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We're in Dubai now, enjoying the last stage of our amazing trip.

We've had problems with this blog all along, unfortunately, partly due to lack of time to keep it updated, but also it has been quite unwieldy, requiring a lot of effort to upload pictures for example.

Therefore, at this late stage, we've created a Facebook group which you're all welcome to join. The group is likely to live on for quite some time as we go home to upload pictures, sort through our experiences and so on.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=118784288140481#!/group.php?gid=118784288140481

Welcome to continue sharing with us!

The District Conference is over

The 74th District Conference in Bahrain is now over. We held our presentation at 11 o'clock and it was both well attended and seemed appreciated. This time we wanted to do something more than just talk about ourselves and Sweden, so we also talked about how our trip has affected us, both professionally and personally. The District Governor, Mr Nijad Al-Atassi - a very nice man! - also seemed pleased with his gift of a chair from Kinnarps.

Apart from that, I think the conference highlight was the announcement of the inclusion of Palestine in District 2450, with its first club in Ramallah. When the flag was carried in people jumped to their feet to applaud and cheer!

A glance in the back mirror...

Going through the captures in my camera I found a couple of things that I would like to mention. I will start with this nice picture from the Arab Academy of Science & Technology in Alexandria the 15th of April. We were lucky to get to visit the academy on the day of their yearly parade as you can see on the picture.

17-18 April, Northern Lebanon
I also found some nice pictures from our first two days in Lebanon when Habib Saba took us for a road trip in the northern parts. In Tripoli we got to meet a group of Rotaracts guiding us through the traditional Khans (market places) where we also learned how soap is manufactured out of olive oil and caustic soda.

The evening was spent in Ehden where we were invited for a 25th Rotary club anniversary. An evening filled with live music and lots of food. The Arabic rhythms even tempted some stiff Scandinavians to start moving for a while.

After a good night’s sleep in the fresh mountain air we took off for a ride over the mountains. Stopping by a peaceful cedar tree forest and passing thorough 2-3 m snow walls on each side of the road we came out on the other side of the mountain viewing the Bekaa Valley. This road trip is one of my best memories of Lebanon and I believe I can speak for the four of us saying that we fell in love with Lebanon this day! After more beautiful view and some insect bites (!) the road finally took us to Baalbeck with some of the best preserved Roman temples in the world.

Now we're going of for a lunch meeting with RC Amman and a visit to the Amman Citadel in the afternoon. Hope to be back here soon again!

Bye bye Lebanon.....gonna miss you...and Hello Jordan.

As you have guessed this trip is very busy and we have a hard time keeping our blogg up to date, but today we have our first free morning.....so now I'm gonna try to tell you in short about our last day in Lebanon and our first day in Jordan.

22nd April....our last day in Lebanon. Our day started with sad farwells to our great host families Mr and Mrs Baalbakki and Mr and Mrs Gebran.

Me and Krisitn who lived with the Balbakis, in Baabdat up in the beautiful hills over Beirut, got a great tour of their garden and got to see all their flowers and animals....including their cock who had pleasently woken us up every morning for the last 5 days.

We then got a great tour of Solidiere, down town Beirut. We got the opportunity to explore the new marina, the new souks (traditional market place) and the magnificent restoredand rebuiled down town area of Beirut.

After a great lunch at the Military beach club hosted by RC Beirut Center, we got transfered to the airport by our lovely friend Kamal Katra, president of RC Metn. At the airport we also got to say our sad good byes to BSE coordinator Habib Saba before flying of for new adventures ín Jordan.

But we wont forget Lebanon that easy.....the culture, the people the landscape and the food is always gonna stay as pleasent memories in our minds. Thank you all for giving us 5 beautiful days in your amazing country.....we will soon be back for sure!

After a 45 min flight we arrived to Amman, Jordan, were we got picked up by the GSE coordinators. After transfer to our host families we spent the evning having dinner with the outgoing GSE team that's gonna go to Germany. We had a great evening and tried some excellent Jordanien food.

23rd April, Friday

This day will stay in our mind for a very long time.......we got to experience weightlessness by floating around in the beautiful Dead sea. An amazing feeling that I wish that everyone could try sometime.

Before our beach afternoon by the dead sea we also got the opportunity to visit Mababa, Mount Nibo (were Moses saw the promissed land) and Jesus Baptism Site.

After we washed of the healing mud in the dead sea and relaxed for a bit in the sun we continued up in the moutines to the Panorama restaurant for a sunset dinner over looking the Dead sea. I don't think I have ever seen a more beutiful sun set. So to sum it up, our visit to Jordan could not have begun in a better way.

.....just some minor info about y thoughts about Jordan..... I didn't know much at all about Jordan before...but guess if this country has surprised me. Amman is so beutiful with all its wite houses on the seven hills.....the climate is perfect, like a wonderful swedish summer, cold mornings warm days and chilly nights. The people we met are great and the food is awsome. The views and sceneries of the country is so wonderful even thogh I(Hanna) just got to see half of it. This because I been half blind the last three days due to an eye infection....but no worries I'm already better thanks to the great people both here in Jordan and in Lebanon that helped me deal with it.....thank you all.

