...that I was back to my absenteeism at the end of last week, not commenting on entries or posting a snippet. One reason was that we were having Internet difficulties and didn't get them straightened up until Monday. The other was that we went out of town for the weekend. If there is anything that I need to be in the know about, please leave me a comment because I don't think I'll make it back through my flist.
I don't have any "late" snippets to post, my previous week being devoid of any creativity besides cooking and packing.
But I will share a bit about our trip.
Our downstairs neighbor and his band had a gig at a hotel on the Red Sea, and we decided to attend. Friday morning, we drove to Ras Sudr on the Sinai peninsula, leaving at 6:30 a.m. to avoid the heat. Leaving early, we didn't have such a bad wait at the checkpoint before the Suez Canal tunnel. No pictures of that. Not just because there is nothing to see--the road and tunnel entrance is well below the canal--but because taking photos of the military or any "strategic points" is severely frowned upon. Our hotel stay got off to a good start because, thanks to Sprout, I got to see the most beautiful praying mantis ever:
After lunch and a nap, the afternoon was spent playing on the beach and a bit of stand-up paddle boarding,
(BTW, that turquoise top I'm wearing is the one I mentioned in last week's snippet. Oh, and I made the pants, too, when we lived in Mayotte. I've drafted myself another pair and hoped to sew them up today. Alas, those pesky power cuts...)
Saturday morning, I had a sleep in and then we all played on the beach. I napped with the kids that afternoon while J had a kite-surfing lesson. Weekends here are Friday and Saturday, so come Saturday afternoon, pretty much everyone else had left the hotel and we had the beach to ourselves. It made it easy to find lots of operculum.
On Sunday, we went with J to his kite-surfing session.
The tide was out, so we loaded our beach things into a golf cart and were driven out to an island whose surrounding waters are deeper. We could have walked like these intrepid birdwatchers, but that quay is two kilometers long, that sun is HOT, and now that we have kids we have no idea how to travel without a ton of stuff. :P
While J had fun on the water,
Junebug slept
and Sprout and I beachcombed. OK, I beachcombed and Sprout played with dead jellyfish, which she named "Sandy." :P
There were also plenty of live jellyfish.
Egypt's tourism industry has seen better years. :(
J got in a decent run (or whatever the term is), and then his instructor showed off for us:
I don't have any "late" snippets to post, my previous week being devoid of any creativity besides cooking and packing.
But I will share a bit about our trip.
Our downstairs neighbor and his band had a gig at a hotel on the Red Sea, and we decided to attend. Friday morning, we drove to Ras Sudr on the Sinai peninsula, leaving at 6:30 a.m. to avoid the heat. Leaving early, we didn't have such a bad wait at the checkpoint before the Suez Canal tunnel. No pictures of that. Not just because there is nothing to see--the road and tunnel entrance is well below the canal--but because taking photos of the military or any "strategic points" is severely frowned upon. Our hotel stay got off to a good start because, thanks to Sprout, I got to see the most beautiful praying mantis ever:
then that night we attended the concert, dancing in the sand and singing along to fun covers.*
(BTW, that turquoise top I'm wearing is the one I mentioned in last week's snippet. Oh, and I made the pants, too, when we lived in Mayotte. I've drafted myself another pair and hoped to sew them up today. Alas, those pesky power cuts...)
Saturday morning, I had a sleep in and then we all played on the beach. I napped with the kids that afternoon while J had a kite-surfing lesson. Weekends here are Friday and Saturday, so come Saturday afternoon, pretty much everyone else had left the hotel and we had the beach to ourselves. It made it easy to find lots of operculum.
On Sunday, we went with J to his kite-surfing session.
The tide was out, so we loaded our beach things into a golf cart and were driven out to an island whose surrounding waters are deeper. We could have walked like these intrepid birdwatchers, but that quay is two kilometers long, that sun is HOT, and now that we have kids we have no idea how to travel without a ton of stuff. :P
While J had fun on the water,
and Sprout and I beachcombed. OK, I beachcombed and Sprout played with dead jellyfish, which she named "Sandy." :P
There were also plenty of live jellyfish.
Egypt's tourism industry has seen better years. :(
J got in a decent run (or whatever the term is), and then his instructor showed off for us:
Sunburned** and hungry, we loaded our stuff back onto the cart and headed back to shore.
________________
* I wish they would have played something by Xavier Rudd (link to YouTube video). Every time I listen to Rudd, I am transported to an intimate beach concert, sun setting, fire crackling, cool sand under my feet, waves lapping. And if I'm listening to an album and not just a single song, that beach concert continues, dark deepening while stars whirl overhead and I, by turns, dance or sit clasping my knees to my chest, watching the waves.
** Only J and I got burned; we had enough sense to protect the kids.
* I wish they would have played something by Xavier Rudd (link to YouTube video). Every time I listen to Rudd, I am transported to an intimate beach concert, sun setting, fire crackling, cool sand under my feet, waves lapping. And if I'm listening to an album and not just a single song, that beach concert continues, dark deepening while stars whirl overhead and I, by turns, dance or sit clasping my knees to my chest, watching the waves.
** Only J and I got burned; we had enough sense to protect the kids.
Comments
There's something about this, something about the combination of your beautiful photos and your words, that really makes me feel like I've just visited a hot, abandoned beech. I love those operculum, I love that S called her dead jellyfish "sandy," I love her fancy praying mantis, and the photo of the long boardwalk. Thank you.
Meanwhile, here's something North Africa I was listening to today"Akassa"