The below is really not finished yet. It's a work in progress, I've more notes to integrate!

2008.12.08 20:59 +1

I'm in the air over the Baltic Sea. I have no excuses now, no distractions, no reason not to begin writing again. I didn't bring any movies along on the hard drive and there doesn't seem to be a film on this flight. I don't have a book and all my email has been replied to. I think this trip is an opportunity to start writing again. When I get back to Lund I should try and stay off the internet more as well. It's infinitely easier to find distractions rather than being a productive person. If I have a book I read, although I haven't read a whole book in ages with the reasoning that I can't allow myself to be so distracted. Or I might watch a film, or the main distraction of all is reading news again and again. Researching the basis behind developments. Distracting myself when I should be writing people back, or working on an exam. Or building my website.

2008.12.09 07:29 +2

The airport in Riga is nicer than the one in Copenhagen. It isn't a bad place to sleep, although I didn't get a whole lot of sleep here. There are some cafés with comfortable seating that are perfect for sleeping. And there are a lot of electrical outlets for plugging in things. The bathrooms are relatively clean and for most of the night the place was completely deserted. In all I've got about nine hours between landing and boarding, so not really enough time to go into the city. I did think about it but I was also too lazy to contact couchsurfers in advance. I'm now just waiting for boarding and it seems I'm the only backpacker going to Hurghada. I guess its not strange given that it's a resort town, but it would be nice if there were some friendly looking people I might want to talk to. I look forward to taking a bit of a nap on the flight. I'm too sleepy now.

11:44 +2

The view from airplanes is really amazing sometimes. I woke up looking down on a beautiful landscape. I wonder where it was. My guess it Lebanon. The population density was pretty high, and there were some snowy mountains not so far away from the coast. Now I am awake, I got a couple hours sleep on this flight and I think it's enough in the end. Not a full nights sleep, but at least what I need to keep from being a sluggish idiot once I'm in Egypt. And I will need to be on my toes there I think. At least until I get used to it. Now it is a few minutes later and I see what might be an island in the distance. Could it be Cyprus? Now another hour has passed and we are following the Red Sea coast inland. It is desert sometimes rocky and sometimes sandy. Further north we passed the Nile delta and it was green and filled with farms. I imagine the Nile is visible from the other side of the plane.

15:25 +2

The Nile was very visible from the other side of the plane. Although I wasn't sure about it at first because it seemed too big. It is a big river! The airport is about what I expected. Chaotic and full of scammers. Getting the visa was pretty straight forward though. 15USD very clearly advertised in many placed to cut down on that opportunity for fraud. Getting the folks working there to give me useful transportation information was pointless though. Everyone just tried to sell me a taxi. It's only a 15 min walk to the shoreline highway though. And from there people seemed happy to see a Westerner trying to make his own way and were very helpful. Also the weather is good here and walking around is pleasant. So instead of 50EGP on a taxi it cost 1EGP for a shared minibus. And I think I even overpaid for that looking at what locals were paying! So my first impression of Egyptians is that they are friendly and helpful as long as they aren't trying to make a buck. Where I got off was right by a bus stop where it was simple to find bus information for leaving Hurghada. The guy behind the counter spoke pretty good English as well and was pleased with Arabic words I tossed in. So from Hurghada to Khenna, near Luxor its 30EGP and the bus leaves at 7:30 and 10:30. For Cairo it's six or seven hours and costs either 45EGP or 60EGP, depending on normal or VIP service. The times are 9, 12, 13, 14, and 17. I think I may have to get a local SIM card even though I charged up mine just before leaving though. It cost 3.49SEK to send an SMS and then perhaps 22.37 to receive one! I'll have to test it out a bit to see if that was a fluke. It's certainly too expensive to be useful. Jasmin is still at work but some of her mates who run a dive center picked me up and dropped me at a beach full of European tourists. It's a bit of a weird place but the water looks so inviting. This is a problem with traveling. I never have a place I can comfortably leave my things to do things like getting in the water. The structure of the place reminds me of Saudi but much poorer and more relaxed.

