Really?

1st July 2009
All boxed up and ready to go. We have our fingers crossed that everything arrives as planned in Egypt at the end of August.

108 days, 2763 kilmometers and £4,000 later, our stuff was delivered to our new flat this morning.

The rather large sum we paid included a charge of EGP 13,000 (about £1,400) for 'Customs and Duties' where a fat, sweaty, half-witted, greedy, ball-scratching Egyptian thief Custom Clearance Manager decided he needed funds for a holiday. The original charge of EGP 15,000 (5,000 more than the estimate) was reduced to 7,900 if we agreed to pay 1,100 'under the table'. On top of that, almost 4,000 was charged for storage because it took them forty days to inspect it rather than ten. As a final fuck you, they charged us 500 as a censorship charge on some of the books we brought in. I'd like to think that was down to my copy of 'The God Delusion' but was probably due to Larissa's Pre-Raphaelite art books which show a couple of boobies here and there.

The whole process says a lot about the Egyptian way, none of it complimentary. We of course asked for a receipt and breakdown of the charges but we might as well have asked for a...

...ach never mind, it's here now. Never underestimate how nice it is to have your things around you.

(Oh, and the new flat is magnificent, but more on that another day.)