Today made for an interesting day. Tareq and I had planned to visit one of the world’s greatest wonders – the Pyramids. The original plan was for him to come to the hostel, and both head there together, but since he lived quite close to the Pyramids, we agreed to meet there instead. I got a transfer driver from the hostel to Giza, and it took nearly an hour to get through all the traffic. When I finally arrived, I headed towards the entrance, but not without being greeted by several street vendors offering to guide me, give me camel or horse rides through the site. I told them I was waiting for a friend. One of the tour guides supposedly assigned to me, or you could say self-assigned, waited with me. I told him I ... read more

So it's time to hit the road again after a short break from travelling. I have been to Slovenia, Serbia and Greece just to stop by some of my good friends. After a little over a month, it was time to get into my travel shoes. My next destination was Egypt. Completely foreign land to me, and for the first time, I would be setting foot on the African continent. That makes five continents in total that I have been to. Egypt was going to be one of a kind. As soon as I landed, I knew I was already in a different world. I flew in from Athens today, and first things first, I had to buy my entry visa from the checkpoint before passport control. The visa and the stamp made a very good ... read more

Good old London. I had two more days left to stay in the UK, unfortunately without getting to meet some of the friends I wanted to meet. However, one of my work colleages from Australia, named Hayden, was visiting London during this time, and I had made arrangements to hang out with him and show him around. We met up at his hotel and I took him on the tubes. While we were trying to purchase an Oyster Card from the machines, a lady who had no need for her daily travel card offered it to us. Well, that works. It's Hayden's lucky day. We first headed to Piccadilly Circus, where we started our little tour, then we headed on to Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace. These were the main two sites we spent time at ... read more

Over the last few days, I've been in London, Glasgow and Edinburgh. The night before I came up north, I took the time to catch up with my ex at Greenwich Park, and stay with Marc overnight, another forum friend. On Friday morning, I took the bus to Edinburgh. And that was quite a long trip; ten hours! The hours of daylight were very short now. In Scotland it got dark after 4pm. I got to my hostel at around 7pm, checked in and chilled for the night. The next day I travelled over to Glasgow to meet another friend, David. That was pretty much the only purpose of my trip out there, and it was only an hour and a half away. It was good hanging out; we've actually known eachother for five years. We ... read more

Today's mission was to check out one of Britain's most famous world heritage site, if not the most famous. It's one of those monuments that marks the beginning of architecture. It's impressive for a bunch of stones in the ground. Can you guess what it is? That's right; The Stonehenge! I headed to Salisbury by train from Bath. It was only a one hour journey. Once I got there, I got to my hostel and stored my luggage, then headed to the bus station to embark on the Stonehenge tour. And so there I was, being taken nine miles to the north, to one of the oldest man-made monuments known to man. It's not a site to spend a great deal of time at, but worth visiting for what it is, and getting a few pictures ... read more

Over the next two days I checked out Bath, and old Roman-influenced town not too far from Bristol. I knew that it was famous for the Roman baths as well as the Thermae pools. I've never been in any kind of thermal water source before. The Thermae has used Britain's only thermal springs and made public indoor and outdoor set of pools from it. As I got here, the first place I went to after checking in was the Thermae. It was three in the afternoon, so I imagined I wouldn't have time for the Roman baths - which was just for sightseeing, not swimming in. Anyway, I got in, and booked myself a two hour session. I was free to spend that time on any of the three floors - the first floor had the ... read more

The next morning I headed for Cardiff. There was not going to be anything of interest to me in Bristol, but that should change in Cardiff. I would be going to another country; although I still refer to England and Wales as part of one country; the United Kingdom. I arrived in Wales at around 1pm, and so had a few hours of daylight left to explore around. Firstly, I checked in at my hostel. Another neat one. UK hostels seem to be better than the US ones, and in more abundance. This one had Wi-Fi, so that definitely puts the rating up for me. There was something to do around here, contrary to what I've been told, and I decided to head for one of them. The Cardiff Castle; and I didn't regret the visit. ... read more

Haven't blogged in a while. But that's because there hasn't been much to blog about in the past week. Instead, I can go over some of the things I've been doing to keep myself occupied while in London. Every night, I've been staying with Laurie and Jay. During their working days, I've had to leave the house with them and head into London central by bus and the tube. And mostly, apart from walking around London, seeing the places I've already seen, I visited this bookshop to keep myself busy. It's called Foyles, and I indulged myself in the travel section, further developing my ambition. Can't really decide on where to go next. Except for today; I had plans to visit out west. My destination for the day was Bristol. Hostels seem to be completely booked ... read more

And so I got to Iceland's Keflavik airport. While in time for the connecting flight, I was actually going to be getting on the same plane anyway. And transiting here was rather odd - I was temporarily in the country. I actually got my passport stamped. Then no more than two minutes later, I received my exit stamp. Weird, really weird. Made me wonder what the point of that was. Feeling a little sleep deprived, I boarded the plane to London Gatwick, a three hour flight away. My friends Jay and Laurie were going to be picking me up at the airport; and when I landed, I was pretty happy, but cautious about the immigration process. I had problems here last time I tried to enter, and I hoped they weren't going to make it difficult ... read more

And so there we have it. Today is the day I leave. I made a huge thank you to all the people I met on my trip. They made it much more enriching for me. The world worth experiencing is with the people you meet. In my case, some I already knew from the internet. But I can sure say it was a privilege to meet others as well. I left my hostel at 11am after a shower. It took me quite some time to get to Newark airport, but that was fine; I allowed myself plenty of time. It’s better to arrive early and wait for ages, than to miss your flight. I took advantage of my greyhound bus pass for the final time. I basically got a free transfer to Newark, a half-hour ride ... read more