Now it's time to continue mý free morning by catching up with the world....read some news for the first time in 1 week while running some km on the treadmill.

See you soon!

Apology

I'm sure many of you are wondering if we're atill here? We are, but the schedule makes it very difficult to keep our blog up to date. Typically we'll get up around seven and not get back to our host families until after midnight. It's not a complaint, because the progaram is excellent though tight. We haven't said a word abou Lebanon yet, but it was fantastic, and we're now halfway through our stay in Jordan, We'll catch up as soon as we can.

For now, I'll just share a picture from a magical evening listening to Edith Piaf, Nils Ferlin and some Spanish ballads on a balcony in Beirut...

Alexandria - good bye...

Have you missed us? I wrote this sitting in a minibus travelling from Alexandria to Cairo Airport to go to on to Beirut after four intense but wonderful days. Alex, as we've come to call it, is different. The traffic is awful, but not half as bad as in Cairo. The surroundings are a little more green and the waterfront has a lot of colonial-style buildings looking out on the bay. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina is an amazing piece of architecture that seems to gleam at you from everywhere. We have had a tour of it, and also visited the very recently renovated jewellery museum which contains lots of fantastic pieces owned by the queens, princesses and kings of the royal family in Egypt. We all wonder if it's possible to ever go into an ordinary jewellery store again.

We met the Governor of Alexandria who governs a city with a population close to that of the whole of Sweden! He gave us some lovely gifts and we also learned abot the mega-project that the Rotary clubs of Alexandria are entering into together with the city - an upgrading of the living conditions for an entire town, with schools, hospitals and other services planned.

Professionally we all had excellent vocational visits. I was hosted by Dr Maged Bedwany, a psychiatrist, at a small charity hospital as well as a rehabilitation center for addicts. Both are showing excellent results and we had such a lot to talk about that we could have gone on for days!

Between this, Rotary Club meetings, boat and beach outings and tours of factories - among them a chocolate factory, Swiza, mmm! - what did we learn? Quite a few things, actually. We learned to be happy to find toilet paper in public toilets. Also that the stomach is a weak thing at times and that it's a joy to recover. We've discovered that we laughed a lot when we're tired but relaxed. Oh, and the honking system - I've learned the code! It's like this, every car honks a lot in Egypt. In Sweden, a honk generally means either that there's danger or an irritable "get out of my way". Here, one quick honk just means "I'm here", in case the others don't see you, and as the lanes are there just for decorative purposes, that's a good thing. A long honk means "I'M HERE, CAN'T YOU SEE?". Two quick taps mean "hello" or "thank you". A long syncopated series of taps, e.g. short short long short is swearing. So don't do that unless you're really annoyed. So there you are, now you can come and drive in Egypt! Oh, but you also have to pretend you're in a video game, drive fast, overtake on either side and go for any gaps that you think you could get through with your rear mirrors intact. Maybe.

Above all, we learned that you can make friends for life in just four days and that saying goodbye isn't easy. Thanks to all our hosts and to Ahmed, Ayman, Shahira, Abdelaziz and all the other kind Rotarians we met!

Pyramides, horseback riding and more

Another two days has passed in wonderful Cairo and it is a little sad to day that this was our last day hosted by Rotary Club Nasr City. Yesterday was busy! All day guided by ex rotaractor Dina Shehab we started off with a visit in the beautiful Mohammed Ali Mosque and visited the Egyptian Antiques Museum. After a good lunch at a local restaurant we continued to the pyramids in Giza. Wow! It is impossible to imagine how big they really are. After a tour on a camelback (!) we got to enter the Chefren pyramid. We were all a bit nervous to climb up and down the narrow tracks and the air inside was warm, humid and contained very little oxygen. Back in the bus Dina translated the meaning of our names based on the hieroglyph signs. In the Papyrus Institute we got a demonstration of the production of papyrus. The day ended up in a Bazaar where we got to try Shisha (water-pipe) and do some shopping.
Today we had our first vocational visits within our respective working fields. After interesting meetings and some adventures in the busy Cairo traffic (well done Yasmeen!) we prepared sushi instructed by my host Tarek Michel and it was delicious! The day ended up in the Pyramid area where Tarek took us for horseback riding in the desert. I will quote Elisabeths facebook status “can easily imagine a life that involves riding by the pyramids on Sunday afternoons... Thanks to Tarek Michel for this wonderful experience!”.



The bags are now packed and we are looking forward to continue our trip to Alexandria where we are heading early tomorrow morning. We would like to thank all Rotarians and Rotaracts in Nasr City that has taken such good care of us and made these five days a memory for life!
Shoukran!