What better place to end a trip than in Asia. It was and always will be my favourite destination. Hence we jumped on the opportunity to break the long trip home with three weeks of sweet FA on a beach. The first port of call was Bangkok a city Kellie and I have been to before. The main reason for staying a few days was to shop in the massive shopping centres where everything from real Versace to fake Gucci can be found. These days they even produce fake underwear! We also took the chance to upgrade the work wardrobe and [View Full Entry]

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The benefit of travelling is meeting lots of people which somehow after a couple of days think they like you and then offer accommodation in case you ever come to their hometown. This was also the case with Jens which I met and travelled with (remember the 36 hour bus ride) in Mozambique. Little did he know that one day we will turn up on his doorstep in Cologne. That in short is the story how we ended up visiting Cologne (Jens was in fact excited to see us and he actually mean it when he invited me) Cologne is mostly [View Full Entry]

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After all the family life, partying and skiing it was time to do something for our cultural education and so we headed to Berlin. The drive there was an experience in itself. We took the German high speed train called ICE which drove us with a max speed of 250km/h through snowy white Germany. In Berlin we checked into our traditional Berlin Pension in an old house with 3 meter high walls, comfy beds and huge windows. Just like it must have been in the 20s. Berlin is a great city and has a lot of tourist attractions. Pretty amazing that [View Full Entry]

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I said this about many places but we really didn’t intent to go to Italy to go skiing. The closest we ever got to plan a visit in Italy was Kellie's wish to rent a villa in Tuscany and learn cooking from an Italian Nona. Anyway I convinced her that December is not the best time to visit and sit in a cold villa so this plan was off the table. The reason why we went to Italy was me not planning anything (see that's a good thing) and being really surprised that after I told friends that I will be [View Full Entry]

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Getting from Amman to Germany is a breeze. Takes only a few hours in a comfortable plane where you get food and drink. Well ok there was one drawback. All flights to Europe seem to leave at the ungodly hour of 3am and so did ours. Enough of the whingeing and on with the story. Kellie always wanted to experience a real winter with snow and all that and I was absolutely against it as winters for me means, freezing cold, rain, slush, being inside all the time and gray skies. So we flew into Germany and to my surprise and [View Full Entry]

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Amman is certainly by far the most boring capital city we have been too. It is just too modern, the streets are clean, the traffic jams are small, no chaos, the people are friendly and there is not too much to see or do. We only went to a Roman theatre, Walked up to the old fort, marvelled at the third highest (126 meter) flagpole in the world and had some decent food and sweets. As usual the main ingredient in desserts or any sweet in the Middle East is sugar, sugar and more sugar which is then topped off with [View Full Entry]

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If you ever wondered (I know you do) why the hell we went to the Middle East then there is just one answer. Petra. No not the long lost love of mine but the ancient city of Petra. What else then a couple of old stones could drag me half way around the world? Egypt and Israel were originally never on the itinerary but are a late addition as they were so close to Jordan and Petra and I am a sucker for more, more, more. Petra is amazing. It lies in a hidden valley on the ancient spice route to [View Full Entry]

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It’s a long story why we headed back down to Eilat at the Red Sea and it has to do with border crossings and visas and I spare you the details. More exciting (for me) was that the trip involved a car and me behind the wheel. I really miss driving around and being able to stop wherever we like. So we boarded our new four wheels and headed south again. One of the things not to miss when coming to Israel is to float in the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea has a very high concentration of salt and other [View Full Entry]

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We met a French/American couple, which lives in Israel while hiking in Simian Mountain in Ethiopia. Sounds like the beginning of a joke but isn't. Before we separated we exchanged email addresses and we promised to pop by when we are in Israel and so we did. It’s not only that we liked them and that Haifa sounded like a great place but also the promise of staying in a proper flat and not a hotel, which added to our excitement. Haifa itself is the North Ryde (Silicon Valley for everyone not living in Sydney) of Israel and is a nice [View Full Entry]

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There are many scary stories of people sitting in their underwear at the Israeli border for hours while being interviewed by the Israeli border guards. Luckily (or unfortunately as it would have been a great story) our Egypt - Israel border crossing was quite uneventful. I was asked lots of question (why do you want to come to Israel. Incorrect answer: to support the Palestinians, where do you live? Why do you live there? Do you want to work in Israel? Is this your girlfriend?) by a rather young Israeli woman behind the desk. She gave me the dreaded Israel stamp [View Full Entry]

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