Steven - 8 October 2008 We have neglected our blog as our trip to and around Ethiopia did not provide us with the opportunity to access the Internet - We can access in Addis but it is very slow but we will add this blog and some photos before we head off to Tel Aviv tomorrow - Time seems to be passing fairly quickly now we have reached the half way point! We arrived in Ethiopia at 0600 in the morning and were able to take advantage of the Sheraton’s courtesy bus. Hotel is every thing it is famous for and [View Full Entry]

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Steven Its s if all tourist have been sent to Israel to get in the way and make their day a drudge! I have yet to see such poor attitudes to service anywhere. The few exceptions are refreshing and generally either Beta Israel (Ethiopian) or Somali staff who work in many of the hotels and tourist sites. Still the experience of seeing a country with such history is worth it. We finished our last full day in Jerusalem by attending a Sabbath dinner at the hotel - a very diverse and interesting experience - left Jerusalem in the morning after getting [View Full Entry]

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Arrived in Israel yesterday - its like going back in time in someways but overlaid with a modern city. Hired a car and drove from the airport to Jerusalem (on the other side of the road) and managed to find the hotel somehow. It is like there are no road rules here or at least no one uses them! Chaos! The car horn is like another word in the Hebrew language and used more frequently. The old city areas of Jerusalem are incredible, got lost in the old quarter that was home to Hassic Jews, all walking and totally ignoring the [View Full Entry]

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Steven - Thursday/Friday 11/12 September 2008 Well if you want to rest as you fly half way around the world, first class is the way to go although I would not recommend actually paying for it. While very pleasant it did not appear to be that much better. Perhaps I will change my mind when we travel in business class for the rest of the trip. Still it was good to be able to stretch out on the very long leg from Sydney to London. Singapore was a 1 hour stop, off the plane (not sure why) while they reload food [View Full Entry]

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Beza It"s like I've died and gone to heaven, except way better! Today started off badly, I was upset seeing as I burnt my face the night before and had to put this cream on it. I soon got over it because we had heard back from the travel agent saying that our upgrade to first class had been approved, wich is enough to put a smile on anyones face, even my hidiously burnt one. So we went to the Canberra airport and I managed to get a hug from my brother along with a request for gum, lots of gum. [View Full Entry]

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Beza and I will be updating our travel on this site as we travel. You will get an email each time we "publish" such entries. This may be periodically as access to internet is obtained. [View Full Entry]

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AS Beza and I start the countdown to our trip around the world, we have started to prepare our "Travel blog" so we can keep our friends and loved ones here at home enthralled by our antics, experiences and the odd enivitable disasters. We hope that these entries are entertaining, informative and do not make you too envious. In the end this will provide a great record for Beza that she can keep in the years to come. We depart Canberra for Sydney on 11 September 2008 (yes I know, we did not make the connection at the time) and from [View Full Entry]

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