Sino and his way of going downstairs fast , it cracks me up every time he dose it .
14.5.07
11.5.07
Feet and stuff
For Safia's challenge, below are some pictures of my shoes, and as Lebeeya I have a size problem when i shop for shoes. because I wear either 45 or 46 so basically I stick with the same shoes till my toes stick out from one of the holes.
As you can see I have a problem with the pedals too because they are so small so I just use the tip of my big toe
Yes I am Gar3a these days , It feels so good during the day but at night my head is freezing
This is our street , Under construction for a week now, but hey they said they will make a treeg so we can it7amil couple of weeks for that ( even I can't believe that they will actually finish it this year).
I got stuck at Alkadeseeya square for almost an hour the other day , why? because Libyans are so stubborn to give the way to each other .
New Fast food restaurants are opening everyday , I think this is one of the big conspiracy so we can die younger .
I don't know why but the first thing came to my mind when I read So7oon Fada2ya is the UFOs
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As you can see I have a problem with the pedals too because they are so small so I just use the tip of my big toe
Yes I am Gar3a these days , It feels so good during the day but at night my head is freezing.JPG)
This is our street , Under construction for a week now, but hey they said they will make a treeg so we can it7amil couple of weeks for that ( even I can't believe that they will actually finish it this year).
I got stuck at Alkadeseeya square for almost an hour the other day , why? because Libyans are so stubborn to give the way to each other .
New Fast food restaurants are opening everyday , I think this is one of the big conspiracy so we can die younger .
I don't know why but the first thing came to my mind when I read So7oon Fada2ya is the UFOs 7.5.07
Falga فلقة
They say school days are the best , well this is not true especially if you studied in a school like mine , because even I only studied for three years in Libya from fourth till seventh grade but in in these three years I had four Falgas , I was only was 9 years when I had my first Falga , if you don't know what Falga is then I have a clip for you that explains it more than words do , why I had these Falgas ? , two Falgas because I was late , one because I hit another guy and the fourth was all the class Falga , it's the worst because we all laugh at each other and the teacher gets more excited to use his full energy , but yet I think Falga is much better than being hit on the hands because you get numb from the first hit on your feet and wont feel a thing after that .
well , allah ysami7 our teachers except one of them who I wont forgive and I will run over without hesitation if I ever see him on the street for hitting me once on my hands with no reason just because he was having a bad day or something .
school days are great anyway aren't they :)
well , allah ysami7 our teachers except one of them who I wont forgive and I will run over without hesitation if I ever see him on the street for hitting me once on my hands with no reason just because he was having a bad day or something .
school days are great anyway aren't they :)
5.5.07
Road Trip- Part 5 - Dead end
It was a relief being in Libya although we were just few meters from the borders gates but somehow I felt I am home , all we had to do now is to find some car to carry s tot he nearest point where we can get a lifting truck , as the locals said there the nearest point is Tubroug , just around 90 kilometers away , but to get there we need another truck to take us because we can' be pulled for 90 kilometers , we found our guy this was his first time shipping a car over his truck , he wanted 10000 dinar till tripoli , 100 dinar till tobrug , it was clear that we decided to go to tobrug and we made him make it 60 dinars , we had to pull the car for about 15 kilometers just to pass the police check point because we cant take the car on top of the truck without a permission papers from the traffic police department , so as a first time pulling a car this guy almost killed us so many times , he was driving fast my car breaks aren't working , the wire got loose couple of times , I begged him not to speed , Zikweeni begged him not to speed but he wouldn't listen so we made him stop and told him to leave us , we were gonna stay in the middle of the road at least alive , but he insisted on taking us and promised not to speed , god it felt like I passed death so many times on this trip so far ,I didn't feel safe until we got the car on top of the truck and I was sitting relaxed and able to close my eyes with no worries since a very long time .
It was already night time when we arrived at tobrug , we left the car at a mechanic the driver of the truck knows and then we went to the nearest hotel , I didn't bother to know what's wrong with the car , I want to eat , I want to sleep thats all I knew I wanted .
Qurtag Hotel was a small nice place ,a room with Tv costs 25 dinars without tv 20 dinars , we took the 20 dinars room cos saving a 5 dinars make a difference here especially we were about to run out of money , a hot water shower was goign to be a refreshing now but when I saw the water was so brown under my feet I knew I wasn't that dirty ,I had I think this is the first time in ages the heater works , it was m7'aazaza , I had t take a cold shower, I am a hot showers fan even in the middle of the desert .
it felt like I passed out not slept because I woke up feeling all my body aching , bad headache , my nose is running , zikweeni coughing and sneezing , it was already 12 in the afternoon and we had to eat something , the breakfast at the hotel is until 10 , we made them serve us though the delightful small piece of bread a boiled egg and a small butter and jam with a glass of milk .
next tot he hotel there is restaurant called Alfalooga , we laughed so much just from reading the sign outside , Zikweeni said I want to order two bombs and rockets juice , the place was alright not that bad compared to where we were , the nice thing about it was they had this room whenre you can eat on the floor feeling like home , this was nice especially my body was feeling like every single bone was smashed , we had two la7im mashwi meals coasting 6 dinar each , it comes with 6bi7'it fasolya , rice ,pickles , salad , 6a7eena and french fries , after the meal we had tea a traditional libyan tea pot ( birad shahi) of a strong black tarry tea .
Finally I remembered my hand as I was washing it after eating , I went to the pharmacy nearby took antibiotics a cream and a gauze , the guy at the pharmacy was so helpful and treated me so there was no need to see a doctor , so here is a little information about burns if the burn hurts like hell then it's a very superficial cos the nerves are still working so you have no worries , all you have to do is get a cream containing Silver Sulfadiazine a gauze and Vaseline gauze , apply the cream on your burn cover it with Vaseline gauze then wrap it with another gauze , after few days when the burn start crusting change to 1% hydro cortisone cream for one or two weeks , as for the color changes just keep your burn covered from the sun and inshallah the skin color wont change .
now we went to the place where we left the car ,the mechanic was already working on the car , he found the source of the water leakage and we have to change the pipe causing this , there is only one problem he said you wouldn't find the pipe here in Tobrug , but this is not all we need a oil filter and he has to check the car more to see what rewally happned meanwhile we went looking for a truck to lift our car , and this is what we found , to benghazi it will coast 400 dinars , to tripoli it coasts from 800 till 1000 dinars , nothing lower than that we can only lower up to 50 dinars , we mad our choice and decided d to got o benghazi by mini bus and get the parts .
