2005

Happy New Year everyone! Here's hoping for a great 2005. Damn, we're getting closer to the middle of the decade here.

I went away for a week, from Boxing Day until the 2nd. The place we chose was Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt. We wanted a place with sun and where we could go diving. After looking we only had one choice and we took it. So instead of freezing my ass off in Switzerland, we went to lie in the sun on the beach of Sharm-el-Sheikh - and do a bit of diving as well.

Sharm is a weird place. It's located on the south side of the Sinai peninsula, the peninsula that separates Africa from Middle East, where Moses got lost for 40 years. Looking at the place it's no surprise that Moses got lost. It's a huge rock desert filled with mountains and there is hardly any green trees. Somebody then decided to put up a tourist resort at Sharm and now it's full of tourists who wants to go diving, relax, party, and taste some Egyptian culture.

After the bombing a couple of months ago, security is so tight. Add to that the way they talk (it seems like they argue all the time, even if in fact they are joking) and it gives you a weird sense of paranoia. On top of that they don't understand what service really means and they are a bit sexist (it's in the culture).

The diving is wonderful. I saw lots of fish, a sea turtle, and the coral reefs are amazing. No wonder people flock from all over the world to dive in this place. I'm just baffled at the odds of sitting in a boat full of Germans when there are people from all over the world diving there.

So anyway, it was a nice vacation for me and I hope you had a good time during the New Year break (if you had one).


ps. We all knew what happened in South East Asia on Boxing Day. More than 140,000 people were killed in the tsunami so if you haven't done it yet please spare some change for the disaster victims. You can do it via ICRC, Oxfam, Red Cross, UNICEF, Medecin Sans Frontieres or any other charity fund of your choice.