The Red Sea

me at the red sea!
the pool by the resort (how fancy)

So AUC took us to the Red Sea this weekend, as a little off-campus orientation. We met at campus around 8, but didn't leave until 10 because that's just how we do things in Egypt. About 400 of us went, so it was quite a large caravan of tour buses, but we had security escort us (which caused a lot of delay). We got to the resort, called Ein El Sukhna, in the early afternoon and had some meetings to go to and such. After lunch, we were able to check into our rooms and then hit the beach! It was so great to get away from the dirty Cairo air and all the city noise. The beach was mainly populated by tourists, from all over the world really. A lot of Europeans vacation around the area I think. It really was very beautiful. And some Egyptian women really do wear the whole burka swimsuit thing. Didn't look that comfortable to me, but who am I to judge? So we mainly just relaxed the rest of the weekend. I'll say I wasn't looking forward to coming back to Cairo at all. The traffic and pollution were really starting to get to me. But I got off the bus around 9 on Saturday night and started making my way through the cars back to the apartment. I had to buy bottled water to drink, which means I have to cross the road in an exceptionally busy/dangerous place. It's usually pretty difficult, but this time a younger guy came up to me and asked me if I was crossing. When I said yes, he escorted me across the street, just holding his hand out to stop the cars. The best part is, once we were safely across he just turned around and left. And when I yelled thank you, he didn't even follow me! I don't know, after that I guess I just felt better about living in this city for the next 3 1/2 months. I knew I could do it, I just think I might enjoy it more now, pollution and all.