450 kilometers the distance from tobrug to benghazi , it took us 4 hours in the speeding mini bus Mercedes vito , the driver was quite crazy speeding at the turns , not realizing that we were about to pee on the seats ,on our way the mechanic called and gave us a list of things to bring , I didn't know most of them because I don't know anything about car parts but I knew one thing I cant find any name for it other than the libyan italian name I know , Gersyoni tistata thsi means that the car motor is finished , but asking him so many times can you fix it he said yes confidently , no problems I have fixed one like this before .
We stopped at this place for half an hour on the way to Benghazi , cool place
in benghazi we were lucky to find a taxi that after chatting with him in the car I found that I know most of his family because his family originally from sidi alsaya7 where I know a friend from there , he made us a big favor when he was asking the shops about the parts we needed , we saw the difference because when I asked for the parts it was about 50 dinars above the normal price when the shergawi guy asked for it , it was hard to find the pipe but the other parts were quite easy to find , the total price for all the part was 250 , so we decided we are going to fix the car , and finish Exploring the east trip to the end .
we spent the night in Benghazi at the same hotel we stopped at on our way to egypt , Africa hotel and again went to Al demashki and had the wonderful dish they serve called aldemashki meal .
next morning we went back to tobrug , at the mechanic we found the motor of our car was opened the mechanic said it will take three days to work on the car , we did check couple of other mechanics but this was the best one there and we didn't wanna leave because we want to explore the east by car before going home , so we had to wait .
Tobrug is a small city , there was nothing for us to do there , the three days I stayed there were to longest days of my life , we regretted taking a room without a TV , we tried looking for cool places there but there was nothing to do , the second day was friday the city looked dead and there was no one outside because it was so windy and the sky turned red from the sand , all I can remember that me and Zikweeni had sleeping contest trying to sleep as much as we can , finally Saturday came and the car was ready , it was running , I was so so happy and nothing was as relieving as seeing the engine running back again , but the motor looked so ugly from the oil and sand I didn't like the work but I knew nothing other than I have to get out of here before I go insane , we tried the car for a while and left it on for couple of hours before we paid the mechanic and left , we decided to stop at Dernah .
On they way to Dernah after about two hours the temperature started to rise , we called the mechanic his phone was turned off , we stopped for a while then went on ,the temperature was great until we reached dernah thats when it started to rise again we had to stop at amazing beach they have there , it kind of reminded me of Alexandria , Dernah was cool even I didn't spend more than one hour there , because after calling the Mechanic so many times he never answered , we realized that we've been screwed , he lied to us , the car isn't good , it was either we go back to tobrug or we continue towards Albayada , we decided to make this more adventurous and went to Albayda the car was great even the temperature was cool, everything was cool but we decided to finish all the way until Benghazi and get the car fixed probably , the scenes we saw were amazing especially it was sunset , I've never knew that Libya is this beautiful till I saw the Green mountain .
In Dernah
The car didn't let us down but we realized that it was cool only because the weather was freezing outside because once we slowed down because of traffic the temperature started to rise , and the ugly sign appeared again the water is low again , it was the same nightmare allover again , we were at Almarij only 80 kilometers from benghazi but yet we cant risk the car stopping for good again , this time the leaking point was clear we can see it so we stopped at a small tires repair place and asked for something to glue the leakage , we were so lucky to meet this guy there which I want to thank so much over here , El mismari , he was a mechanic and he was at the tires repair place when we asked for the glue he helped us so much ,opened his place for us and took a look at the car and he yelled at us who the hell did this to the poor car , we told him some mechanic in Tobrug , he laughed so hard about how fool we were fixing such a car in tobrug , any way he fixed the leaking point and again he took a look at the car thermostat it was blocked so he took it off so the car will be cool all the time , we had dinner at his place and met two of his friends , it was like being home , he didn't want us to leave that night and insisted on staying over but it was already too much what he did for us , Thank you Abou najwa so much .
After what Abou Najwa told us we realized that our exploring the east trip has ended , we called couple of friends and arranged for a car to lift our car until tripoli , in Benghazi there was no problem because there is a continuous movement of the trucks between Benghazi and tripoli we could always find someone going back empty who would accept taking the car for a lower price , we spent the night at Africa hotel in Benghazi and first thing in the morning I met the truck guy we called at night and accepted to take the car for 200 dinars , quickly we finished the papers and ship the car on his truck , I didn't know the guy but a friend of mine knew him so I left the car with him, I had no interest of staying another day there so we had to leave today , the bus will take 9 hours I can't stand this anymore especially I came to benghazi by bus for 4 hours and went back for 4 hours two days ago , so we went to check the flights to tripoli , the libyan airlines was full , we can wait until 8 at night but there were too many people on the waiting list already , Alboraq airlines flight was leaving at 13:00 , we hurried to the airport and arrived at 12:30 bought the tickets and jumped on board at the last moment .
It was hell of a trip , I never knew I would go back home on airplane , everything happened so fast and we didn't realize that we just left the car with someone we don't know , me and zikweeni were laughing so hard at all this , we made so many jokes about how the airplane is gonna stop and then how they gonna go out and fill it with water then we were thinking ok where is the place they fill with water in the airplane .
It was good being in tripoli , only now I realized how bad this trip was , before I took everything as an adventure and we laughed about every bad thing happened to us , no I have to think about what is going to happen to the car .
1.5.07
Road Trip- Part 4 - The Car
Tuesday 20th March 2007
we left Cairo at 9 pm , a quick check up on the car said that everything is good to go , we planed to go non stop until Darnah or Albayda in Libya so stops were only for gas filling , we choose to leave at night so we can arrive in Libya when the sun rises and it would be easir to drive in the one line roads we have in Libya which is quite dangerous at night , but in Egypt they have highways until Alsaloom.
we took the tip from one of the Libyan guys we met in Cairo and took the desert road until the exit of Al alameen instead of finishing it all the way until Alexandria ,it was much better and few kilometers shorter , everything was great until we were about to reach the end of the highway to Al alameen .
