07-23-08 Londres, UK

Back to Londres from Cairo this afternoon. It was a rather pleasant flight riding on the 747-400 where a nice Egyptian lady offered to switch seats with me so that I could sit with Kathleen. On top of that, I actually fell asleep on the plane for about three hours, which is really good for me.

It feels like home even though it isn't here. One thing I've been really excited about is Christmas in July, or rather, receiving a stockpile of goods that my Dad sent from the US and negotiated its safe delivery through British customs (thanks Dad! that was a lot of work). You'll be surprised how much more expensive things are in Europe. It's not just the 19%+ VATs or the soft dollar. Consumer goods flow just isn't efficient. For the most part, people still buy goods at physical stores and that means less price comparisons done efficiently online. For example, a lense I bought in the states cost 30% that of in the stores in Prague where the Czech Republic's GDP is only a fraction of that of the states.

Anyway, what was in the goody boxes might you ask? An L-series Canon wide-angle lense, Canon Speedlight (trying to take better photos), Arctery'x 95 gallon back pack (condensing my suitcase + 55 gal backpack into one backpack), some nice padded socks, highly washable khaki pants (haven't worn khankis since the gq days of hs). Also, the key item was my old Sony VAIO laptop that was repaired after Kathleen sat on it and cracked the screen (not really her fault, she was just zipping up the suit case and the computer was in there). Why is it key? Because everytime I use the web, she has to steal the computer to do planning. Now we have our own computers and things couldn't be better.

Anyway, I posted a ton of pictures - about 20-30 updates or so - so enjoy! I will add commentary as we progress.