Personal
I look at my daughter, and I believe.
I don’t need no proof when it comes to God and truth
I can see the sunset and I perceive
Heaven - Live - Ed Kowalczyk
Wow, I am a daddy now! It’s an unbelievable feeling to become daddy and experience everything from up close. Women are really great being able to go through all of this, what would happen if men were able to deliver…
In short, I’m unbelievably proud of my two girls! They are really the most beautiful creatures on this planet!
1 + 1 = 3 and the fairytale continues
And so we are together living in Holland. Everything went great with the needed visa (unlike many stories on the internet we met very nice and helpful people and went nice and easy through the process of obtaining all the necessary papers) and my wife is studying Dutch and having driving lessons. After half a year in Holland she is speaking Dutch almost fluently and is about to finish driving lessons to receive her driving license.
Above all of that we are expecting our first baby in May 2009, I’m looking forward to yet another great new adventure on the way and can’t wait to see the little monster. For now a lot of things need to be done and made in order to have everything ready in May, but we’ll work towards that date taking everything at ease and we’ll see what happens.
The land of the pharaoh’s
My first impression of Egypt was not that positive. The city constantly smells bad from pollution by many old cars, mostly taxi’s, and the people at first didn’t look so friendly. You have to be careful not to be ripped of by taxi drivers and the camel drivers at the pyramids are only friendly for 10 seconds to give you ‘scarabs’ for free. After those 10 seconds they become very unfriendly and you have to pay for the scarabs.
Thank God there is a second chance to a first impression! My second time in Egypt was with Aya, my wife. Aya showed me the other side of Egypt, although I still also saw the poverty, political problems and what that does to people. Egypt is a beautiful country, which has everything it needs to become one of the wealthiest countries on earth. For instance it has more cultural and historical treasures than any other country, plenty of oil, gold and other worthy geological materials.
Further it is blessed with a beautiful coast, complete with the best environment for touristic diving you can ever find. On top of that in owns the Suez canal, the only canal that connects the Mediterranean sea to the Pacific sea and thus allows ships a way through Africa instead of around it. The only thing this country lacks is an appropriate government…
Egyptian life is tough because of the high prices for first priority goods and low salaries. The effect this has on people is best felt when dealing with daily traffic. Apart from the poor conditions of most of the cars people are also very aggressive in traffic.
This together with the fact that Egypt has no traffic rules and drivers licenses seem to be for sale at every local supermarket is not a very peaceful combination.
My experience with Egyptians is very positive and my family in law is very open minded. Everywhere we go we have to stay for dinner and everyone wants us to try the local specialties. People are proud of their roots and hospitality is at a much higher level then what I’m used to in Holland. A lot of things seem to be better in Holland and I am proud and happy to be Dutch and to live in Holland, still there are some things that we could learn from the Egyptians.
Once upon a time… the start of a fairytale
Once upon a time in the faraway country of Egypt I was attending a wedding of a friend of mine. As best man I was practicing the church rituals for the wedding day on the day before the wedding, when the girls came in that were going to be our companions on the wedding day. 
It seemed that I was selected to walk into the church with a beautiful Egyptian girl that was a close friend of the bride. From that moment on I believe in love at first sight and so did the girl, who became my wife less than a year later.
