Many Speccie readers will have preconceived ideas about economists.  Unexciting, narrow-minded and pedantic perhaps spring to mind. There is a common assumption that economists must also lead exceedingly boring lives.

Can I tell you right now this stereotype is deeply unfair as well as inaccurate? Just look at me, I love an adventure. I’m always up for a new experience, even if relative disaster can be the result.

Even when I’m stuck in Melbourne, we like to plan an adventure or two quite frequently. A trip to the Footscray market – a disaster. A trip to the Dandenongs to walk beneath the soaring gum trees – fabulous. A drive down to the Bellarine Peninsula to check out some of my favourite teenage haunts – discombobulating.

At least once each year, we put together an overseas jaunt; we are gradually ticking off our bucket list. It has been my long-held desire to visit the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Not the old one in central Cairo, which is still great, but the one that has been under construction for nearly all this century. That’s right, it’s taken around eighteen years to build the damn thing.

There were so many false starts – opening dates revised, opening dates cancelled. Each year, we would check out the status of the museum on the website, a website filled with impressive pictures of the collection that would be housed within the museum’s walls. Each year, we would conclude that this was not the year the museum would be flinging open its doors.

But then the light at the end of the tunnel emerged. The Grand Egyptian Museum would be opening – soft launch to be sure, not all parts open – in the second half of 2024. We decided to take our chances. A cruise down the Nile would, in any event, make up for any disappointment.

Located close to the Giza Pyramids, the museum itself looks sensational. In the grand foyer is the vast statue of Rameses II, relocated from Rameses Square in the CBD.  Because of its size, the statue had to be put in place in the first instance and the building constructed around it. It’s a grand entrance.

But here’s the thing, the international consortium of engineers, architects and building experts who oversaw the construction of the museum obviously didn’t think that it was worth making the entrance weather-proof, given that it only rains in Cairo a few days a year. But on the day we went, it was bucketing down.

The tiles became a hazard for slips and trips and the ticketing machines wouldn’t work because of the rain. There must be a moral somewhere there.

But the funniest story I heard was the failure to emulate the biannual positioning of the sunlight to reflect on the face of Rameses II that is an extraordinary feature of the temple at Abu Simbel. To achieve this, careful design and precise engineering were required. But sadly, at the Grand Egyptian Museum, the sunlight misses the face of the Ram by several metres. ‘Missed it by that much!’ I guess. A feat that could be achieved over 3,000 years ago, but not now.

Can I say, modern-day Cairo is a dump, made up of mainly deficient apartment buildings, many of them unfinished? So much traffic, so many people. But, hey, our federal and state governments see our future as everyone living in dog-box apartment buildings, so maybe I shouldn’t be too harsh.

Happily, we escaped this hellhole by flying to Luxor and then embarking on a trip up the Nile. I didn’t see any Hercule Poirot figures around, but they could have been on other boats – there are plenty of them sailing between Luxor and Aswan.

Tourism is one of the biggest industries in Egypt and bear in mind that Egypt is a large country with a population of over 100 million. The residents are mainly Muslim, but a significant chunk is Christian, mainly Coptic. It has an oil and gas industry as well as a significant agricultural sector, particularly in the north.

And wait for it, a nuclear power plant is being built in the north of the country, with the assistance of Russia. Electricity is currently generated through hydro – think Aswan Dam – and diesel. Gosh, if Egypt can do it, perhaps we could consider nuclear – or as B1 (my nickname for Chris Bowen) would say, ‘newkiller’ – power for Australia.

Now if you are still unconvinced of the existence of Adventurous Judith, let me tell you of our trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway between Vladivostok and Moscow.  Surely that qualifies as an exciting undertaking.

Given that the trains and stations were last upgraded in the 1960s, we are not talking luxury here. But if you are into watching landscapes made up of two types of trees for days on end, this is the trip for you. Metal loos and train attendants dressed in garb akin to Catholic school uniforms circa 1960 are further attractive features.

Understandably, we disembarked the train on several occasions – all that constant rattling and the inedible food in the dining car gets you down. The highlight was our side visit to Lake Baikal, the deepest freshwater lake in the world. It’s one of Vlad’s – President Putin to readers – favourite spots. He takes off his top and does a bit of paddling around or whatever, photographers on hand.

If you like smoked fish, Lake Baikal is the place to visit. They also have the cutest, chubbiest seals you have ever seen. Sadly, on our return walk from the museum where some of the seals were frolicking in a huge tub, the weather turned distinctly Siberian, at least by our standards. The walk turned into the equivalent of a death march – we just made it.

Another highlight of our Russian journey was the argument between this author – you know, the open-minded and well-informed one you have come to know and love – and our assigned in-tourist guide, within sight of the Kremlin. (The Russian government still insists on this arrangement.) She was telling me how Stalin was a great man, and that Russia needed someone like him in order that the former glory days could be restored. She hated Gorbachev with a passion.

Give me a break, I thought. OK – give me a break, I said. Stalin is definitely in the top ten of evil leaders of the world, I pointed out. In any case, Russia has Putin, so what was she complaining about? This led to something of a stand-off – I’m sure she tried to give me the slip on the Moscow underground, which is magnificent, incidentally.

By this stage, it was becoming perishingly cold, and I began to understand why so many Russians turn to vodka to cheer themselves up. It seemed like a requirement to undertake a taste test of the various vodka options; after a while, they all tasted good. Luckily, we escaped Moscow before the Moskva River froze over.

Next time you are stereotyping economists, just think that we are not all alike. We don’t just spend our days in front of computers dreaming up ridiculous assumptions to confirm our preconceived conclusions.  Some of us are really thrill-seekers, learning new things every week. Think Lara Croft or Indiana Jones with a passion for decimal points and you are getting close.