A Different Drummer

So I haven't been very bloggy for the last week - its been busy busy busyness!

So in short:

I've moved house again! Living with a Moroccan again, this time a guy though. Surely I am the only person in the world who has consecutively shared houses with 2 different former National Presidents of AIESEC in Morocco - if anyone wants to challenge me on this unique world record, the comments are all yours.

I just spent a weekend in Alexandria that completely reaffirmed my belief in all that is good in the world. Perfect. Ahh, Alexandria. We spent a memorable sunset on the corniche looking our across the ocean - the one good thing about Ramadan time is that because everyone, and I mean everyone, rushes to be home by 5:15 to eat their big evening Iftar, the streets are completely empty at sunset time, and traffic is almost non-existent. It is one of the only times you will ever be able to hear yourself think, and it is spooky. Egypt and noise are almost inseperable, the drone of car horns and yelling and microbus engines is as constant as life itself. To be sitting on the Alexandria corniche in perfect silence, able to hear birds chirp and the waves roll against the sea wall, was fantastic.

What made it even cooler was that we were sitting beside the new Alexandria library, the Bibliotheca Alexandria. Obviously the old Alexandria library was in its time one of the main centres of knowledge and learning in the world, and the new library is yet to compete for that title. But, full credit where its due, the Alexandrians have built themselves a damn fine looking building:



It rises out of the earth like a primordial wedge, a giant discus that was hurled by the gods and skewed into the ground at an angle. Even better, although you cant see it in the picture, is that the entire outer wall of the building is covered in giant engravings of words and letters, written in all the known languages and scripts on Earth. It looks a bit out of place on the otherwise dusty and dilapedated corniche. But I think that is part of the fun of it all.