A red sign flashed on the dashboard , the cars heat sign , the temperature was normal though , we stopped and checked the manual of the car , the sign meant the car needs water for the radiator , we checked the water and it was not fully empty so we decided to go at least until the nearest gas station to check it out , this nearest gas station was more than 50 km away, there we found a mechanic who didn't add much to the known fact that the car needs water, we filled the radiator with water but there was a leak because we could see that the water we filled was running under our feet , where is the leaking point we couldn't find it and the mechanic came with magical idea after trying everything t find the source of leakage , he gave us this powder that you mix with the water and it closes any leak , we had no choice but to use this magical powder at least till we get to the big gas station he told us about few kilometers from here .
There was no big gas station for more than 20 kilometers but the car was ok , the sign didn't appear again the leaking stopped and the temperature is great , so even wen we stopped at this big gas station the mechanic there said everything is cool it's gonna get you to the borders smoothly no worries , I remember seeing the sign saying Alsaloom after 200 km at 2 am that night just before the water signal appeared again and the temperature started to rise , we had two gallons of water with us just in case this happens and we used them both , we go few hundreds of meters then stop just when the temperature rise again to let the car cool , cars barely passed by and when a car passes it makes me hold my shirt tight so it wont fly from the wind of the car made while speeding, we were stuck there in the darkness of night, ther was nothing to do even we passed by a gas station and he said he can't do anything to us so just keep trying cooling the car when the temperature rises and then until you get to the borders, so thats what we did and one of the times zikweeni added the water and closed the radiator immediately and I told him no and opened it immediately and boom the hot steaming water exploded on my hand and I got a lovely nice burn on my arm , It was burning me inside and I couldn't do anything about it but just hold my arm feeling the extreme pain and watch the bubbles grow on my burned arm , the pain was unbearable , we tried to stop cars again but no one bothered to even slow down, I used the tomato past we had with us for making mbakbka , I used it on my burned hand to cool the heat I was feeling and believe me when I put it it gets hot so quick and I had to remove it , I used the wet napkins we had but they get dry when I put them , it was that bad and I didn't know what to do to make the heat and the burning sensation to go , Zikweeni was driving for the first time since we got in Egypt (I'll tell you later on why he doesn't drive in egypt) , I sat next to him leaving my arm hanging from the window so the cold wind hit it while the car was moving but my fingers started to get numb , then I used tooth paste creast complete 7 which they should make it complete 8 and add the burn cooler effect , it really did a great job at least it let me sleep for I don't know for how long but I woke up with zikweeni filling the car with water again and as I saw the sun was already rising I asked him are we there yet , he shrug and said I don't even know how much we have left , we both laughed so hard on this .
It took us forever to pass those 200 kilometers , and the car was faithful with us until she got us to the entrance of Alsaloom , just at the spot where we can see the police check point before entering Alsaloom the car stopped , again with a huge laugh from both of us we knew it's not gonna move any further from here , and with us both not knowing anything about cars mechanic we didn't know what to do so the best thing is to try to get to that police check point cos it seems like my thumb isn't attractive enough for the cars passing by to stop , I can't say for sure it was two kilometer or more the distance we pushed the car but I really lost sense of everything then the time ,the hunger ,the self cleanness , the sun was burning hot and it was right on top of us , at the police check point we asked them for help and I want to thank them here because they stopped a car for me to give me a lift till the center of Alsaloom , I jump in the back of a truck with the bags of sh3eer , at Alsaloom city center which was formed of almost 100 flat old houses and shops , a gas station and one mechanic , he asked me one question before i explained what happened , whats your car and he said one thing only after I told him it's golf , sorry I don't know hwo to deal with these cars , so jumping again on the back of another car in the gas station but this time with couple of kids and an old woman I returned back to Zikweeni , we have to pull the car at least until the gas station down town ,we waited for a while to find someone who accept pulling us , it's great being at the police check point because people have no other choice than stopping and listening to us , now I insisted on the mechanic to hear the whole story and take a look at the car when we got in front of his place , he offered to help us find some car to pull us up the mountain to reach the borders , again I don't know for how long we walked in Asaloom looking for a trunk to pull us , couple of them refused becasue their car is quite weak for the job others wanted take advantage of this and get as much money as they can from us , in the end we found our guy who was fair enough to pull it just for 120 LE , just pull the car up the mountain less than 5 km , I forgot to mention that the car's breaks doesnt work when t's not turned on because they are built like this , so here I am holding the wheel with one hand and the other holding the hand breaks witht , zikweeni next to me holding tight on his seat belt , the truck started pulling us , I kept telling Zikweeni take my phone capture this moment , and as he always been he was scared and Yelled at me Wagtah toa hada wagtah ash'hado an la ilah ila allah wa ash'hado an mo7amdan rasool allah, I was scared too because who knows what if the robe get loose and I can't stop the car from falling backwards , but it was quite fun the feeling of being so heavy as the truck was pulling us up and on the turns when I use the hand break to slow down I was feeling like at any minute there will be a strong pull from the truck while I am rising the hand break and thats it the robe will be cut , I never was nervous doing something in my life like this because if you ever go to the place I am talking about you will understand what I mean .
we let out screams of joy when arrived at the top , it was a hell of short scary trip much more fun than the roller coaster .
At the borders we had to push the car by ourselves from the gate at the Egyptian side till the the Libyan gate ,we tried asking couple of people Libyans and Egyptians if we could just hang the rope at the back of their car just till the end of the borders but everyone had an excuse , the car is loaded , the customs will make troubles , and even for money some asked for non reasonable prices , so with laughs and excitement we did it our own and pushed it all the way for about two or three kilometers , I didn't realize that I was smelling like a pig until I was at the customs to finish the car's papers cos the guy working there pulled all the muscles of his neck and laid backwards when I stood in front of him , I didn't care much about that and as I forgot to mention what happened to my hand in here I forgot all about it there , I left the tooth past dry on it and crusting and didn't bother to check a doctor for it .
around 6 PM we were in Libya in front of the gate of the Libyan side of the borders, and a new adventure was about to begin .
we left Cairo at 9 pm , a quick check up on the car said that everything is good to go , we planed to go non stop until Darnah or Albayda in Libya so stops were only for gas filling , we choose to leave at night so we can arrive in Libya when the sun rises and it would be easir to drive in the one line roads we have in Libya which is quite dangerous at night , but in Egypt they have highways until Alsaloom.
we took the tip from one of the Libyan guys we met in Cairo and took the desert road until the exit of Al alameen instead of finishing it all the way until Alexandria ,it was much better and few kilometers shorter , everything was great until we were about to reach the end of the highway to Al alameen .
