Seattle, Washington

I've had a fun visit to Seattle, my friend Brigitte made sure that I saw all the tourist sights as well as lots of local stuff and sampled the local beer, wine and cider. She even greeted me with Marmite and Licorice Allsorts, both available at a nearby supermarket along with Vegemite and Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey drops.


Seattle from Kerry Hill.


I love how the snow capped Mt Rainier watches over Seattle.


Lots of yummy samples at Pikes Place Market. Anything and everything for sale, even Australian Tim Tams at US$11 a packet!


My two favourite places in Seattle, Chihuly Glass and the Space Needle. We purchased a ticket that allowed us to go up the Needle twice, once during the day and again that night, which was great to get two different perspectives and watch the sun set over Seattle.


Also in the Seattle Center is the Gates Foundation Visitor Center. It was interesting to learn more about what they're doing Sounds the world and in particular to find out malaria prevention is a high priority for them. It was really thoughtfully setup, even going to the toilet was an educational experience.


On Tuesday we explored the waterways of Seattle. We saw houseboats, locks, trout ladders and lake side "beaches". This beach had three very busy lifeguards.


There were some amazing fish at the Seattle Aquarium and it was interesting to read about northern Pacific fish.

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Olympia, Washington

My visit to Olympia was all about catching up with my friend Michelle. We had a wonderful time pottering around together.



My visit overlapped with that of an Shanghai Tech colleague, Simon. So on Saturday Dave and Michelle took us all to see Mount St Helens, my first visit to an active volcano. It was very interesting but I'm glad I wasn't here when it exploded on May 18 1980.



I also discovered Olympia is the capital of Washington state, not Seattle. The capitol building is beautiful, nestled amongst trees. They also have a pretty waterfront, with a great farmers market. I'm loving that I've gotten here just in time for berry season. Tried gold raspberries for the first time they weren't quite as good as regular raspberries but were very golden in colour.

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Portland, Oregon

Portland has moved to the top of my list of places in the USA I could live. It's beautiful and no sales tax means you actually pay the price on the label! My hosts Eric and Doris ensured I had a great experience, visiting an awesome local yarn store, did some wine tasting at some beautiful wineries, experienced the stunning nearby Columbia River Gorge and ate some yummy meals. Their neighbor even ensured I left with a jar of homemade Marionberry jam. Marionberries are only available in Oregon and happened to be in season during my visit. And I even got to catch up with my Shanghai friends Cindy and Mike. A great visit!

Multnomah Falls

Columbia River, from Crown Point.

View from Anne Amie Winery

Doris and I at WillaKenzie Winery.

Twisted

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Colorado

It's been so wonderful to be in Colorado again. I've hiked, biked and rafted but most importantly spent quality time with so many friends. It was incredible to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a decade and be able to just keep talking!

Nicole and I at Hanging Lake, in Glenwood Canyon.

Edwards

With Kathy BuckRoy, one of many happy reunions.

Storm coming into Leadville, the highest town in the USA.

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Southern Hospitality

I've spent the last fortnight reaquaintting myself with the Western world and the South of the USA, which has meant experiencing extraordinary hospitality. My friends have spoilt me at every step.

There has been a lot of thankfulness for things like hot showers, air conditioning and having a wide variety of food, especially golden yolked eggs, fruit, crunchy vegetables and dairy products. I've also reacquainted myself with my favourite American stores as I've restocked my wardrobe, ie my travel pack.


Minnie and Lee, aka my American parents have been beautiful hosts, spoiling me rotten. They've even let me drive their car, the first day there was a lot of windscreen wiper usage instead of indicating! Minnie and Lee have been wonderful as I've dealt with missing everyone in South Sudan and then the death of my grandmother. I even got to catch up with their daughter, Kathryn and meet their grandsons. I experienced t-ball for the first time, when we saw Charlie hit a home run.



Jorena and I were beginning teachers together here in Lexington, 15 years ago. She drove down from the Appalachian mountains to take me to spend the weekend with her family. It was wonderful to catch up with her and Chris and meet their son, Tommy. Jorena even taught me how to make Southern style biscuits, sausage and gravy and took me to a beautiful local yarn store to buy sock yarn, via the Blue Ridge Parkway (one of my favorite roads in the entire world).


I got to have dinner and a great catch up with Nicole and Julie, friends from travelling in Peru.

I've eaten so much food...


Hot Krispy Keene donuts, I can't work out why they sell them cold in Australia.


Lexington style bbq (pork) with hush puppies and pink lemonade. A must when visiting Lexington, I have it sliced rather than the traditional chopped though.


Southern family style breakfast at Shatley Springs in the Appalachian Mountains. I'd forgotten that country style ham existed abd how good biscuits are.

It has been an awesome start to my North American adventures.

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A Weekend in Rehab, New Cairo

I've spent the weekend, ie Friday and Saturday with a friend who teaches here in Cairo. It's been wonderful to catch up with her after six years and to meet her husband and four month old son.


On Thursday I got to visit Christy at her school and sit in on one of her classes. Then I walked to the nearby Festival City Mall, an enormous brand new mall with so many American and stores and restaurants I was overwhelmed. There are a number of incredibly Western malls in New Cairo. We had a yummy lunch with some of her friends at a Lebanese restaurant at one on Friday.




We also visited one of the nearby Coptic Orthodox churches. It was much busier than we expected as we think they were celebrating Ascension day. However I got to go into an extension of the church that had the most beautiful paintings all over the ceiling.


Visiting with Christy I've got to see a little of a different side of Cairo, some more regular Egyptian experiences such as visiting the souk to taste beautiful sweet treats and buy yummy bread. The range of bread is amazing, last night we went to a bakery in the souk to buy bread at 8:30pm from a bakery that cooks 24/7.


Christy's husband also cooked me a traditional meal from his home town. I particularly loved the pasta. It is sauteed in butter, then covered in water and when all the water is absorbed it is ready. He also introduced me to Egyptian beer, it comes in 500ml cans and is 10% alcohol! It's perfectly acceptable for the Coptic Christian population to drink alcohol. They're about 10% of the total population.



It's been great to catch up with Christy and meet her family.

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Back to Cairo

Today began with a 5:15am departure from the hotel in Lucie to catch our 1 1/4 hour flight back to Cairo. The hotel provided breakfast bags, mine came with 13 cutlery sets! They quickly replaced the cutlery sets with the food items I was missing.

On arrival in Cairo we headed to the Khan el-Khalili bazaar where we were met by another armed security tourist officer, who joined us for our mosque visit. He was much nicer, so I managed to sneak a photo but later found out he posed for photos with other people on my group.


With our long sleeves shirts, long pants and scarves on our heads we headed into Al-Azhar mosque. It was most interesting to be inside a relatively new, two hundred year old building. Many parts of it had been taken from ancient temples. I loved the carpet with prayer mats printed on it.




The bazaar was basically a much bigger version of the Luxor bazaar but many shops were closed, a reflection of our being there at 10am and reduced tourist numbers. It did have a much better jewellery selection, so I was able to purchase a few necklaces. Much of the market was unfortunately items made in China. Though there were interesting spices, powders and lots of dates available.




We've been upgraded for our last night in the Barcelo hotel, to deluxe rooms as we had to wait an hour before our rooms were ready, though we were there 2 hours before check in time! We had a final tour dinner at a local bbq restaurant, yet another great Egyptian meal.

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