Egypt, day 1
Posted on Mittwoch, Mai 27, 2009 at 5:27 PM by Reka
On the 27th of April we (my friends Iris and Walter and I) started out for Luxor via Munich and Cairo. Our first bit of culture shock came at the Cairo airport, where we had to change planes for Luxor. We landed and bought our visa in a cool, fairly modern building and went through passport control.
We then asked the way to our connecting flight. "Out the door, then down the right!" was the answer. So out and down the right we went, down a dirty sidewalk to another more decrepit building. We were greeted at the door by a gruff cry of "Tickets!!" from the policeman in charge of the x-ray machine and metal detector. He was not pleased to see the paper we had printed from the Internet, which didn't look like any "Tickets!!" he knew. "Tickets!! Tickets", he repeated. But we had nothing else, and he finally waved us through while throwing our paper on top of the x-ray machine. It took us a good ten minutes to convince him we needed that oh so insignificant paper to get on the next plane.
Next, we fought our way tooth and nail past various tourist groups whose guides helped them through the intricate steps of the quadrille needed to get tickets and baggage checked for their flight. Unfortunately, our guide was meeting us in Luxor, and we were on our own. After a near clash with a group of German women who didn't realize they were finished and it really was our turn at the counter, we finally got our tickets and got on the plane to Luxor.
We were glad to arrive in Luxor near midnight after being on the road since 9 a.m. When we saw the gleaming white taxis waiting to whisk us to our hotel, we thought we were home free. And when a smiling young man came asking if we needed a taxi and wheeled our bags to the nearest one, we could already see the soft beds waiting for us at the Nile Palace. Ha! We were surrounded in no time by a group of excited men, gesticulating wildly and yelling. The young man with our bags picked up mine and put it in the trunk of the waiting taxi, only to have it pulled out by one of the other men. This happened repeatedly until I got firm hold of it and we threatened to take another taxi. The arguing went on, the group having swelled to some fifteen yelling men, with the young man and me each holding my bag and refusing to let go. Soon I just had to stand back and laugh at the comedy unfolding before us. Things quieted down when another man showed up and quickly settled the situation. Our young man explained that his boss defended him against his friends. "Bah! Friends!" he said contemptuously. It smelled a bit of Egyptian mafia, but as long as we were on the way to our hotel, it didn't really matter. Twenty minutes and a few baksheesh later, those soft beds were finally reality.
Posted in Friends (RSS), Travels (RSS)
|A surprise trip
Posted on Dienstag, April 21, 2009 at 5:28 PM by Reka
I realized I haven't written anything about one of the most exciting things to happen to me in quite a while.
One of my best friends called me up about three months ago and said she had to talk to me. "Uh-oh" was my immediate response. She assured me it was nothing bad, and we made a date to meet at the wine bar the next day. When we got settled down with a glass of prosecco, she told me the couple they go to Egypt with every year was unable to make it this year and would I like to go with them? That floored me. Egypt! It had never been one of the places on my short must-see list, but who could turn down the offer of nine days with a private tour of Egypt?
Soooo, on Monday I am leaving for Egypt! We fly to Luxor by way of Cairo and spend a day there in the Valley of the Kings and Karnak. Then we leave for 5 days in the oases of Kharga, Dakhla, Fayoum, Farafra and Bahariya, passing through the Black and White Deserts and spending two nights in tents in the middle of the Sahara. We have our own Jeep, driver and tour guide! The last two days will be spent in Cairo and Gizeh.
Oh yes, and I will have my own private bodyguard! Apparently there are stricter security regulations concerning Americans in Egypt. My friend and I joked about me getting a bodyguard. Until our guide informed us that a policeman will have to accompany us through the desert! All that is missing is a huge sign on the Jeep advising any watching terrorists: "American on board!"
This will be my first trip to a Moslem country (the reason my friend didn't even bother to ask my husband if he wanted to go) and the first real trip for me to a country where I don?t speak the language. (I don't count our three day trip to Slovenia with Eduard's soccer team, which was not exactly one of culture and hobnobbing with the natives, if you get my drift!) Up to now, my five languages have gotten me around with no problem, but Arabic, in this case, is not one of the five! I am also a bit apprehensive about sleeping in a sleeping bag on cold hard ground (grumble, grumble). I do appreciate my comfy, though firm mattress. :-) But I am looking forward very much to a new culture. And new cuisine, for those of you who know how much I love to cook, and, unfortunately, eat! One of the things I am most looking forward to is the spice market in Cairo.