A red sign flashed on the dashboard , the cars heat sign , the temperature was normal though , we stopped and checked the manual of the car , the sign meant the car needs water for the radiator , we checked the water and it was not fully empty so we decided to go at least until the nearest gas station to check it out , this nearest gas station was more than 50 km away, there we found a mechanic who didn't add much to the known fact that the car needs water, we filled the radiator with water but there was a leak because we could see that the water we filled was running under our feet , where is the leaking point we couldn't find it and the mechanic came with magical idea after trying everything t find the source of leakage , he gave us this powder that you mix with the water and it closes any leak , we had no choice but to use this magical powder at least till we get to the big gas station he told us about few kilometers from here .
There was no big gas station for more than 20 kilometers but the car was ok , the sign didn't appear again the leaking stopped and the temperature is great , so even wen we stopped at this big gas station the mechanic there said everything is cool it's gonna get you to the borders smoothly no worries , I remember seeing the sign saying Alsaloom after 200 km at 2 am that night just before the water signal appeared again and the temperature started to rise , we had two gallons of water with us just in case this happens and we used them both , we go few hundreds of meters then stop just when the temperature rise again to let the car cool , cars barely passed by and when a car passes it makes me hold my shirt tight so it wont fly from the wind of the car made while speeding, we were stuck there in the darkness of night, ther was nothing to do even we passed by a gas station and he said he can't do anything to us so just keep trying cooling the car when the temperature rises and then until you get to the borders, so thats what we did and one of the times zikweeni added the water and closed the radiator immediately and I told him no and opened it immediately and boom the hot steaming water exploded on my hand and I got a lovely nice burn on my arm , It was burning me inside and I couldn't do anything about it but just hold my arm feeling the extreme pain and watch the bubbles grow on my burned arm , the pain was unbearable , we tried to stop cars again but no one bothered to even slow down, I used the tomato past we had with us for making mbakbka , I used it on my burned hand to cool the heat I was feeling and believe me when I put it it gets hot so quick and I had to remove it , I used the wet napkins we had but they get dry when I put them , it was that bad and I didn't know what to do to make the heat and the burning sensation to go , Zikweeni was driving for the first time since we got in Egypt (I'll tell you later on why he doesn't drive in egypt) , I sat next to him leaving my arm hanging from the window so the cold wind hit it while the car was moving but my fingers started to get numb , then I used tooth paste creast complete 7 which they should make it complete 8 and add the burn cooler effect , it really did a great job at least it let me sleep for I don't know for how long but I woke up with zikweeni filling the car with water again and as I saw the sun was already rising I asked him are we there yet , he shrug and said I don't even know how much we have left , we both laughed so hard on this .
It took us forever to pass those 200 kilometers , and the car was faithful with us until she got us to the entrance of Alsaloom , just at the spot where we can see the police check point before entering Alsaloom the car stopped , again with a huge laugh from both of us we knew it's not gonna move any further from here , and with us both not knowing anything about cars mechanic we didn't know what to do so the best thing is to try to get to that police check point cos it seems like my thumb isn't attractive enough for the cars passing by to stop , I can't say for sure it was two kilometer or more the distance we pushed the car but I really lost sense of everything then the time ,the hunger ,the self cleanness , the sun was burning hot and it was right on top of us , at the police check point we asked them for help and I want to thank them here because they stopped a car for me to give me a lift till the center of Alsaloom , I jump in the back of a truck with the bags of sh3eer , at Alsaloom city center which was formed of almost 100 flat old houses and shops , a gas station and one mechanic , he asked me one question before i explained what happened , whats your car and he said one thing only after I told him it's golf , sorry I don't know hwo to deal with these cars , so jumping again on the back of another car in the gas station but this time with couple of kids and an old woman I returned back to Zikweeni , we have to pull the car at least until the gas station down town ,we waited for a while to find someone who accept pulling us , it's great being at the police check point because people have no other choice than stopping and listening to us , now I insisted on the mechanic to hear the whole story and take a look at the car when we got in front of his place , he offered to help us find some car to pull us up the mountain to reach the borders , again I don't know for how long we walked in Asaloom looking for a trunk to pull us , couple of them refused becasue their car is quite weak for the job others wanted take advantage of this and get as much money as they can from us , in the end we found our guy who was fair enough to pull it just for 120 LE , just pull the car up the mountain less than 5 km , I forgot to mention that the car's breaks doesnt work when t's not turned on because they are built like this , so here I am holding the wheel with one hand and the other holding the hand breaks witht , zikweeni next to me holding tight on his seat belt , the truck started pulling us , I kept telling Zikweeni take my phone capture this moment , and as he always been he was scared and Yelled at me Wagtah toa hada wagtah ash'hado an la ilah ila allah wa ash'hado an mo7amdan rasool allah, I was scared too because who knows what if the robe get loose and I can't stop the car from falling backwards , but it was quite fun the feeling of being so heavy as the truck was pulling us up and on the turns when I use the hand break to slow down I was feeling like at any minute there will be a strong pull from the truck while I am rising the hand break and thats it the robe will be cut , I never was nervous doing something in my life like this because if you ever go to the place I am talking about you will understand what I mean .
we let out screams of joy when arrived at the top , it was a hell of short scary trip much more fun than the roller coaster .
At the borders we had to push the car by ourselves from the gate at the Egyptian side till the the Libyan gate ,we tried asking couple of people Libyans and Egyptians if we could just hang the rope at the back of their car just till the end of the borders but everyone had an excuse , the car is loaded , the customs will make troubles , and even for money some asked for non reasonable prices , so with laughs and excitement we did it our own and pushed it all the way for about two or three kilometers , I didn't realize that I was smelling like a pig until I was at the customs to finish the car's papers cos the guy working there pulled all the muscles of his neck and laid backwards when I stood in front of him , I didn't care much about that and as I forgot to mention what happened to my hand in here I forgot all about it there , I left the tooth past dry on it and crusting and didn't bother to check a doctor for it .
around 6 PM we were in Libya in front of the gate of the Libyan side of the borders, and a new adventure was about to begin .
