Same Same, But Different

You knew it might happen eventually.  I'm a teacher after all.  POP QUIZ!

1.  During which month is my (Katie's) birthday?
a)  August     b)  September     c)  October     d)  November

2.  Where did Tom and I travel this year on my birthday weekend?
a)  Jordan     b)  Dahab     c) Black and White Desert     d) Uganda

3.  Why are you taking a pop quiz on your free time?
a) Boredom   b) Curiosity    c) I don't want Mrs. Katie to scold me     d) I want to get a gold star

If you answered 1c) and 2b) you are correct!  All answers are acceptable for #3.  (I wanted to make sure that everyone achieved some level of success!)

You may or may not recall that Tom and I traveled to Dahab for my birthday weekend in October.  The related blog was named "An Egyptian Chill" and described meals along the water sitting on pillows and our amazing trip to Mount Sinai.  We traveled back to Dahab last week, for a "make up for missing March break", 3-day weekend.  It was just as (if not more) relaxing than last time! 

We came this time with a bigger crowd, 15 of us in total, mostly colleagues, with a few of their friends visiting from Canada and one awesome girlfriend who also teaches in Cairo.  Our first full day in Dahab was St. Patty's day.  Nonetheless, I started the day healthy with a yoga session in the morning and a run in the late afternoon.  The class was actually in a windowed room just next to where I'm posing in this picture, but the waterfront view from inside the yoga room was just as beautiful.

I joined Tom's St. Patty's day celebration around 6pm, about 8 hours late, and headed out to dinner with everyone and for a night out dancing.  Understandably, Tom didn't bring the camera for this portion of the trip.  Just picture a bunch of teachers, all dressed in green, all smiling, dancing, and having a good time.  Come on, it's not that hard to picture teachers smiling is it?!

The following day was extremely relaxing.  I spent the bulk of the day laying around the pool, laying in lounge chairs on the Red Sea, and reading.  The one thing on the "to do list" for the day was to find the ugliest outfit for 50 Egyptian pounds (about $8.50) or less.  During the previous night's festivities I came up with the "brilliant" idea of having an ugly outfit contest the following night.  The main strip in Dahab is lined with stores selling some nice, and some terrible clothing and souvenir items, all at very affordable prices.  All (the girls anyway) agreed that it would be hilarious for us to find the worst clothing possible and wear it out to dinner.  There's still disagreement on whether I won with my pink Cleopatra dress and orange head beads, or whether the guy wearing a black dress with metallic hieroglyphs should take top prize.  Either way, it was most certainly hilarious.  You wouldn't believe the reactions we got from Egyptians.  They guy who sold me my dress yelled "Very ugly!" at me as I walked past his store.  I wasn't too upset, since he was in on the competition.

Our final day in Dahab was to be a short one, as we had the 8-hour bus ride back to Cairo to look forward to.  Tom and I headed out fairly early to enjoy the main strip before it got too busy.  The interlocking brick strip, stretching about 2km, has mostly restaurants on the water side, making for awesome dining, and mostly stores on the other side, making for some fun shopping (refer to last paragraph).  The mountains surrounding the water really do make for a beautiful backdrop as you walk down the strip, eat along the water, or relax on a lounge chair on the beach.  By the time we climbed into our bus on Saturday afternoon (yes, the long weekend here was Thursday, Friday, Saturday), we had certainly experienced an "Egyptian Chill" once again.