Our Cruise!

Anyone feeling like this is very late coming? I know I am sorry about that! It feels like forever ago already and it was only a few weeks ago. Our cruise was AMAZING! We boarded the boat on Tuesday morning in Luxor and then checked out on Friday night in Aswan. I've never been on a cruise before but I definitely have known people who have and all, and let me say to those who have been on an ocean cruise and may not know, river cruise boats are VERY different. It was very much like a hotel ontop of a flat boat or something. A very beautiful hotel of course and it was really nice on the inside and pretty on the outside. We were also really lucky and all the rooms had balconies which were small but really nice! Usually cruise boats have a 24 hour buffet too (and I have to admit i was looking forward to this 24 hour buffet-- hoping for some great American food). Silly me. No 24 hour buffet. In fact we couldn't be 2 minutes early to any of our meals because the doors weren't open. But the food was good. We had 2 sit down dinners but most of our meals were buffets. On Thanksgiving for lunch we actually had Egyptian Bbq on the roof. Joe really likes a lot of the bbq foods so I think he was really happy. I have to admit that I really missed HAM and turkey! (muslims don't eat ham).

Also I know that typically cruises have nice dress and nice things and plenty of relax time on the boat and all. But most of the cruise were students from Joe's program, so it was a different kind of atmosphere. Plus Nile cruises aren't the relaxing type. They are stock full of tours (as you can see from my previous post before we left). We saw SO MANY old temples and tombs. We saw King Tut's mummy in the Valley of the Kings! and we learned SO much about old pharoahs and a little about hieroglyphics (so many really just repeat themselves on every temple). I have to admit that by Friday night though when we were going to the Aswan museum we were feeling very burnt out on the old things and not as impressed as we should have been. But you can't help being impressed still at least a little bit.

One funny story of something I accidentally did. It was one of those moments when after you say something you realize that this was not the place to share that particular opinion, but its too late to get your foot out of your mouth. We were sitting at dinner (one of the nice sit down ones) and the table was full of students in the Arabic Language program like Joe, (most of them were in the upper levels too). and just like everyone else they all wanted to know what I do here to keep busy (a question I am VERY sick of answering). Someone asked me if I was taking Arabic classes too. When I said no they asked why. Then came the foot in the mouth. I said I didn't think Arabic was a very pretty language and every sounds angry when they speak it. Silence. Although before most of the table were in different conversations previously it was like there had been a break in every conversation so they'd all heard me and were kind of staring. They asked if I'd heard Classical Arabic, because it is prettier. I had to admit that yes I'd heard it and still I just didn't think it was that pretty. Sometimes I am so awkward. I don't do it on purpose I guess I just didn't really think before I spoke.

It was a great cruise though. They'd give us a few hours here and there as we were going down the river to relax and enjoy. When we went through the Lock we were waiting in line forever and all these Egyptians came up on their little rowboats yelling and throwing things up at the windows and the people trying to get us to buy things. Like a little river market. It was pretty crazy! I put a picture up here of them. I'd have liked to have a little longer in some of the towns to stop and looks at their markets but we were booked solid every second the boat was docked. Oh well we got a few really cool things that we bargained well for!