So here's to new experiences and to my return in May!
Posted in Friends (RSS), Travels (RSS)
|Pulled a fast one...
Posted on Montag, April 06, 2009 at 4:51 PM by Reka
About two months ago, I called my brother-in-law. My sister was immediately suspicious, supposing we were scheming. No, we answered innocently, but we thought, devilishly, YES!
Matthäus is in his fourth year at an agritechnical high school here in South Tyrol. They are required to do an internship for two weeks this year. He asked us if he could do his in the States. We contacted his uncle (my BIL) who got him hooked up with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. I found him a team to practice soccer with, got him a ticket, and...didn't say a word to my mom or sister. So I drove him to the airport on Friday morning and he left for three weeks (Easter vacation plus two weeks of internship) with my family. On Friday afternoon Oregon time, he and my BIL walked into my sister's office to say hi. One of the girls told Carol there was someone to see her. She walked out, expecting a man bringing papers for her husband. Boy, was she surprised! And her DIL was there to film it all, so I get to see the look on her face!
In the meantime I had called my mom and told her that UPS contacted me to say the package I had ordered would arrive that afternoon. As it was kind of an important package, would she be home to take it in? She said she would be. At 1:47 am my time, she called me to tell me there was no package. She had gone down the street to the mailboxes, and saw UPS driving farther down beyond her house on her way back. (Wasn't that nice of Mr. UPS to match his schedule to mine? And I didn't even let him in on the plan!) Seeing no package on the doorstep, she was a bit confused. Just then, my BIL drove in and Matthäus walked around the corner. She said she was really and truly struck speechless. What fun!
Posted in Family (RSS), Oregon (RSS), South Tyrol (RSS)
|ADSR Week 2
Posted on Freitag, März 27, 2009 at 3:11 PM by Reka
Week two of the Amazing Digiscrapping Race started out with an enjoyable challenge. Gottapixel was the host, and this was the challenge:
Find the first layout you created that is still uploaded to a gallery and scraplift it using techniques, trends and concepts that you have learned since you did that original layout.
You can...
* You can use a different kit, elements, papers, brushes, shapes, etc.
* You can add and remove elements, papers, etc.
* You can use a different sized canvas.
* You can move things around and change the overall sketch of the layout.
* You can use the first layout uploaded to any gallery. This does not necessarily mean that it's the first layout you ever did.When you view your gallery, at whichever site it is at, it needs to be the first layout uploaded to that gallery. Example: This is my gallery at Gotta Pixel (I have other galleries on other sites). If you go to the very last page, and find the very last image, that is the first layout I uploaded to Gotta Pixel. That is the layout that needs to be used.
You can not...
* You can not add additional photos to the layout.
* You can not remove any photos from the layout.
* You can not add additional text to the layout; journaling, alphas that spell out a word, word art, journaling. The only text that appears on the layout must be identical in verbiage to what it was originally. You can change the font, you can convert text into an alpha. If your layout previously used an alpha or wordart, you can convert that alpha/wordart to text or use a new alpha/wordart to spell the same thing. When you are done though, you must have the same words that were on the old layout, on the new layout.
This was a pretty wordy set of rules which boiled down to "Remodel your layout, don't change pictures or words". This was the first layout I added to my Viovio gallery, a terrible example of scrapbooking which I had come to hate:
And this is what I did to it:
Definitely much better. Don't you love it when you see how much you have progressed??
The second challenge for week 2 was at Tangie Baxter Designs.
1. The Art of it: Your LO must have artistic flair! Literally! Your LO must have at least 3 things "artsy" and/or "altered" on it--(such as but not limited to: paint splatters, a paintbrush, paint spills, crayon doodles, goopy glitter, watercolors, canvas AND/OR altered art items such as wings on photos, art dolls, vintage doodads, ephemera, etc). Really stretch yourself and try something "artsy" that you haven't tried before!
2. The Soul of it: You must journal something from your Soul. Something positive, heartfelt and meaningful to you in your life! Something you've learned, something you've gleaned from your life experience. Perhaps something you would want to pass on to the next generation! (It can even be your favorite quote and why it touches/inspires you) Uplift us, make us smile--inspire us! You must share your journaling with us-if it's hard to read or blended into the background-part of the challenge is to share your journaling in your description.