2008.12.08 07:42 +2

I'm sitting in a cafe at Ramses Station in Cairo now, waiting for my train to Alexandria. I like this city on first impression. Dirty, yes, but dynamic, it reminds me of Bombay or Calcutta. And now I'm on the train. It's nice, not too dirty, not too crowded, comfortable seats. The cafe also reminded me of India. The train is like many in middle income countries. I wonder how fast it will be. After I last wrote on Tuesday I did get in the water. My things were safely left in an office, but I took my Pentax W60 camera with me. I must have been a bit tired from the flight because I didn't even think to stick it in the underwater camera bag I have. I mean it is a waterproof camera, but I went a bit further down than its rated maximum of 15m. I only had it a week, and I didn't bring along my other camera. At first it was working great. But then suddenly it was acting funny and I could see water in the lens and viewscreen, and it died. It was hard, and I couldn't do anything about it, so I continued the dive. It was beautiful. Not the best I've seen, but it was only a shore dive. And there were still so many cute fish, little clams, many different types of anemones, even a jellyfish that looked to be transitioning to life as an anemone. It was a last minute decision, I was waiting for my couchsurfing host with some of her friends. And the price offered seemed fine. 100EGP for an hour. And it was nice, if only I hadn't been so stupid. Sigh. It will be something to regret for some time. Taking pictures on my travels is very important to me, and I'm very picky on what camera I choose. As I was coming out of the water I met Jasmin. My first CS host in Egypt. She is from Germany but she has been in Egypt for fifteen years. She seems to keep herself pretty active, mainly in teaching German, English, and Arabic. To the local community working in tourism, and to the large ex-pat community of Hurghada. Hurghada isn't really my sort of place. It's a boom town growing around European tourists in a poor country. Probably like some of the...and the train is off!...Spanish beach towns thirty or forty years ago. Not that I have been to any of those places yet. What it means in the end is people coming to party and acting stupid. And the locals preying on them like vultures. I suppose it can work out in the end sometimes. Some of the nicer locals I met had European wives. Although with what I've seen in the world I can't imagine most of those relationships will last. It is too hard when the male partner is from a more conservative background. I didn't meet anyone involved in relationships in the other direction but then I didn't meet any women at all really, except for my host. But that isn't surprising given the country. Jasmin, she is quite a character, funny and interesting, with a strong German accent in her English and her Arabic. She was nice to listen to but I think half the time she wasn't really listening to my responses. Ha ha. But I enjoyed my time hanging out with her. After diving I was cold and sleepy and hungry, and stunned from the loss of my camera.

The operation. Once we got back to Jasmin's after eating pizza, mine was an ok veggie one for 17EGP, and an unwanted bottle off water for 2.50EGP, I washed my clothes in the sink. After that I looked at the camera. The water inside was visibly full of sediments. The design wasn't so hard to take apart. Many little screws, but normal ones. Unfortunately I don't have any tools since I just went with carry on bags on this trip, but my host had some I could borrow. After I got the camera open out came the water. It was smelly and yellow. And the insides were corroded and stinky. I had very little hope at this point. Some major chemical reactions took place inside I think. I hoped that at least the memory card would be salvageable. But even it's contacts were corroded! That night I felt totally defeated. I gave up any hope of getting the camera repaired or replaced. I'm sure that it wouldn't come under warentee and I just quickly slapped the camera back together. What could I do. I went to bed about 22:30 but I was up again by three, and I just couldn't sleep. So I wrote some emails and looked up information about various things. Just wasting time really. But around five I was sleepy again and I went back to bed until nine. I had been too sleepy to shower and it felt good to get clean in the morning. For breakfast we had bread and cheese. Jasmin didn't have any students so she took me on a search for a camera. I wasn't terribly optimistic given the sort of place Hurghada is and this turned out to be well founded. What is available there are cameras that are vastly overpriced, and cameras that are absolute crap...and vastly overpriced. I eventually found even used cameras....that were both crap and vastly overpriced. I've been using my mobile phones camera a bit more but it's so depressing to be in such a photogenic place and be limited to such a low resolution, slow, and poor light functioning camera. To take worthwhile photos at all I need to focus on bright stationary objects. If I can't find something in Alexandria I might just resign myself to this being the situation on this trip. Coming back from my last excursion to find a camera, in which one of Jasmin's students took me to a place with the used cameras...900EGP for a camera that was probably five years old, ha ha...I got a little bit lost, but found my way and found a nice little sandwich shop. I got a couple falafel sandwiches for 2EGP each and they were good. Then I was back at Jasmin's and waiting for my midnight bus. Eventually I went back to get some more sandwiches, but some mean boss had arrived and the price went up to 3EGP each. Not bad, but also not the place I would visit again with the second experience.

