Alfons' Space

Egypt - quite an amazing country!

You can smell the incredibly long and rich history everywhere. But it's also absolutely chaotic - never assume anything when in Egypt.

In many ways Egypt reminded me of India which people from India and Egypt would probably strongly reject yet many times I thought I was in India until I realized it's Egypt this time (maybe because it was so much different from Dubai and Bahrain).

And traffic is the worst I've ever seen, India and Brazil are a piece of cake in comparison. Out of three attempts of driving between offices and the city (usually a 20min trip) we ended up three times in 2+ hours of "stop and no-go" traffic.

Definitely worth a longer (tourism) trip but also definitely requires some planning for not being totally ripped off when in the country.

As usual I had a pretty good timing: while I was out of country Seattle was "battered" by heavy rains, flooding and mud slides (I successfully did the same move last year when we had the big flooding)...

Unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures in Dubai. I caught a cold on the flight to Dubai and pretty much stayed all my free time in the bed...  :-(

Dubai feels a lot like Las Vegas - everything is possible, there is plenty of money available and people will just build what they can't find in nature. BUT it all doesn't feel real, like a big Disney Land.

Bahrain was pretty cool though. It's not as crazy as Dubai but you can still feel that people want to do something and change their country.

We signed a contract with the Minister of e-Commerce and they celebrated a great ceremony around that. The minister apparently is part of the royal family and we actually felt as if we had a audience with the king himself!

After that the minister arranged a private tour on Bahrain's Formula 1 track for our group - pretty impressive!

I spent 3 days in Istanbul for a summit. As usual there wasn't a lot of time to explore the area but Istanbul seems to be a very beautiful city.

I was somewhat disappointed by the palace though. New York times lists it as one of the 1000 places you have to see before you die but I guess I would have a different priority list.

However it's a beautiful place and I would like to see it in the summer.

Dubai, Bahrain and Egypt will be next...

The hardships of business travel: you don't sleep enough, your body get's totally confused with all the timezone changes and you usually don't get a lot to see beyond hotel rooms and airport lounges.

But this time is (fortunately) a little bit different: regional summits in a resort in Cebu, Philippines and Costa Rica. Still a lot work to do and daily "death by PPT" but at least you can jump in the pool after a long day in meeting rooms...

Enjoy the pictures from Philippines and Costa Rica!