Ugh! Artsy. Not my style, but that was what I was doing in the race, trying out new ideas and styles. Here is what I ended up with (and for those of you who have asked how in the hell I got to Italy, here's the answer!). Make sure you click on the images if you want to read the journaling on any of these pages:
Now I don't know if I hit the "artistic flair" part, but it was a lot of fun doing it. (Looking back though, I wish I had put the sinking boat in, even if it sank in the Columbia, and not in the ocean!) The most fun was looking through old "analog"photos to find the old ones of us I needed. (Wow, look at that perm I had!) And the moral of the story is one I continue to stick to, one that keeps me on track.
Come back soon for week 3!
Edited on: Freitag, März 27, 2009 3:24 PMPosted in Family (RSS), Scrapbooking (RSS)
|It's been a while!
Posted on Donnerstag, März 26, 2009 at 3:14 PM by Reka
Let me start by saying that I have many excuses for not blogging for so long, but none of them are really acceptable. I am just an A1 procrastinator who was suffering from burnout. :-) And you can imagine what type of chaos THAT makes for.
One of my first reasons for not blogging is that I took place in the Amazing Digiscrapping Race. This is a race, in its fourth year, organized by NDISB, where two-person teams complete 6 weeks of scrapbooking challenges, two a week starting in January, in the hopes of winning the GRAND PRIZE, a huge collection of scrapbooking supplies. Which is an matter of absolute luck, since the names for the grand prize are drawn out of a hat at the end of the race. But the journey is the reward. Along the way, each team who completes a challenge gets access to prizes from the generous hosts. And those were way beyond my expectations.
And the challenges themselves were rewards, too, not only a learning experience in scrapbooking, but also lessons in life and in self-knowledge. It was not easy scrapping from a "recipe" or working out the details between partners, made even more difficult by the fact that we were in two different time zones: me here and Suzi in California.
The first challenge was hosted by Hummie's World. The rules were simple:
1) Rip and tear a photo into three or more pieces! 2) Use journaling on your layout.
Having a rule about using journaling stymied me, because that is one of the reasons you scrap - to record memories - and that doesn't seem very logical without photos AND words. But then, I am a very wordy person. ;-) And I found out later scrapping is possible even without photos.
Here's my entry:
The second challenge was a collabrative effort between me and my partner, Suzi, from Elemental Scraps. The rules:
Cabin Fever (interpret this as you will, but it must be evident that this is the thought/theme behind your page!) Must include: 3 photos, 4 papers only (no more or less), 8 different elements - at least 1 must be acrylic, 2 different fonts. Must have a title, and journaling (which must be visible - if it is not readable, please include in your description)
Here is our entry. My partner Suzi provided the journaling, the background paper she made herself and two of the photos. I did the layout and supplied the embellishments.
More about the race next time!
Edited on: Freitag, März 27, 2009 3:28 PMPosted in Scrapbooking (RSS)
|A tribute to two online friends
Posted on Donnerstag, Dezember 11, 2008 at 11:17 AM by Reka
I have had lots of online friends since I started frequenting this huge community called the Internet. A few have stuck with me, others come and go as they do in "real life".
Today I'd like to take time to write a small tribute to two current online friends who may need a smile. They are both funny, creative and caring, and I enjoy them both every day.
So here's to Tootie, worrying over an ailing family member, and Peaches, who nearly lost one family member and is mourning the loss of another. All I can offer you is a virtual hug, a kind word, and some flowers to brighten up your winter day.
|
Snow and Vanilla
Posted on Donnerstag, Dezember 04, 2008 at 3:58 PM by Reka
Well, I suppose anyone who reads my blog (Thank you to the faithful few!) has noticed that soccer is finished for the fall season. Matthäus' last game got postponed due to snow...about 3 feet of it. We rarely have snow in November, but this time it hit us hard. There was up to 5 feet of the stuff near the Brenner Pass. We were fortunate and had only about 15 inches.
This was the view from our balcony about halfway through the low pressure zone. The kids, dog and I loved it, but anyone who had to drive sure didn't.
I thought I woud share a video of our dog with you. Our mini Schnauzer, Vanilla, is two. You might think Vanilla is a funny name for a dog that looks more like licorice, but it was her litter name, and since the four of us couldn't agree on a name for her, that is what she stayed! Of course, as with all parents, we think, as we do of our two-legged ones, that our four-legged kid is pretty special. We crate trained her, and she sleeps in her crate at night, locked in. She even opens the door herself, as you can see here. Isn't that good of her?