Jasmin and a friend were going out to dinner and dropped me off at the bus station on the way. It was a comfortable enough place to wait. In Hurghada each company has it's own station, I don't particularly recommend the one I used. It wasn't the cheapest, but while it was advertised as V.I.P. Class, the seats were small and cramped. Also the bus was full, I was quite tired and so I didn't have any trouble going to sleep, but it still wasn't the most comfortable trip. I might have gone in the day to watch the Red Sea along the way, but with my current camera setup that would be frustrating. I woke up finally when we got to Nasser City at six. This was the middle of nowhere and we seemed to really arrive in a dense urban jungle just several minutes before the bus came to a complete stop. It is truly a city. Buildings close together and elevated roads floating above it all. How I wish I had a proper camera! I asked a guy on the bus the best way to get to Ramses Station and he said take a taxi. But fortunately he understood my dislike of them and said I could just take the metro as well. The metro! I love cities with a metro. Cairo's metro is nice. A bit dirty, but comfortable and well designed. It's magic for me to walk down into trains going underground and appear somewhere else. He even bought a ticket for me. Once again I find Egyptians are very nice, as long as they aren't trying to sell you anything.

2008.12.12 11:11 +2

I'm on the train back from Alexandria to Cairo. The 2nd class seats were sold out and so I splurged on 1st class for 35EGP. Ha ha, it's nice. Faded glory, the seats are a bit threadbare but slightly elegant, and they are nice a wide! It feels nice and cozy. The train coming up to Alexandria was nice as well but definitely more crowded. I was sitting next to a pretty nice guy named Mizo. I wanted to write on that train and I did certainly get some writing done, but he wanted to chat and I don't mind although sometimes its tiring when I just want to do something else, especially when someones English is rather weak. Regardless I didn't mind so much for most of the trip. I didn't want him to hang around when I got to Alexandria though and my feelings were confirmed when we got there. He said he was poor and asked for 100EGP! What a jerk! I never give to beggars and even when I used to I would never have given so much. Nada was going to meet me at the station but the train was a bit too quick and so I had to dodge all the taxi drivers and try and find how to get to a nearby McDonalds to meet her. Even that didn't work as everyone was still pointing me in the wrong direction and trying to get me in a taxi. I even met Mizo again trying to help me into a taxi. These are times that I really don't like Egypt. It is easy to ignore though and eventually me and Nada found each other and the rest of the day was perfect, at least up until an evening disaster!

Me and Nada first sat down in the nearby McDonalds for a cup of tea. She is an amazingly active girl. Studying German and Spanish, working at the Library of Alexandria, rowing, active in scouts, urban development NGOs, wikimedia. I was quite impressed! It reminds me a bit of what a lazy person I am ;-). After tea we dropped my bags at her apartment and went to the Library. It's a really beautiful building and has an interesting style. I wasn't at all surprised to learn it was designed by a Norwegian. It's all concrete, wood and glass, in a funny shape. During the day it's lit up by the sun and the design works quite well. Unlike some sun based lighting we have back at the LUCIE building at my faculty in Lund. Oh! And Nada is doing online courses with the IIEEE organization at Lund University. It's a small world sometimes! The layout of the library is quite charming and I would definitely like it as a hang out if I lived in Alexandria. The city itself is charming and run down. More fading grandeur. A lot of the architecture looks quite French but it's crumbling and in need of paint. Thursday was the last day of the week of Eid so it was a party atmosphere. The streets were crowded and full of families enjoying the good weather. I'm always happy to be near the sea and Alexandria is set on a beautiful bay and the corniche is long an a nice walk at least in the winter. After a couple sandwiches, falafel and fried cheese, me and Nada walked it for a few kilometers and stopped for ice cream at Bahary(WONDERFUL ice cream, the best I've had in a very long time, I had date and Nada had milk flavor and both were just SO good) before wandering along to the Citadel. I didn't go inside but the sight of it is very nice. It's largely made from stones that once made up the lighthouse of Alexandria, and is a lovely color. This area was pretty packed and was a bit annoying because of little boys trying to listen to our conversation and get my attention. I pretty much didn't see any visible foreigners in Alexandria so I stood out a lot. Apparently there are more at other times of the year. Talking with Egyptians it seems that the locals are pretty open minded and aware of the rest of the world. Of course any I speak with will be quite educated to begin with. They also really dislike Israel although not all Israelis, they care about Palestinians and their position in Israel and in Egypt. A lot of this contrasts a lot with the views of locals in the Gulf. But Egyptians are a lot easier to talk to. Also they are very vehement in hating their president and the Muslim Brotherhood, even with all that it seems people in Egypt want to stay in Egypt and make it a better place.

