Busy in the good way.....

I guess its a good thing that i've been way too busy to blog lately.

Busy in a holidaying-i've got a friend visiting-i'm at the beach sorta way.

Only to come back to reality with a bump when i realise

that i have to make important decisions

such as where am i going to live tomorrow.

But i guess they cant be that worrying seeing

as i just spent the morning snorkelling in the Red Sea.

Either that or i'm denial.....

(this post has been even more delayed by the fact

that blogger doesnt want to upload my pictures anymore)

Heckled and Haggled....

Luxor was anything but hastle free.

In fact i've never been more accosted in my life....'taxi', 'taxi' 'you need a taxi'

which did occasionally end up in full blown fights,

but the sights were immense.

My arabic speaking friends who i was travelling with wished that i spoke some of the lingo, as apparently i'm a hard core haggler.....i didnt realise.

I think perhaps it just the Scottish in me....

notorious for being cheapskates.

Oh and we totally stayed in the Bob Marley Hostel,

how could we not.

Expect lots of pictures of really old stuff in the following few posts.

Hoildays.....

got a few days off.

Heading down to Luxor to see some very old things.

like really really old.

But first i'm going to buy myself a new dress....

a holiday should be experienced in a new dress.

Dont ya think?

The banes of being a girl.....

I like to think that i'm above being dictated to by my hormones.

But yesterday after having an extremely rotten day at work,

i got all stressed out and started crying and quite simply couldn't stop.

I went to dinner with friends and the whole way through had tears

(and snot) streaming down my face. I rebuked

any sympathetic enquires to what was wrong with me,

declaring that 'i was fine', mainly as i couldnt really think of a good reason to

explain why i was Miss Waterworks.

And then at one point i called a friend, okay,

dont judge, me i'm lying. I actually called my recently-ex-boyfriend.....

and i know thats probably meant to be a big No No,

but we are still on good terms,

and in the end he was the only one who could stop me from crying.....

At any rate,

at one point he asked me if it was 'that time of the month'.

To which he was thoroughly rebuked....

'No, indeed it was not, in fact its no where near 'that time of the month',

and why do boys always blame it on that,

as though i cant get upset for no reason unless i'm pumped full of hormones'

And then i woke up this morning to realise that,

yes, it was that time of the month and yes,

the overwhelming tears were most likely hormone induced.....

but dang i wish my hormones wouldnt make me so predictable

and make me fall into that crazy lady stereotype.....

The discovery that i am not made of stone.....

So this week i got a bit annoyed at a couple of my friends.

I had managed to score them a couple of free tickets to the performance

which was pretty hard as its sold out....

only to discover that they didnt come as they had spent

the evening nursing a dying kitten that they found on the street back to health.

This is going to make me sound really bad,

but i'm the type of person who would have seen the dying kitten

on the side of the street and thought 'poor kitten' and then kept walking.....

oh yes i would have been one of 'those' people from the Good Samaritan story).

And to be honest, i felt slightly snubbed.

And then the next day i was walking past a pet shop,

and i had to contain myself from breaking into to tears.

In cages the size of a shoe box were lots of very unwell looking tortoises.

I'm fairly sure that half the ones that i told myself

were 'sleeping' were actually dead.

And the friends i was with couldnt care less,

and i felt all stupid that seeing the poor tortoises made me want to weep,

but now i know that although i would probably still walk past a dying kitten

(there are loads of them in Cairo)

i cant stop thinking of those poor tortoises....

and am slightly relieved to know that i'm not as heartless as i thought i was.

Backstage at the Ballet...

Premiere of Swan Lake last night.

I danced my first official solo....

which was exciting and even though there is definite room for improvement

i enjoyed every minute of it.

I love dancing with an orchestra,

it gives you that little bit more va va voom!

So one down, 7 to go....

i'm not sure that i'll survive.

And i have to go out shopping this morning to

buy new stage make up as i turned up at work yesterday

to find mine had been pinched.....great.

All photos by my lovely friend Vicente Perez,

cause i've been way too busy to get my camera out,

besides he's way better at it than me!

Broken Hearts.....

"Do you know the best thing about broken hearts?" the librarian asked.

I shook my head.

"They can only really break once.

The rest are just scratches"

The Angels Game,

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I hope so...

Swanning around....

So this newspaper article

pretty much sums up whats going on with me at the moment.

Although,

it doesnt mention the frantic behind the scene drama's

that are going on left, right and centre.

Today,

3 days before premiere,

we have had to change the cast of 18

swans to 16 as we have run out of understudies,

costumes having to be redesigned,

and the orchestra walking out of the first orchestra

rehearsal demanding more money.

I've danced in 6 different versions of Swan Lake with various companies,

but this one will be the most miraculous production, in terms of fighting against the odds.