22.4.07
Road Trip- Part 3 - Cairo
Cairo the capital of Egypt was our final stop before we return back to Libya , it's about 200 km from Alexandria by the desert road ( el tareeq el sa7rawi ) which was really nice and nothing like our libyan desert road , we arrived at the borders of Cairo just when it was getting dark and I can't remember how many taxis we get our car close to and asked about the way ( I didn't ask any people from the street because I was afraid that what happened in Alexandria would happen again) , I wanted to go to madenit nasr ( Nasr city) and I don't know how I got there but when I was telling our friend who live there from where we came he was choked that we took a huge turn around cairo to get here .
The first night we rested at our friends house and did nothing but sleep , we stayed six days in cairo , and only two special places I wanted to visit there, the Pyramids and the Egyptian museum ,for some reason I don't know why I was too crazy to drive in Cairo , it wasn't like anything I know , I can't tell you how crowded the roads are until you see them yourself , but they have one thing that makes every traffic jam vanish quickly , the cars never stop , they are moving all the time , buses never stop and people get in and out while it's moving , cars never stop even for people who are crossing the road , every one keeps moving and only hit the breaks lightly to slow down but never stop , if you stop like I did you find the street filled with shouting screaming yelling drivers with their car horns making it impossible to hear anything else .
one day went just for exploring downtown Cairo by car and by feet , from morning till night ,we did nothing but walk around getting lost between the millions of people there , at Altahreer square ( maydan el ta7reer) , Talat Harb street , then to el 3ataba then to Roksi and couple of other places I don't even know their names , too bad we forgot to bring the camera and thinking of going back home was impossible .
the next day was for the pyramids , more than one hour to get there even I took 6th October bridge which was made to cross the center of Cairo without getting stuck forever , I've been to Egypt before and I've seen the pyramids the excitement when I saw them was like the first time for those who haven't seen them let me tell you that they are big , bigger than you think bigger than than anyone can explain to you bigger than what you see on TV , you really have to go and see them yourself , it's just amazing how they are made , I can't say more about them because you really have to come see them by yourself , and to make the trip there even better then hire a horse and never accept the first price they give you , first we were told 120 LE each but in the end we got it only for 30 LE each and of course you will get stuck with a guide , our guide was talking non stop about how tourists pay him with euro and dollars and kept repeating it on and on and on and on and on till zikweeni told him we will pay you in euro but only if you shut up.
At the Egyptian museum I can say that two things attracted me only , the mummies and the Tutankhamun section , other than that I really got dizzy from the big amount of statues and things they got there , it's too much for a person to see in one day , I think I spent more than three hours just walking from aisle to aisle , too bad no cameras allowed inside .
Surly we didn't miss a walk at khan alkhaleeli but it wasn't as good as they show it on tv , I couldn't resist and bought little pyramids and a papyrus .
the rest of the time in Cairo we spent it either taking walks downtown or at City stars the coolest place to hang out .
one thing I got to say about Cairo is the controversy you see there ,you see sub zero people and millionaires, and it was bothering me so much seeing how the rich have no respect for the poor, humiliating the poor ones is almost normal thing over there , people aren't equal in all the world but the way I saw it in Egypt it just sucks .
there was nothing else for us to see there and it was fun but if we stay more days we were gonna get bored so on Tuesday night 20th March we left Cairo , we didn't know that fun was only about to start .
The first night we rested at our friends house and did nothing but sleep , we stayed six days in cairo , and only two special places I wanted to visit there, the Pyramids and the Egyptian museum ,for some reason I don't know why I was too crazy to drive in Cairo , it wasn't like anything I know , I can't tell you how crowded the roads are until you see them yourself , but they have one thing that makes every traffic jam vanish quickly , the cars never stop , they are moving all the time , buses never stop and people get in and out while it's moving , cars never stop even for people who are crossing the road , every one keeps moving and only hit the breaks lightly to slow down but never stop , if you stop like I did you find the street filled with shouting screaming yelling drivers with their car horns making it impossible to hear anything else .
one day went just for exploring downtown Cairo by car and by feet , from morning till night ,we did nothing but walk around getting lost between the millions of people there , at Altahreer square ( maydan el ta7reer) , Talat Harb street , then to el 3ataba then to Roksi and couple of other places I don't even know their names , too bad we forgot to bring the camera and thinking of going back home was impossible .
the next day was for the pyramids , more than one hour to get there even I took 6th October bridge which was made to cross the center of Cairo without getting stuck forever , I've been to Egypt before and I've seen the pyramids the excitement when I saw them was like the first time for those who haven't seen them let me tell you that they are big , bigger than you think bigger than than anyone can explain to you bigger than what you see on TV , you really have to go and see them yourself , it's just amazing how they are made , I can't say more about them because you really have to come see them by yourself , and to make the trip there even better then hire a horse and never accept the first price they give you , first we were told 120 LE each but in the end we got it only for 30 LE each and of course you will get stuck with a guide , our guide was talking non stop about how tourists pay him with euro and dollars and kept repeating it on and on and on and on and on till zikweeni told him we will pay you in euro but only if you shut up.
At the Egyptian museum I can say that two things attracted me only , the mummies and the Tutankhamun section , other than that I really got dizzy from the big amount of statues and things they got there , it's too much for a person to see in one day , I think I spent more than three hours just walking from aisle to aisle , too bad no cameras allowed inside .
Surly we didn't miss a walk at khan alkhaleeli but it wasn't as good as they show it on tv , I couldn't resist and bought little pyramids and a papyrus .
the rest of the time in Cairo we spent it either taking walks downtown or at City stars the coolest place to hang out .
one thing I got to say about Cairo is the controversy you see there ,you see sub zero people and millionaires, and it was bothering me so much seeing how the rich have no respect for the poor, humiliating the poor ones is almost normal thing over there , people aren't equal in all the world but the way I saw it in Egypt it just sucks .
there was nothing else for us to see there and it was fun but if we stay more days we were gonna get bored so on Tuesday night 20th March we left Cairo , we didn't know that fun was only about to start .