We met Nada's friend Aya at the Citadel and she had a car so the rest of Alexandria for me was in a seat of luxury. They took me to the Carrefoure so I could try and find a camera. The prices didn't seem SO bad, but I just don't want to spend more than 100USD on a new camera I won't use after I get back to Sweden. I think I will buy another Pentax W60 since it really is a nice camera. And I might just rely on my phone's crappy camera for the rest of this trip. It's certainly not great and I can't take night photos really, but it's better than nothing. After the mall we went to have a late lunch at Aya's grandmother's apartment. It was a beautiful place! First you walk though a little shop in the very center of downtown Alexandria, and get in a beautiful and grand old elevator, all glass and wood. It opens right into a really nice apartment that was built by a Greek woman who eventually Emigrated. The big surprise is to open the shutters of a sitting room. It's the corner of a building on the top floor overlooking the main square. You couldn't be in a more central location. It's really cozy and nice too. Aya's family was friendly and the young ones all spoke English. Lunch was nice and afterwards we went upstairs to look at the city from the roof. The door wouldn't open at first but it just took a little force and there was the bustling square below and the beautiful moon above.

2008.12.15 15:43 +2

Thursday night started quite well. Looking out over the main square of Alexandria filled with celebrations of Eid. Me and Nada and Aya decided to go off to a cafe and have some tea and chat. So we went to the harbor area and got a table right by the sea. It was a beautiful night and a nice end to the day. After a while we were getting cold and so we left. A couple minutes later Nada realized she left her phone at the cafe so we went back to get it but it was gone. She suspected the workers at the cafe kept it since they were acting a bit suspicious, but there was nothing to do about it. It was really a mood killer and spoiled what had been a very nice day. First she went around a couple places to get the phone shut off and see if she could get a new SIM with the same number. It didn't quite work out right away but I think she got it settled within the next couple days. This was the day before her birthday so it wasn't a very nice birthday for her, trying to figure out how to get everything canceled and buying a new phone, sad. After getting the phone shut off they took me to a nice hostel. Shatby Youth Hostel is right by a French private school which has been around for a long time and sits in a really grand building near the sea. It looks like a government building or university. The people working there were very nice and a dorm room only cost 11EGP, including breakfast! I chatted with a student from Upper Egypt for a while before taking a shower and going off to bed. I was quite tired having spent the night before on the bus from Hurghada to Cairo. The morning breakfast was really simple but I can't complain at the price! After I ate I just went off to the nearest tram stop about a block away and waited for the tram. The trams in Alexandria are great. The are slow and noisy and very old. But any city with transportation like this feels more like a true city to me. It means there is some organization and a high population density. Alexandria wouldn't be complete without transportation like this. Also it just costs 0.25EGP. So I took it six or seven stops to the train station and bought a ticket for the next train to Cairo. It was a slight challenge as I kept going to the wrong window, and I was bummed that the 2nd class at 30EGP was sold out. I decided to splurge and go for first class. It turned out this was a whopping 35EGP! If I'd known the difference in price was so small I might have taken first class coming up from Cairo as well. Not that second class was at all bad. It was a bit dirtier and the seats smaller. In first class the seats are really wide and have a funny upholstery that was presumably kitsch in about 1970 and probably dates from then as well.

2008.12.24 10:26 +2

The Friday I arrived in Cairo was the second time I was coming to it. Before Alexandria I was only hopping on the metro and then taking a train. When I arrive back at the train station I again hopped on the metro, going back to Sadat station. I had hoped to find a place with a couchsurfer but I wasn't successful. At least my friend Nihal who I'd met while she was studying in Lund for a month knew of where to find a cheap room in the very center. After a little searching I found it. The Hotel Suisse had big, run down rooms for only 40EGP. Not too bad. The rest of Friday I wandered around my neighborhood and took it easy. I contacted another CSer, Sheam, about meeting up and she was going with friends to my area for a birthday party and I got to join. Her friend Maha was driving and she could handle the horrid traffic of Cairo very well. After walking a ways to meet them and driving for a while looking for a place to part it turned out that the pub where the party was, was just around the corner from my hotel. That was nice in the end for going home. It was quite a normal pub on the inside the “After Eight” but its placement reminded me of some other more conservative cities. To get in you walk through an alley and past a bunch of bouncers. Once inside its hard to know you're not anywhere else in the world. Upper middle class Egyptians struck me as being a very international bunch. They all travel a lot and all had fathers with interesting jobs, someone in Egypt commented to me that in the Middle East sons follow the profession of their fathers regardless of training and aptitude. Unfortunately many of these sons are not really qualified for the jobs of their fathers. Anyway this group of 20 somethings at the “After Eight” will probably have quite interesting careers if they do follow their fathers. It was a fun night until the end. I went home at two or three with a plan to get up early and go and see the pyramids before the crowds.

