it’s christmas here in dahab and everything is decked out. there are christams trees everywhere, all the restauarants have christmas decor and “merry christmas” written in colorful materials, restaurants are selling turkey christmas dinners complete w/ stuffing and gravy, there are random people walking around wearing santa suits, we saw a huge 2 story tall inflated snowman, and we’ve been wished a merry christmas at least 40 or 50 times today. of course, the locals dont celebrate christmas whatsoever, but dahab is a town that mainly caters to tourists, and they know what makes the tourists happy. the funny thing is that the people around here are so friendly and fun, that they seem to be just as excited about christams as we are. it’s definitely been a fun and cheery last couple of days here! and who wouldn’t be cheery when christmas is celebrated among swaying palm trees and sandy beaches?
for the last couple of days, after exhausting myself diving, i’ve been taking it easy and just kicking it. hanging out, reading books, drinking *delicious* chocolate milkshakes, and eating good food. the turkey dinner caryn and i had the other nght for christmas eve was actually really good, despite our worries that egyptians couldnt make a good turkey. the other really good thing here is this stuff called Koshary. it’s this mix of pasta, lentils, fried onion and sauce. you can buy it in this one restaurant, but the best place to get it is from this one guy who rides his bike around town yelling “hash! cocaine! ecstasy!!”… cause allegedly this stuff is better than drugs. and the people around here, go absolutely crazy for it. when we bought some, and were walking down the street with it, everyone got SO excited. people from all over would shout out to us “You eat Koshary??!! Good Good! best egyptian food!” seriously, i haven’t seen people this excited in a while! they were just SO pleased. even the restaurant touts that usually hassle every passerby trying to get them into their restaurant… usually these guy wont take no for an answer. but if you have koshary in your hands… “oh!! koshary!! GOOD!!!” and they just let you go by. they know they can’t compete w/ the koshary!
after just lazying around for some time, today i finally decided to go out and do something. i’ve always been curious about windsurfing, so finally i got a lesson today. sheez, it’s damn hard!! i’m absolutely terrible. one and a half hours later, i was still constantly falling in the water, unable to steer, and couldnt keep my balance at all. also, because of my complete inability to direct myslef, i kept ending up hella from from shore and kind of unable to get back! i was a bit worried that at somepoint i’d just end up in the middle of nowhere.. adrift and with no land in sight… but luckily, that didnt happen.
*v