I don't really know where to start... this is costing me a bit more than I thought it would so I'll try and be quick. But I will, obviously still get everything in where I can.
So we've been windsurfing all week. It began well, I picked it up fairly easily and it was cool. Then midway through the week as I was lifting up the sail the wind caught it and threw it behind me... into the arm of someone in our group. Ouch. He was out the rest of the day and the next day. It could have been much worse though, at first we thought it was dislocated or broken. Thankfully it wasn't. But yea, that broke my ocnifdence a little and the last three days have been pretty dreadful. It is a long process to become good at windsurfing, and I've never before wanted to be at the end result before putting in the time and practise to get there, but it's where I find myself at now. When you're good it looks pretty awesome and it's definitely something I'll be practising to get better and better at, however slowly, but for the moment I'm stuck going only normally and tacking and gybing. There is lots of falling in the water, there always is apparently whether you're the best or a beginner windsurfing involves a lot of falling in.\
We did some freestyle stuff on friday as well (Freestyle friday, freeSail Saturday) Freestyle is like flashy, cool-looking tricks whilst windsurfing normally. SO spinning your sail 360 degrees , jumping around your board with the sail, forward/backward loops/flips... all the snazzy, extremely difficult stuff) Well it's nt all difficult, we had a go at a few of the easier ones.. and a few of the harder ones.
The two leaders with us (Steve and Seb) have been amazing this week, from guiding us through the culture to getting us windsurfing fairly decently. Every evening we go to the same restaurant (called "Funny Mummys") and because we told them that on the first day we managed to arrange a deal with them so that we can bring our own drinks in with us (i.e. alcoholic drinks) and also we get free starters. We must be giving them loads of money... for the twelve of us it's about the equivalent of 60 pounds each night. Which is rather amazing. The taxis are crazy. Most of them are pick up trucks and there are no set prices. Every time you ask to go somewhere you have to haggle for prices (there is a LOT of haggling here) and if they don't accept you're offer... walk away because they'll almost always then agree to the lower price. Crazy. So yea, twelve people in the back of a pick up truck hurtling down roads with lots of beeping (though not tooo many cars) and sudden braking when speed bumps come up. Then when you get to the other it it's a 50-50 chance as to whether they'll demand you give them more than you agreed on. Again if you just give them the money you agreed on and walk away they won't hassle you any further.
Lunch breaks here are 2 hours long instead of the 30 mni-1 hour lunch breaks of the UKSA. The food here is fairly good. Lot's of different stuff, and some amazing bits and bobs that pop up from time to time. For instance waffles at breakfast and the Egyptian honey is AMAZING!! Apart from the evening meal, which we have out, we eat at the hotel and enjoy it. There is not what you might called Food and Safety Hygiene here, not that I was really expecting it, for instance the food is buffet style most of the tmie and is mostly open and there are two very annoying, persistant, bold creatures in Egypt: the fly and the bird. The flies are the most annoying, cos you can't swat them away very easily and they have no fear. they're forever landing on you and your food. The birds also will flock around food. Their music is very nice, but when they start eating the food at the buffet/help-yourself it's a bit like "er... what do you think you're doing silly birds" Also when they're zooming past you less than thirty centimetres away from your face it's rather distracting from the important matter of eating.
I hear you've had sun in England... well suprisingly enough, there's sun here in egypt too... lots of it. HOWEVER after a very quick, speedy purchase of some factor 50 suncream you'll all be very amazed to know that I haven't, as yet, burnt... :D :D :D :D So all's good.
Just so you all know where we actually are at the moment. Go to cairo, go south, go east and you'll find a triangular shaped piece of land with two long stretches of sea along two of it's sides. It should be labelled something like "the sinai desert" we are on the south east coast of that bit of land in a place called "Dahab" Just to clear that one up, I thought we were elsewhere in Egypt. So from the restaraunt we can see Saudi Arabia, which is pretty cool.
What else have we been up to othe than windsurfing.. not much. One day when there wasn't much wind we went snorkeling. There are quite a few jellyfish around and you can see their purple-y jelly-ness floating under the water as you windsurf. They are NOT, however, poisonous... most of them. We haven't had any poisonous ones round about here though so everything is fine. The seabed here is sandy but had some sharp rocks and shells in it. It will be interesting whether I can last all four weeks without being forced to buy some wetsuit shoes (I cleverly decided to leave my wetsuit boots at home to dry) They'd better be dry now.. . so I have a few scratches on my feet, but that's all cool.
One of the most surprising and crazy things I've found out this week though was that Seb and Steve were working together in the same resort in Portugal as the one that Madeleine McCann was taken from... at the same time. Hearing how they were part of the searches and stuff brought it all a bit closer to home. Crazy stuff.
As we're training to be windsurf instructors at the end of each day we've been helping out the staff at Neilson's (the resort centre) with jobs like making everything neat and sweeping the sand off the mats and stuff.
With descriptions on what places look like I'll try put up some pictures later. But the bay is surrounded by mountains and the beach is sand/small pebbles. Pretty much nowhere is inside, roofs are rare (restaurants are mats, cushions, low tables) It's very nice. The hotel is great and the accomodation is single rooms. So my room has en suite plus a tv (which I haven't watched, it's rubbish) and then an amazingly large double bed. Instead of duvets they have rug-like things which are surprisingly warm and comfy. And the most important thing about these rooms (apart from the fact that there is a general cleanup and a change of bedding, towels each day) is the air conditioning, which is a life save when it comes to going to sleep.
Generally everything is amazing,. In the coming weeks we plan to have some trips out, so we'll be going to see some Bedouins, do some quad-biking and also go up to see the sunrise from Mount Sinai. (At least everything so far has led me to believe it will be Mount Sinai) I will be glad to get back though, for a Christian it's very isolated. There are no churches in the local area (that I've been able to find anyway) and with the five-per-day calls to prayer it feels like I'm the only christian for miles and miles... POSSIBLY because I am... anyway... I THINK that that is everything I was going to say.... I shudder at my travel writing, I hope that my English teachers never see this, this disorganised, patchy, random, jumping-around-all-over-the-place pile of words that it is. However my time is ticking and the price is rising so it must be like this for the moment, possibly when I get some proper time I'll make it all much nicer and better and STUFF.
So, without a second glance at what I've written, here I go to press the "Publish Post" button for the first post in a week... and the last (most likely) for another week. Sunday is our day off so look out for updates on Sundays.
Done.
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