10 november 2008, Alexandria, shipping day

Got up at 07.00 and had breakfast at 08.00 and went walking to port no.10. It was not far away from our hotel. Our brooker arrived in time too on his Vespa. The drivers of the cars, except Terence, went into the customs area to do the final custom demands. Our brooker told us that it would take 2 hours...... Maria, Atske and me had about 33 cups of mint tea to obtain our places at the cab drivers café. Then it was 13.00 and we got SMS's from Heert-Jan that they were not finished yet. They had to cope with clerks, bosses, officers, higher clerks, higher bosses, higher ranked officers, etc. So we decided to go to the boulevard and went to the Grand Café, next to the Fishmarket where we had that fabulous dinner last night. We had a few snacks, fruit juice, beer and espresso's. Then we got a SMS that the custom works were finished. We met all together at the Cecil hotel. We met our brooker again, thanked and payed him. There we had lunch (again) and a glass of white wine. It was after 15.30 when we went to the very big Library of Alexandria. That is a new design library and lodges an exposition. I took a carriage and went to the other side of the bay, where the Qaitbay fort is located. First my carriage went to the Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque. My carriage went along the Ra's à-Tin Palace, which is the former King Farouk's palace. After that there was a big beach and many shipyards. There they only make beatifull wooden boats, that is fishing boats and pleasure boats. We went further through the Anfushi district with all the barber shops, café's, grocery shops, etc. Then along the boulevard with the Court and the Unknown Soldier Tomb back to the Cecil Hotel. The rest of our group had arrived too. We slept for a while and had dinner in a Greec fish restaurant. Poor quality. That is the food, not the company! We went to bed at 23.00 and got up at about 01.00 to get our mini-van to the airport. It was a small airport (ALY) near the centre of Alexandria. I forgot about my famous knife (in Africa the big, black security agent said: I think it is your knife, Sir) ( this was at the airport in the Okavango Delta) and the custom safety people discovered it in my hand luggage. I could put in my suitcase, which was just outside the wall. We took off with Olympic Airways to Athens. There we had to change to Air France and checked in again. Here we said goodbye to Louis and Veronique who took another flight to Paris. Now they discovered a knife in Victor's hand luggage, which was not discovered in Alexandria! He had to check in his hand luggage with his knife and came back to us through custom controle again. Then we boarded and went off to Paris. We flew over Italy's Appenine Mountains and the Alps, where we could see the skiing area in which our appartment is located in Switzerland.