Peter

Peter is an artist and a computer generalist, having worked in most aspects of the computer industry including programming, systems and network administration, retail sales and repair and multimedia design. His hobbies include art, cooking, playing guitar, reading, chess, travel and walking.

Greek Islands

Now that we are living in Western Turkey, it is very easy to take trips to Greece. There are several Greek Islands in the Agean Sea so we hope to explore as many as we can.

Chiosdownload

In December 2003, we went to Chios for a day trip. Being winter, and arriving in the middle of the day during the ‘siesta’, many of the shops and markets were very quiet. It was rather cold and windy, but we took Ryan to a park after lunch and walked around a bit.

For lunch we bought some food we couldn’t normally get in Turkey and we stocked up on some cheeses to take back for our friends.

Another day trip here in February 2004. Same again, but we were all sick after we returned home.

We visited Chios another time with friends who also had to make the trip to renew visas. Ryan was still very young at the time and he impressed them with spelling words like helicopter. 

Samos

In May 2004 we spent a couple of nights in Kusadasi, Turkey and then took the morning ferry to Samos. We stayed a nigth in the town of Pythagorio, named after Pythagorus, the mathematician famous for his work with triangles.
We took another day trip here in August 2004 and watched some of the Olympics (on TV while having lunch), lazed on a beach and did some shopping.

Patmos

The following morning we took a ferry to Patmos and after a snack walked around the shops.

Rhodes

We then caught another ferry to Rhodes which stopped at several other Greek Islands on the way. We stayed the night in the ancient walled city of Rhodos and the following morning took another ferry to Marmaris, Turkey and stayed a couple of nights there.

 

 

 

Welcome in Egypt (1996)

In December 1996, Peter & Edria went to Egypt.

Getting there

As a step towards their long term goal to live and work in the Middle East, they flew from Blenheim to Wellington to Auckland to Melbourne to Singapore to Dubai to Cairo. They spent almost two days flying with Air New Zealand and Emirates. The Wellington to Auckland flight was delayed and so Peter & Edria had about forty-five minutes to check their baggage, pay their departure tax and go through customs. (It is usually recommended that you arrive at the airport two hours before international flights to do this.) Emirates was entertaining to fly with – they provided English and Arabic safety instructions and each seat had blankets, neck pillows and a personal touch-screen with six channels of movies and programs to view. Peter & Edria had a ten-hour stopover in Dubai, where Emirates provided them with a hotel room, breakfast and lunch.

Arrival & Traffic

On arrival in Cairo, Peter & Edria bought their Egyptian visas at the airport and were met by many friendly Egyptians, before they got out the door to meet their kiwi tour guide. Cairo traffic is an extremely interesting experience – a warrant of fitness in Egypt requires that a car has good bodywork and a working horn. To get a drivers license in Egypt, you must drive forward and then reverse through a set of cones – it doesn’t matter if you knock cones over, but you shouldn’t stop. Road signs and traffic lights only apply when accompanied by a policeman, and any car in front has right of way. Horns are used constantly instead of indicators (bicycles use telephone bells to warn they are coming) and if there are lanes marked on the road as many cars, donkeys, buses, trams, motorbikes and pedestrians as possible can fit across the road (usually five vehicles across three lanes).

The Hotel

The hotel in Zamalek, an island on the Nile, was fairly typical of Egypt – multi-story with new floors added on top of aging buildings, shuttered windows, and paper-less toilets (a spout pointing up from the toilet bowl provided for washing oneself. A visit to the local supermarket for foreigners, obtained the Western comfort of a roll of tissue and bottled water (as most of Egypt’s water comes from the Nile and is irregularly chlorinated). Breakfast was provided daily and consisted of an egg, bread, jam, cheese and a glass of tea. Sami, the hotel proprietor, got Peter to obtain some duty-free alcohol – an exercise in beauracry, with a visit to about seven people for signatures and stamps to make a purchase.

Places to see

Cairo

  • Saladin Mosque: Good views of Cairo smog.
  • Musuem: Lots of dead things.
  • Windows of the World (Hilton Hotel): Impressive views of traffic, sunset.
  • The Pyramids: Bigger and closer to Cairo than we thought.
  • The Sphinx: Impressive.

Luxor

  • Karnak and Luxor Temples (Luxor) : Lots of monuments with heiroglyphics
  • Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Valley of the Workers (Luxor): Empty tombs with lots of pictures on the walls. Some roomy, some claustrophobic.

Aswan

  • German Mission Hospital: Edria got her broken ankle plastered.
  • The Nile: Sailing on a Feluca.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere

  • Changing Buses: Middle of the night stop somewhere.

Alexandria

  • The fort: Cool castle. Fun to explore.
  • Roman ruins: Amazing excavation. Found ancient Greek or Roman graffiti on the Theatre seats.

 

McQuotes

Ryan is learning about times, dates and calendars. We passed McDonalds about a week ago.

Ryan said “We went to McDonalds in 2006. We might go there next year.”

E-children

Edria was using an eraser.
Ryan said “Mummy do you need to backspace?”.

Ryan likes writing and he filled in a form.
In Address he wrote his email address.
In Email he wrote his email address again.

Family History

We picked up a copy of work that has been done on our family tree when we visited Peter’s Aunty Mary and Uncle Ross in Napier, New Zealand in April 2006. There are about 2500 people in the tree dating back to some ancestors who were in Germany in the 1600’s.

The data is stored in a Legacy family tree database and Mary and Ross are encouraging the family to share the tree so that more data can be collected. Download the latest version of the software from http://www.legacyfamilytree.com, then contact us (or Mary and Ross) and we will send you our latest version of the data.

We have started to enter some of Edria’s side of the family as well as Peter’s mum’s side. We are particularly interested in hearing from you if you have any data from these branches of the family.