11.4.07
Road Trip- Part 2 - Alexandria
Alexandria was the first stop for us to explore , we arrived Monday night at around 9 , we were supposed to take a rest and sleep but instead we went out for a walk on the long lovely corniche , it was windy but the cold breeze felt so good after a long trip .
the next day Tuesday we woke up quite late and started the tour by visiting Qaitbay Citadel , it was amazing from the outside and the inside , and as all the castles I visited before the stairs steps are very high and the doors are huge as well which makes me wonder were these people giants or what ?
next to the citadel was a small sea world buliding so we got in there and it was the worst sea world I have ever seen , the place was a mess .
Bibliotheca Alexandrina was the only place I wanted to visit in Alexandria , I've seen and read about it before but nothing was close to what I saw when I was there , the building looked amazing with a very modern architecture something I cant explain , how the sun is lighting all the inside and how the floors were like steps , everything was visible when you get to the top floor , and in the middle there was area where old printing machines and a section where Impressions of Alexandria gallery , Shady Abdelsalam Gallery and Manuscript Museum, after checking all these places I wanted to check some books and I got very confused because of the large amount of references I could get , I spent two hours just surfing through some books with the help of a great assistant I found there .
when I went out I took a little walk around the Library where I found a sundial and checked the time and it was correct , it was 1:55 on my watch and few cm before 2 on the sundial , outside also was the head of Alexander the great and the Bibliotheca Alexandria Planetarium .
At night we decided to take a round in the streets of Alexandria with my car but we got lost , we asked for the directions to the Corniche but we found ourselves being more and more lost until we realized that some of the people we asked were giving us wrong directions and I think it was intentionally , we got into narrow streets where I was thinking this is it now they are gonna make us stop and steal the car and everything else , I derove non stop in the narrow streets and tried to use my sense of directions but we got ourselves more lost until we found ourselves going in a street full of people and their wooden carriages selling all these kind of things you see in any Egyptian movie fil 7ara , I hit one carriage with the car without intention because I was watching the hundreds of people walking in front, next to and behind the car , the guy started yelling with these Egyptian bullshit words , soka moka, 7almbo galmbo , shika bika and no word cam out from me but I was ready to run him over if he got near to me , zikweeni was looking around like crazy trying to tell me to watch out for this and for that , now another car came from the other end of the long endless full of people street , it was a taxi and he was yelling Irga3 ya 3am inta gai fil mamnoo3 , I realized that when I saw other two cars came behind him , I told him irga3 inta ya asta and there we got stuck , so was this the trap I was waiting for , no it wasn't , some guy removed some of the stuff he was selling and told me to get in the place carefully and slowly I felt I am not going out of this without any loss tonight , I asked zikweeni to hide the money we got under the dashboard and we both started laughing .
thank god we got ourselves out of this mess after the help of this guy who removed his stuff for us , after all there was a gada3 as the Egyptians say and he told us the way out exactly and we followed it , it took us more than three hours of being lost ,but the car didn't get a single scratch and our money was still with us so it wasn't a total loss after all .
Wednesday morning , no more going out with the car , so we took a cab to Al Manshiyya (downtown), there was the memoir of The Unknown Soldier at Ahmed Orabi Square and Mohamed ali statue at altahrir square , then we went to shara3 Faransa where in soem of the sides streets from there you find the best places where they make the best bdali 3arbeeya a Libyan traditional costume , I went to a ma7al owned by a guy called Yakoot who is well known in this , while he was taking my size when he was putting the tape meter around my belly he taped on my Karsha ( belly) and said di 7a tzeed wala khlas kefaya keda ( so this will grow more or what ),to be honest I didn't know what to answer him so I just shrug my shoulders .
then we went out and walked through the streets into a street market like the one we got stuck into the night before until we reached al-Morsi Abu'll Abbas Mosque .
we were supposed to check out before 12 , so we went back to teh apartment early and took our luggage and went to Carrefour city center at the beginning of The Desert road (EL tareeq al sa7rawi) , had lunch there and headed to Cairo .
the next day Tuesday we woke up quite late and started the tour by visiting Qaitbay Citadel , it was amazing from the outside and the inside , and as all the castles I visited before the stairs steps are very high and the doors are huge as well which makes me wonder were these people giants or what ?
next to the citadel was a small sea world buliding so we got in there and it was the worst sea world I have ever seen , the place was a mess .
Bibliotheca Alexandrina was the only place I wanted to visit in Alexandria , I've seen and read about it before but nothing was close to what I saw when I was there , the building looked amazing with a very modern architecture something I cant explain , how the sun is lighting all the inside and how the floors were like steps , everything was visible when you get to the top floor , and in the middle there was area where old printing machines and a section where Impressions of Alexandria gallery , Shady Abdelsalam Gallery and Manuscript Museum, after checking all these places I wanted to check some books and I got very confused because of the large amount of references I could get , I spent two hours just surfing through some books with the help of a great assistant I found there .
when I went out I took a little walk around the Library where I found a sundial and checked the time and it was correct , it was 1:55 on my watch and few cm before 2 on the sundial , outside also was the head of Alexander the great and the Bibliotheca Alexandria Planetarium .
At night we decided to take a round in the streets of Alexandria with my car but we got lost , we asked for the directions to the Corniche but we found ourselves being more and more lost until we realized that some of the people we asked were giving us wrong directions and I think it was intentionally , we got into narrow streets where I was thinking this is it now they are gonna make us stop and steal the car and everything else , I derove non stop in the narrow streets and tried to use my sense of directions but we got ourselves more lost until we found ourselves going in a street full of people and their wooden carriages selling all these kind of things you see in any Egyptian movie fil 7ara , I hit one carriage with the car without intention because I was watching the hundreds of people walking in front, next to and behind the car , the guy started yelling with these Egyptian bullshit words , soka moka, 7almbo galmbo , shika bika and no word cam out from me but I was ready to run him over if he got near to me , zikweeni was looking around like crazy trying to tell me to watch out for this and for that , now another car came from the other end of the long endless full of people street , it was a taxi and he was yelling Irga3 ya 3am inta gai fil mamnoo3 , I realized that when I saw other two cars came behind him , I told him irga3 inta ya asta and there we got stuck , so was this the trap I was waiting for , no it wasn't , some guy removed some of the stuff he was selling and told me to get in the place carefully and slowly I felt I am not going out of this without any loss tonight , I asked zikweeni to hide the money we got under the dashboard and we both started laughing .
thank god we got ourselves out of this mess after the help of this guy who removed his stuff for us , after all there was a gada3 as the Egyptians say and he told us the way out exactly and we followed it , it took us more than three hours of being lost ,but the car didn't get a single scratch and our money was still with us so it wasn't a total loss after all .