On Saturday morning I didn't get up quite as early as I'd planned to.

tahir sq, mamoud basuni st, go to another sq, talad harb sq, dahab motel, swiss motel. Left Amman at 17:00 arrived at the border at 18:00. Sailed right though Jordanian exit. They only charged 5JOD exit. No charge for entering via Aqaba and not paying 10JOD entrance.

Turkey feels like coming back to Europe. Cleaner. Border nice. Maybe not so different in the end though.Winter wonderland, snow on trees, miniature haga sophias. Beautiful sea, cargo ships at anchor, tunnels and highway going by a factory. Amazing beautity of Istanbul, HUGE city, fast pace.

Appendix I: Travel Timetable

Sweden-Lund

Monday Dec. 8th 17:39-18:23 (00:44, Cl 2, 100SEK(12.01USD)) (DSB) C.

Denmark-Copenhagen

20:35-22:55(+1) (01:20, Cl Y, S 11C, 151.53EUR(192.66USD) To Egypt) (Air Baltic, BT 0140) R.

Latvia-Riga

Tuesday Dec. 9th 08:15-13:10 (04:55, Cl Y, S 05A) (Air Baltic, BT 0751) H.

Egypt-Hurghada-Cairo-Alexandria-Cairo-Dahab-Nuweiba

Thursday Dec. 11th 00:00-06:30 (06:30, S 23 65EGP(11.73USD) (El Gouna Transport Co., 147199) C. 08:00-10:10 (02:10, Cl 2, W 05, S 11, 30EGP(5.41USD) (ENR, 0905) A.
Friday Dec. 12th 10:00-13:00 (03:00, Cl 1, W 01, S 29, 35EGP(6.32USD) (ENR, 0915) C.
Sunday Dec. 14th 07:15-15:45 (08:30, S 20 85EGP(15.34USD) (East Delta, 19698) D.
Tuesday Dec. 16th 11:00-12:30 (01:30, 11EGP(1.98USD) (East Delta) N. 18:00-20:30 (02:30, 70USD + 50EGP(9.02USD) tax) (AB Maritime, 302173 NAB).

Jordan-Aqaba-Amman

21:00-03:00 (06:00, 5.5JOD(7.73USD) A.
Saturday Dec. 20th 17:00-18:00 (01:00, 8JOD(11.24USD) (service taxi, price to Damascus) J.

Syria-Jaber Border-Damascus

20:00-21:30 (01:30, Free (Service Taxi) D.
Tuesday Dec. 23rd 09:30-13:30 (04:00, S 28 400SYP(8.48USD)) B.

Lebanon-Beirut

Thursday Dec. 25th 09:30-11:30 (02:00, 25000LBP(16.30USD)) (Service Taxi) A.

Syria-Abboudeh-Ma'arrat-Aleppo

14:30-17:00 (02:30, 300SYP(6.36USD)) (Bus) M. 17:00-18:00 (01:00, 75SYP(1.59USD)) (Microbus) A.
Sunday Dec. 28th 13:30-16:20 (02:50, 300SYP(6.36USD)) (Bus) A.

Turkey-Antioch-Istanbul

18:00-11:00 +1 (17:00, S 15, 60TRY(37.73USD)) (HAS) I.
Monday Jan. 5th 12:00-21:30 (09:30, S 02, 50TRY(31.44USD)) (Metro, 4658) S.

Bulgaria-Sofia

Wednesday Jan. 7th 21:00-06:40 +1 (09:40, S 09, 40BGN(25.80USD)) (Oz Varol) I.

Turkey-Istanbul

Saturday Jan. 10th 22:50-00:55 (-1) +1 (03:05, S 1C, 53.58GBP(85.45USD)) (Pegasus, H9833) C.

Denmark-Copenhagen

Sunday Jan. 11th 01:30-02.00 (00:30, Cl 2, 107.20SEK(12.87USD) to Lund) (DSB) M.

Sweden-Malmo-Lund

03:00-03:30 (00:30) (Skånetrafiken) L.

