Bern - SWITZERLAND

MONDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 1999

Just as the winter festival had finished more snow fell from the sky turning the mounds of verdant green white. Avalanches were causing havoc in the mountains and the temperature sent a chill right through to the bone. The blankets of snow had such a soft and delicate composure and it was a harsh reality coming to terms with with the number of human lives mother nature had taken away. Egypt will be such a contrast to this little piece of winter wonderland.

For the first time we left the house at 9am (to Frank's disbelief) and spent the entire day downtown trawling for the cheapest flight to Cairo, ringing a few embassies to find out travel advice, shopping for a few western luxuries and finding out about what money forms to take. It seems that there are no ATM's or cash advances in Syria, which means we'll be using a wad of US dollars and Swiss travellers cheques. It's almost unimaginable to think that we'll be in Egypt on Thursday afternoon I recall thinking as I dragged my feet through the piles of powder. The best price we came across was SF290 for me and SF360 for Dave, which is an absolute bargain as we fly Lufthansa Zurich to Frankfurt then to Cairo. Although the flight leaves at 8:50am and we'll have to catch a 5:30am train (costing SF50!!) from Bern to Zurich airport.

After a fruitful search we headed back to the apartment via the bear pit to find that the bears were covered in an inch of snow and a blizzard was beginning. Frank returned home after work for an hour and then left us to fend for ourselves for the evening. After a packet of soup I continued to type in this diary and listen to some mini disks. Dave spends most of his time reading up on our Arabian trip of which I'm almost in the dark about. Which is kind of exciting due to the nature of hectic Cairo and of the political game of hop scotch that the middle east is playing with the west at the moment. Apparently we're not to get off the train between Cairo and Luxor due to religious extremists. This has been happening for years though and there's no need to be concerned as we'll always be updated on current affairs. If you thought Morocco was exciting, just you wait until April when the "middle eastern experience" will be published!!