Wednesday morning , no more going out with the car , so we took a cab to Al Manshiyya (downtown), there was the memoir of The Unknown Soldier at Ahmed Orabi Square and Mohamed ali statue at altahrir square , then we went to shara3 Faransa where in soem of the sides streets from there you find the best places where they make the best bdali 3arbeeya a Libyan traditional costume , I went to a ma7al owned by a guy called Yakoot who is well known in this , while he was taking my size when he was putting the tape meter around my belly he taped on my Karsha ( belly) and said di 7a tzeed wala khlas kefaya keda ( so this will grow more or what ),to be honest I didn't know what to answer him so I just shrug my shoulders .
then we went out and walked through the streets into a street market like the one we got stuck into the night before until we reached al-Morsi Abu'll Abbas Mosque .
we were supposed to check out before 12 , so we went back to teh apartment early and took our luggage and went to Carrefour city center at the beginning of The Desert road (EL tareeq al sa7rawi) , had lunch there and headed to Cairo .
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4.4.07
Flaysha
Flaysha is the other name for Al ahli football club that the fans like to call it here in Libya, and for those who doesn't know , Alahli is the number one club in Libya and even it's going down the past few years yet it's still got the biggest number of fans , they occupy more than 3/4 of the stadium and only 1/4 for Al Iti7ad the biggest opponent .
Yesterday was the big game here in Libya , Al ahli vs Al Iti7ad , I can't say that I am Al ahli fan but I know I don't like AL iti7ad at all , so I went to the game yesterday with my friends and it was a hell of experience , first the crowd outside was outstanding and unbelievable especially the police was closing all the doors in for Al ahli's fans side , the game was great because Alahli played really well but Al Iti7ad scored a goal in the second half and the excitement of the game lasted until the extra time when Al ahli had a penalty kick at the minute 94 but surprisingly Nader Kara took the ball from Omar dawood and went to score it but he lost it as we all expected it, not because Kara isn't a good player but he is not into Al ahli at all , he have been playing for months now but he still didn't get into the team and I guess after loosing that crucial penalty kick yesterday he should consider hiding for a while because now he is the number one enemy for all Al ahli fans .
Yesterday was the big game here in Libya , Al ahli vs Al Iti7ad , I can't say that I am Al ahli fan but I know I don't like AL iti7ad at all , so I went to the game yesterday with my friends and it was a hell of experience , first the crowd outside was outstanding and unbelievable especially the police was closing all the doors in for Al ahli's fans side , the game was great because Alahli played really well but Al Iti7ad scored a goal in the second half and the excitement of the game lasted until the extra time when Al ahli had a penalty kick at the minute 94 but surprisingly Nader Kara took the ball from Omar dawood and went to score it but he lost it as we all expected it, not because Kara isn't a good player but he is not into Al ahli at all , he have been playing for months now but he still didn't get into the team and I guess after loosing that crucial penalty kick yesterday he should consider hiding for a while because now he is the number one enemy for all Al ahli fans .
The best thing in the game was the fans , so much fun so many songs they are singing and lots and lots of fireworks , I just wish the game was at night so we could have seen all the fireworks clearly .
3.4.07
Road Trip - Part 1-
As I promised I will start posting the story of my trip step by step and in this first part I will write about the first two days .
The first day, Sunday 11th March me and Zikweeni left Tripoli at 7 am , we packed everything we could which later on we realized we didn't need half of it , before we left we decided to make our trip further than the Libyan borders so stopping in Libya will be on our way back , this was the first tiem for both of us to go beyond Misrata ,and even everyone said it's one way stright and there is no way of loosing the direction I bought a map from Alforgani bookstore which is amazing because it's roads map with distance written between every point because as you know there aren't much signs on the road to know where you are or how far you are from anywhere , so we headed east and stopped at Misrata (200km) at 9 we had breakfast there at a local cafe and then hit the road non stop until Sirt where we stopped for lunch then all the way till Benghazi ,we didn't want to finish from Agdabiya till Tubroug directly but we went north to Benghazi and spent the night there at a hotel called Africa hotel in Algeria street , this was my first time to visit Benghazi and I found it really nice although it seems so old and all the building are so old , even that Tebisti hotel that we see on tv all the time , there we found that they have three big streets , shari3 3ishreen , shara3 Dubai , and shara3 Gamal , at least these are the main thee street I knew by asking people over there ,and while driving there I got lost so many times and asking people over there didn't help ,I know I am talking like I wasn't in Libya but seriously the accent was quite difficult and different than those shraga(eastern) in tripoli because they talk really really fast I don't know why , we had dinner at a place called Aldimashki , it's a very nice place at Dubai street with all these Lebanese food or may be it's Syrian because of the name , next morning at 7 as well I took directions from the hotel reception and we got our selves a shorter way than the one we planned to take which involved passing by Albyada and Derna so instead we took the road to Almarij then took the desert road ( elsa7rawi) , I even learned a new word from the guy was telling me the directions, it's 3goba meaning the road around the mountain , first I thought they meant ma6ab or something like that .
