if only i had gills...

before i say or do anything, i must comment on something...here in the great nation-state that is egypt, there is a song sweeping the airwaves that i hear pretty much 14 times a day. i don't know the name exactly, or even who its by, however, i do know one thing...the words. how could i possibly memorize all the words you ask? well, because there are 2, count 'em, 2 words in the entire song...it goes like this...

"ahmar! (ahmar!) asfar! (asfar!!)...ahhhhhhhmmaaarrrr! assssssssfffaaaaarrr!"

what possibly could these crazy words mean? something political? social? words of the terrorists? how about colors...the song essentially is repeating the words "red, yellow" for 4 solid minutes in different tones and various screaming sounds. at first i thought "man, egyptian music is waaaaay dumber than american music." then i remebered such american radio hits as "save a horse, ride a cowboy" and "the barbie song" and i shut up...

but now for the serious stuff, the real reason i'm here...i think i was intended to be a fish or some sort of similar creature with gills (squid!? i'd be a hell of a squid), in fact im almost positive after yet another sea-faring adventure this weekend. we piled into our friend tom's SUV on thursday afternoon and tackled a 5 hour drive to a little slice of heaven called Dahab (arabic for gold). after a long and windy drive, we arrived to our hotel and began the activities...which actually just means we relaxed like professionals...dahab is perhaps the most relaxing place ever to exist, perhaps anywhere...the restaurants abandon tables and chairs for more comfortable pillows and body pillows, and perhaps coolest of all, there are stray animals everywhere...now, not like dirty stray New York City stray animals, but actually a clean and most excellent assortment of canine and feline friends to share your experience with...a great formula i'd say, and if you disagree, then you obviously hate cute animals...shame on you

anyway, so we began our first full day by snorkeling and soaking up rays (i naturally challenged the sun sans sunscreen cuz i enjoy a mild sunburn, but i quickly changed my tune the next day when my back resembled some sort of raw beef, lesson learned...until next time). the snorkeling was ridiculous, as we could walk straight into the water from our hotel and swim maybe 20 yards and meet a giant reef wall teeming with fish of all shapes and sizes. and i exaggerate not (odd english structure there) when i say there were perhaps 12,297 jellyfish clouding the water...a nightmare to many, an adventure to people who consider themselves, well, adventursome...i qualify as the person who voted for the nightmare, as i was constantly convinced jellyfish were eating me alive, though i never was stung...we abandoned the snorkeling gear for the SUV and headed to the surrounding mountains along with a few beers (nothing like beer in 98 begree weather...actually it wasn't a wise choice, but i'll never admit that publicly)...this is where the real adventure ensued...

we drove around and off-roaded for a while, seeing little that struck our fancy...until suddenly we stumbled upon a makeshift cave/den thing tucked away in the mountains...we obviously had to explore, so we ditched the vehicle and checked it out...everything seemed fairly routine, you know just a little cave where someone was obviously living...then tyler saw a syringe..."strange" i thought, until i realized i was standing in an ocean of sorts, only instead of water, it contained used syringes...i know what you're all thinking "todd, that's gross and dangerous and i hope you didn't touch any of them"...well, please give me some credit, i'm not dumb enough to trip and fall and stab myself, but i am dumb enough to pick a few up (AWAY from the needle, i bet my mom is gunna punch me for doing this) so we could take weird pictures...overall, i was very careful, so no worries, but we asked some people in town what the deal was and they told us that Bedouins go up to those mountains to shoot up heroin...ummm, neat i guess...it was actually pretty cool and surreal, and straight out of "The Hills Have Eyes" because i was certain that i was going to be attacked by a heroin junkie at any moment...

the night came and went with much beer and good food being consumed, and we dove head first into the next day...we snorkeled yet again at the world famous Blue Hole (literally world famous, some of the best snorkeling anywhere in the world, no joke) which was incredible, except again i was bombarded by jellyfish who were clearly jealous of my tan and the fact that i have bones and they don't (keep dreaming jellyfish)...after cooling down (it was almost 100 degrees for goodness sake, but i was reveling in it) we headed back to the mountains to revisit the heroin camp and scale a mini-mountain, which we did and got some incredible pictures of the red sea...oh yea, did i mention you can see Saudi Arabia from Dahab? yea, no big deal...we had illusions of grandeur where we would rent a paddle boat, buy lots of beer and paddle to Saudi, but apparently someone tried that, was cut off by the Saudi coast guard and woke up back in the home country...so i guess it wouldn't have been worth it...or would it?

so that was pretty much it...not too electrifyingly exciting (that may have been the first time i've ever said "electrifyingly", but it won't be the last, you better believe it) but i got the tan i was hoping for and we had all sorts of laughs and good times...not the least was the Czech girl we spied on the beach who was literally (yes, i am completely serious) the most beautiful girl i have ever laid eyes on in person...stan, being the bold man he is, went and spoke to her (god knows i would never do that) and found out her name was Lana...good god she was really something...he also spoke to another beauitful woman, but didn't get too far because she couldn't understand his bastardized texas-ancented english, but neither can i sometimes...

anyway, that is the short and sweet account of our Dahab adventure, truly one of the better weekends i have had here...until next time, i leave you with the list you all know and love...

1. i saw a man pushing a push lawn mower over a bridge today at 7:30 am...no real point to this story, except that there is hardly any grass in the entire city, plus it was a nice lawn mower...odd

2. i saw a man obviously peeing in public today, though the bottom half of his body was obscured by a short wall...just absurd, what has the world come to...

3. i have made and eaten mashed potatoes 13 out of the last 14 days...safe to say i am obsessed...

4. egypt is really hot...i mean really freaking hot...and i think heat makes me crave mcdonalds/pizza hut...does that make me a bad person?

5. i took my exit exam this morning where i say i completed about 70 of the 120 questions, one of 4 reading comprehensions and a 2 paragraph essay (all in arabic mind you)...sounds bad i know, until i share the fact that last time i took this test (as the entrance and placement exam) i answered 17 questions, zero reading comprehensions, and wrote a one sentence "essay"...slight improvement i must say...

6. 7 days of class left...then my sister comes with her room mate for an insane 2 weeks adventure...excellent

ma'a salama asdiquaai!