And the latest: the international airport is about to be demolished. But don't worry, the new one will be ready in 2009! In between, maybe they'll use the shiny new but very small domestic terminal, maybe they'll use the military airport...or maybe they'll use the existing site and check everyone in and out in...wait for it...tents. Yep.
Reading various books about Nice. On that note, no posts for a while, I'm off to Nice. Inshallah I will have a phone line again by the time I get back (they have fixed 4 of the 8 lines that are having troubles, we're just not one of them).
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
General blather - no photos
I forgot to mention last week that as we were passing through London on our way back from Iceland, we attended the Harry Potter premiere. Well, we didn't see the movie, but we were in the square to see the stars arrive. Well, we didn't actually get to see the stars live, but we did get to stand on the you-arrived-too-late-losers side of the square and watch them on a screen. That's just as good as the real thing judging by the number of people taking photos and footage of said screen with their mobile phones.
Anyway. Still no internet at home, obviously (or I'd be able to give you some photos). The public beach is even busier and more colourful than last summer, and this year they even have lifeguard towers - though frankly they're so rickety I wouldn't climb them if I was a lifeguard. I'm not even sure the men I see at the top of them are lifeguards, as opposed to random people who want to sit up there.
I've mentioned the new bus stops before - the other day I even saw one that had a full-sized pull-in bay too. Not that that stops the Iveco buses from stopping in traffic 100m further down the road. Using the pull-in bay would cost 20 seconds, you see. I also saw a street sign in both Arabic and English. So sometimes the rumours are true - I first heard they were going to re-erect the street signs around six months ago, I think, or longer. And now I know the real name of the coast road.
The retro Chrysler Cruisers have made a dramatic entry onto the roads here. Like swallows for summer, first there was one, then there was a handful, and now they're swarming, it's like an entire cargo-ship of the things were released overnight. I love these cars, but they're impractical and fuel-thirsty so I'd never get one. But hey, when fuel's cheaper than milk, why not? On the other hand, I have seen a single lonely Smart car.
Watching Ridicule, French period-comedy. Reading One Red Paperclip, enjoyable enough but doesn't match the master of the gimmick non-fiction genre, Danny Wallace. Eyeing off my Lord Peter short story collection for my next selection (I held out six months, that ain't bad).
Anyway. Still no internet at home, obviously (or I'd be able to give you some photos). The public beach is even busier and more colourful than last summer, and this year they even have lifeguard towers - though frankly they're so rickety I wouldn't climb them if I was a lifeguard. I'm not even sure the men I see at the top of them are lifeguards, as opposed to random people who want to sit up there.
I've mentioned the new bus stops before - the other day I even saw one that had a full-sized pull-in bay too. Not that that stops the Iveco buses from stopping in traffic 100m further down the road. Using the pull-in bay would cost 20 seconds, you see. I also saw a street sign in both Arabic and English. So sometimes the rumours are true - I first heard they were going to re-erect the street signs around six months ago, I think, or longer. And now I know the real name of the coast road.
The retro Chrysler Cruisers have made a dramatic entry onto the roads here. Like swallows for summer, first there was one, then there was a handful, and now they're swarming, it's like an entire cargo-ship of the things were released overnight. I love these cars, but they're impractical and fuel-thirsty so I'd never get one. But hey, when fuel's cheaper than milk, why not? On the other hand, I have seen a single lonely Smart car.
Watching Ridicule, French period-comedy. Reading One Red Paperclip, enjoyable enough but doesn't match the master of the gimmick non-fiction genre, Danny Wallace. Eyeing off my Lord Peter short story collection for my next selection (I held out six months, that ain't bad).
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Iceland
It's been around six months since I took the route to the guesthouse: firstly, I now know why the roads are in such bad condition here; part of the road was shut off so they could re-surface it and yet they had foolishly left a slight gap which cars were squeezing - me included since I didn't feel like turning around - how on earth they're ever going to clear cars off long enough to get the tarmac down I do not know. Secondly, the hospital on the corner that used to be my landmark for my turn off the university road has been so altered with new buildings and walls that I almost missed the turn. Whole swathes of other areas nearby have been knocked down and are awaiting re-development. I do not think people who haven't lived here can comprehend how amazing these changes appear to my eyes.
Anyway, Iceland. You all thought it looked like this, admit it. In winter, it might but in summer, snow only survives in the high areas. Most days, the weather was like a Perth winter day, cool but clear.
Some of the landscapes are like another world.
And some were just plain pretty (though this photo is mainly to prove that it wasn't all snow and black rocks).
I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with some of the errors we came across in the Lonely Planet. We went to one isolated restaurant based on its description of their menu, walked inside and asked for a table for two, only to hear, 'We're happy for you to have lunch with us but we are not a restaurant any longer': yep, we'd walked into a private home and demanded that they feed us. For a book published in May to still list a restaurant that closed two years ago is pretty poor (you're wondering how we made such a mistake: all the farms are signposted and the restuarant had the same name as the farm; many of the restuarants are converted private homes and this one looked just like those, including several tables and chair sets outside; no, we didn't eat with them).