Almarj was amazing and I felt like I wasn't in Libya because of the green fields and trees I saw , we passed by Taknis which was amazing and the people over there were so kind , we stopped to ask for the road and the old men sitting there made us stop and drink the morning tea with them , it was so nice with the fresh air filling my lung , then we reached el sa7rawi , I thought we were lost because we were the only car there , we even stopped and took pictures in the middle of the road and I even slept and no car passed , I think it took more than 20 minutes until a car showed up, the road was about 250 km and at the end of it we reached el Tameemi then headed east towards Tobrug , we didn't stop until we reached Imsa3id at around 12 , we did the papers for the car at the customs and then headed to the borders , at the Libyan side everything was smooth and only two cars were there so we got our passport stamped fast then we reached the Egyptian side where the troubles started , no offense to all the Egyptians but almost all the guys working at the border are working with rashwa (money tips) only , you tip them they do what they are supposed to do but if you don't then you have to wait for a very long time , I agreed with Zikweeni that we are not paying any garsh for them ,so we had to be the last ones in everything , but before that the first thing we faced is the fire extinguisher, we didn't have one and we had to buy a new one from them , so this is tip number one ( if you are going to Egypt with your car bring a fire extinguisher with you ) ,then at the customs they searched every inch of the car and even checked the spare tire if it was filled with air or something else , I am glad I didn't hide anything there , I know if I gave them 10 or 20 Egyptian pounds they wont search anything , now the paper work for the car took more than two hours first because somehow the engine's number wasn't written in the car's registrations and second because I didn't tip the guy checking the Engine and Car's number and everyone else was tipping him so he left us last , so me and zikweeni took two chips packs and bought cold drinks and said to the guy m3ak la leel ma wrana shai , it was a hot sunny day but yet we decided to wait until 4 o'clock we got out of the Egyptian borders and went down to Alsaloom through the amazing road on the sea, filled with our stink and sweats I felt like my kanatera is glued to my skin now , but we didn't have any other choice than driving all the way until Alexandria ,the distance is about 500km and we reached Alexandria around 9 rented an apartment took a nice long shower then instead of going to sleep we found ourselves going out again .
The first day, Sunday 11th March me and Zikweeni left Tripoli at 7 am , we packed everything we could which later on we realized we didn't need half of it , before we left we decided to make our trip further than the Libyan borders so stopping in Libya will be on our way back , this was the first tiem for both of us to go beyond Misrata ,and even everyone said it's one way stright and there is no way of loosing the direction I bought a map from Alforgani bookstore which is amazing because it's roads map with distance written between every point because as you know there aren't much signs on the road to know where you are or how far you are from anywhere , so we headed east and stopped at Misrata (200km) at 9 we had breakfast there at a local cafe and then hit the road non stop until Sirt where we stopped for lunch then all the way till Benghazi ,we didn't want to finish from Agdabiya till Tubroug directly but we went north to Benghazi and spent the night there at a hotel called Africa hotel in Algeria street , this was my first time to visit Benghazi and I found it really nice although it seems so old and all the building are so old , even that Tebisti hotel that we see on tv all the time , there we found that they have three big streets , shari3 3ishreen , shara3 Dubai , and shara3 Gamal , at least these are the main thee street I knew by asking people over there ,and while driving there I got lost so many times and asking people over there didn't help ,I know I am talking like I wasn't in Libya but seriously the accent was quite difficult and different than those shraga(eastern) in tripoli because they talk really really fast I don't know why , we had dinner at a place called Aldimashki , it's a very nice place at Dubai street with all these Lebanese food or may be it's Syrian because of the name , next morning at 7 as well I took directions from the hotel reception and we got our selves a shorter way than the one we planned to take which involved passing by Albyada and Derna so instead we took the road to Almarij then took the desert road ( elsa7rawi) , I even learned a new word from the guy was telling me the directions, it's 3goba meaning the road around the mountain , first I thought they meant ma6ab or something like that .
Almarj was amazing and I felt like I wasn't in Libya because of the green fields and trees I saw , we passed by Taknis which was amazing and the people over there were so kind , we stopped to ask for the road and the old men sitting there made us stop and drink the morning tea with them , it was so nice with the fresh air filling my lung , then we reached el sa7rawi , I thought we were lost because we were the only car there , we even stopped and took pictures in the middle of the road and I even slept and no car passed , I think it took more than 20 minutes until a car showed up, the road was about 250 km and at the end of it we reached el Tameemi then headed east towards Tobrug , we didn't stop until we reached Imsa3id at around 12 , we did the papers for the car at the customs and then headed to the borders , at the Libyan side everything was smooth and only two cars were there so we got our passport stamped fast then we reached the Egyptian side where the troubles started , no offense to all the Egyptians but almost all the guys working at the border are working with rashwa (money tips) only , you tip them they do what they are supposed to do but if you don't then you have to wait for a very long time , I agreed with Zikweeni that we are not paying any garsh for them ,so we had to be the last ones in everything , but before that the first thing we faced is the fire extinguisher, we didn't have one and we had to buy a new one from them , so this is tip number one ( if you are going to Egypt with your car bring a fire extinguisher with you ) ,then at the customs they searched every inch of the car and even checked the spare tire if it was filled with air or something else , I am glad I didn't hide anything there , I know if I gave them 10 or 20 Egyptian pounds they wont search anything , now the paper work for the car took more than two hours first because somehow the engine's number wasn't written in the car's registrations and second because I didn't tip the guy checking the Engine and Car's number and everyone else was tipping him so he left us last , so me and zikweeni took two chips packs and bought cold drinks and said to the guy m3ak la leel ma wrana shai , it was a hot sunny day but yet we decided to wait until 4 o'clock we got out of the Egyptian borders and went down to Alsaloom through the amazing road on the sea, filled with our stink and sweats I felt like my kanatera is glued to my skin now , but we didn't have any other choice than driving all the way until Alexandria ,the distance is about 500km and we reached Alexandria around 9 rented an apartment took a nice long shower then instead of going to sleep we found ourselves going out again .
Km passed at the first day ( Tripoli to Benghazi) 990Km
Km passed at the second day ( Benghazi to Alexandria) 1060 km
Total 2050 Km
Km passed at the second day ( Benghazi to Alexandria) 1060 km
Total 2050 Km
Tebesti Hotel in Benghazi
at Almarj
Almarj
Taknis
Elsa7rawi( only 20 km away from the last picture )
Very Big difference
29.3.07
I am home
I am back home alhamdulilah after fourteen days road trip, we were only two me and my best friend, I call him Zikweeni and he calls me Zikweeni too I don't know from where the name came but we call each other like this all the time , we had a great time and a bad time too ,I will tell the details of the trip and put some pictures too in the post that I am planing to write about this trip inshallah so for now let me just say that I am glad to be home and I never was this happy to reach home .
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