A couple of days before coming back to the states, Renata (one of the students) organized a day trip to the Red Sea that would have to be financed by students, if enough people showed interest. At first, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go: it was winter and the water would be too cold; what else is there to do at the sea if you can’t swim? In the end, however, I ended up going. And it was a great decision.

First, I loved passing through the outer (and much more sparsely populated) parts of Egypt. Cairo is beautiful and I love it, but it’s definitely not a good representation of what most of the country is like (the same way that NYC is not at all similar to Upstate NY or any part of Kansas). Next, going to the beach turned out to be awesome!

We stopped along a part of the beach called Ein el Sokhna, and it was beautiful. The beach was deserted for the most part (except for 4 creepy guys sitting there and watching us for 3 hours, and two guys that obnoxiously came over on their jet skis and splashed water in our faces and then left) and the water was so blue.

beautiful!

i'm going to let the photos do the talking

cuties in the water 🙂

So while a few of us had not brought clothes to swim in/change into (because we’d assumed the water would be too cold to swim), we jumped in anyway, some with makeshift outfits of scarfs and tanktops…and me with my jeans and Jose’s huge shirt (<3 so grateful), which I had to sit in for 2 hours afterwards. I’m so surprised I didn’t catch pneumonia. Or a severe cold.

It was such a great day, though. Spending two hours backfloating and holding onto people when I couldn’t touch the ground anymore, freaking out about not being able to breathe in 4 feet deep water, etc: it couldn’t get any better :).

We also went to the Suez Canal later (it felt so cool and weird being at such an important landmark…we’ve read so much about the Canal and how important it is in foreign trade relations) and watched boats pass through :).

All in all, it was a fantastic and relaxing day. Loved it.