The other error was more serious: in the section on the Interior it listed the tour to the Askja caldera as only running from mid-July; it was only when we got around to the north that we found out that that was a misprint and it actually runs from mid-June. By sheerest luck, we were going to be in the area on the day the tour was running, and were able to get places on it. And if I had missed seeing this part of the isolated interiour because of the Lonely Planet's carelessness, you can bet that would have been the last of their guide books for me. 
Fantastic guide on that tour, by the way, sang us Icelandic folk songs and told us Icelandic fairy tales all the way home.
I could post photos all day: waterfalls and mountain valleys, geysers, the Blue Lagoon where the water is 38 degrees and an unhealthier luminent shade of blue, lava fields and black deserts made from glacial floods. There's so much to see, so much to do (golf, diving, horse-riding, hiking, camping, bird-watching, climbing, caving etc etc etc), and so many new animals to eat - the Ambassador added horse and reindeer to his list, but missed out on adding whale (for obvious reasons) and puffin (out of season, the only restaurant serving the cute little fellas also served whale).
Let me leave it with these last two photos: one, the dog sledding team who pulled us across a glacier for an hour, with their musher (official title). These dogs were the stars of Tomb Raider. One of them, as a puppy, peed on Angelina Jolie. They're Greenland dogs, not huskies.
And the other photo: the lake at the toe of a glacier, full of icebergs.
Let's see. Reading The Hours, watching Fever Pitch, still knitting the Dr Who scarf. No idea when I'll post next, depends on internet access.
Anyway, Iceland. You all thought it looked like this, admit it. In winter, it might but in summer, snow only survives in the high areas. Most days, the weather was like a Perth winter day, cool but clear.Some of the landscapes are like another world.
And some were just plain pretty (though this photo is mainly to prove that it wasn't all snow and black rocks).
I have to say I was somewhat disappointed with some of the errors we came across in the Lonely Planet. We went to one isolated restaurant based on its description of their menu, walked inside and asked for a table for two, only to hear, 'We're happy for you to have lunch with us but we are not a restaurant any longer': yep, we'd walked into a private home and demanded that they feed us. For a book published in May to still list a restaurant that closed two years ago is pretty poor (you're wondering how we made such a mistake: all the farms are signposted and the restuarant had the same name as the farm; many of the restuarants are converted private homes and this one looked just like those, including several tables and chair sets outside; no, we didn't eat with them).
The other error was more serious: in the section on the Interior it listed the tour to the Askja caldera as only running from mid-July; it was only when we got around to the north that we found out that that was a misprint and it actually runs from mid-June. By sheerest luck, we were going to be in the area on the day the tour was running, and were able to get places on it. And if I had missed seeing this part of the isolated interiour because of the Lonely Planet's carelessness, you can bet that would have been the last of their guide books for me. 
Fantastic guide on that tour, by the way, sang us Icelandic folk songs and told us Icelandic fairy tales all the way home.
I could post photos all day: waterfalls and mountain valleys, geysers, the Blue Lagoon where the water is 38 degrees and an unhealthier luminent shade of blue, lava fields and black deserts made from glacial floods. There's so much to see, so much to do (golf, diving, horse-riding, hiking, camping, bird-watching, climbing, caving etc etc etc), and so many new animals to eat - the Ambassador added horse and reindeer to his list, but missed out on adding whale (for obvious reasons) and puffin (out of season, the only restaurant serving the cute little fellas also served whale).
Let me leave it with these last two photos: one, the dog sledding team who pulled us across a glacier for an hour, with their musher (official title). These dogs were the stars of Tomb Raider. One of them, as a puppy, peed on Angelina Jolie. They're Greenland dogs, not huskies.And the other photo: the lake at the toe of a glacier, full of icebergs.
Let's see. Reading The Hours, watching Fever Pitch, still knitting the Dr Who scarf. No idea when I'll post next, depends on internet access.
Monday, July 09, 2007
No Internet
No post on Iceland for a while as our phone line at home was taken out while we were away. Not in the literal sense, but the 'there was a wedding in the area and now no one's phone line works anymore for some reason' sense.
I think have neglected to give appropriate kudos to whoever's in charge for the recent clean-up effort, and for the rather odd greening of the roundabouts - they tried that last year, planting lawn all over the roundabouts, and it all died, but this year they're watering it. The approach to Janzour actually looks clean and inviting right now. And extremely busy at night with young people hanging out in one of the only parks in the area, even if it is just a strip of lawn next to a main road.
By the way, Souk Thalat's gone, completely demolished. Some stores had a few days' notice, some had none. The vegie market moved to near the butcher street, but where do I get garden and hardware supplies now?
Iceland post with photos either when I get home internet again, or enough time and opportunity to plug my laptop in somewhere.
I think have neglected to give appropriate kudos to whoever's in charge for the recent clean-up effort, and for the rather odd greening of the roundabouts - they tried that last year, planting lawn all over the roundabouts, and it all died, but this year they're watering it. The approach to Janzour actually looks clean and inviting right now. And extremely busy at night with young people hanging out in one of the only parks in the area, even if it is just a strip of lawn next to a main road.
By the way, Souk Thalat's gone, completely demolished. Some stores had a few days' notice, some had none. The vegie market moved to near the butcher street, but where do I get garden and hardware supplies now?
Iceland post with photos either when I get home internet again, or enough time and opportunity to plug my laptop in somewhere.
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