Hurghada microbus 0.5-2EGP(0.09-0.37USD)
Hurghada scuba dive 1 hour 100EGP(18.04USD)
Hurghada taxi with Arabic speaker 5EGP(0.90USD)
Hurghada falafel sandwich 2-3EGP(0.36-0.54USD)
Cairo metro 1EGP(0.18USD)
Alexandria tram 0.25EGP(0.05USD)
Alexandira falafel sandwich 0.75EGP(0.14USD)
Alexandria cheese sandwich 2EGP(0.36USD)
Alexandria ice cream 2EGP(0.36EGP)
Alexandria tea for three and water 19EGP(3.43USD)
Alexandria entry to library (student) 5EGP(0.90USD)
Alexandria youth hostel 11EGP w/ breakfast (Shatby)(1.98USD)
Cairo falafel sandwich 0.75EGP(0.14USD)
Cairo 1.5l water 2-3EGP(0.36-0.54USD)
Cairo hotel 40EGP (Hotel Suisse)(7.22USD)
Giza pyramids student entry 30EGP(5.41USD)
Giza microbus 1.5EGP(0.27USD)
Giza bus 0.75EGP(0.14USD)
Giza falafel sandwich 0.75EGP(0.14USD)
Cairo ice cream 3.5EGP(0.63USD)
Cairo kocery 5-7EGP(0.90-1.26USD)
Dahab water 2EGP(0.36USD)
Dahab tea at western cafe 10EGP(1.80USD)
Dahab baked goods from German bakery 14EGP(2.52USD)
Dahab coffee at beach cafe 5EGP(0.90USD)
Dahab taxi 5km 5EGP(0.90USD)
Amman taxi late night 2.5JOD(3.51USD)
Amman dorm room 4JOD (Cliff Hostel)(5.62USD)
Amman big breakfast street cafe 3.5JOD(4.92USD)
Amman light dinner street cafe 0.9JOD(1.26USD)
Amman tea in fancy cafe 2JOD(2.81USD)
Amman water 1.5l 0.3JOD(0.42USD)
Amman water 2l 0.35JOD(0.49USD)
Damascus taxi 30-100SYP(0.64-2.12USD)
Damascus sandwich 35SYP(0.74USD)
Damascus bus 10SYP(0.21USD)
Damascus money exchange 100SYP(2.12USD)
Syria exit tax 500SYP(10.59USD)
Beirut dorm room 15000LBP(9.78USD)
Beirut croissant w/cheese 1000LBP(0.65USD)
Beirut stamp f/France 500LBP(0.33USD)
Beirut Stamp f/USA 1500LBP(0.98USD)
Aleppo hotel room 300-500SYP(6.36-10.59USD)
Aleppo falafel sandwitches 15-20SYP(0.32-0.42USD)
Syria exit tax 550SYP(11.65USD)
Aleppo 1.5 l water 25SYP(0.53USD)
Aleppo entry to citadel (student) 10SYP(0.21USD)
Turkey three month multiple entry 20USD
Antioch pudding and pastries 2.25TRY(1.41USD)
Istanbul loaf of bread 1TRY(0.63USD)
Istanbul meal it street cafe 4-5TRY(2.51-3.14USD)
Istanbul meal in restaurant 10TRY(6.29USD)
Istanbul metro 1.40TRY(0.88USD)
Istanbul ferry 1.70-5TRY(1.07-3.14USD)
Istanbul 0.5l raki 19TRY(11.95USD)
Sofia city bus 1BGN(0.64USD)
Sofia metro 1BGN(0.64USD)
Sofia street food, pizza 1.60-1.80BGN(1.03-1.16USD)
Sofia meal in restaurant 12BGN pp(7.74USD)
Istanbul meal in restaurant 30TRY(18.86USD)
Istanbul jazz club entrance 20TRY(12.57USD)
Istanbul bus to airport 2.70TRY(1.70USD)

Appendix II: Exchange Rates (2008.12.08)
Code USD/1 Unit Units/1 USD Currency
BGN 0.65070 1.55070 Bulgarian Lev
DKK 0.17080 5.85650 Danish Krone
EGP 0.18310 5.54180 Egyptian Pound
EUR 1.27240 0.78650 Euro
GBP 1.47030 0.68080 British Pound
JOD 1.42490 0.71180 Jordanian Dinar
LBP 0.00068 1533.73 Lebanese Pound
LVL 1.81250 0.56750 Latvian Lats
SEK 0.12020 8.32630 Swedish Krona
SYP 0.02223 47.1918 Syrian Pound
TRY 0.63010 1.59040 Turkish New Lira
USD 1.00000 1.00000 US Dollar

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All material copyright 2004-2010 by Loren Everly.