Wake up call

  So I'm sitting in the living room, I've just finished watching Doctor Who, I've checked emails and replied to the important work-related ones, checked and updated my lesson plans for the week. My head is killing me due to a combination of a lack of sleep, the start of a cold, not taking a break all day and a re-emergence of my motion sickness. By this point I've been home for ages, had dinner and I'm absolutely ready for bed, I look at the clock and find...it's 8:20!!

   What??? How can it possibly still only be 8 o'clock? Why is it still too early to go to bed? And that is when I realised, I need something to do in the evenings. I'm spending all my free periods at work planning and grading and such so that I don't have to bring anything home but I'm not taking advantage of the free time I have in the evenings. So I'm making a resolution; I'm going to have productive evenings (I admit it won't be every night, I still need my lazy days). No real idea what I'll do exactly, but I'm determined to do something dammit! 

Revolution 2.0

     This Friday (July 8th) Egyptians around the country returned to major squares to reapply pressure on the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) to ensure demands are met. These protests have been called for for a while but escalated following the release in Suez of 14 police officers accused of killing protesters during the 18 days of revolution in January and February. People in the city famous for the Canal have been protesting for most of last week after this court decision and this greatly helped raise the enthusiasm around the country to protest on Friday. 

     The atmosphere in Tahrir Sq. was great, a cross between a carnival, rock festival and in some parts a slightly more angry and grieving crowd. The demands were, as always, posted around the square on banners and placards carried by people.

   The demands vary according to political affiliations but there are those that are common across the board;

• The swift and public prosecution of members of the former regime, most prominently former President Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib El-Adly (the former's trial is -tentatively- set for August 3rd while the latter has had his trial into the deaths of protesters 3 times so far). 
• Lifting of the emergency law. 
• No military trials for civilians, and the immediate release of those already detained and convicted.
• SCAF handing over power to a civilian panel to hold power till elections are held.

    The sit in is planned to continue until these demands are met. Hopefully it will continue peacefully and not be broken up by security forces in the middle of the night.

Sharm El-Sheikh and Sham El Nessim

    Recently the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. In 2010 there were a series of shark attacks that killed several people and since he was deposed in February 2011, former President Mubarak has taken up permanent residence in the city. Despite all this and the drop in visitor numbers since the Revolution, it is still a popular destination for tourists, especially those looking to combine sun, sea and sand and stunning natural beauty with an active nightlife. The waters of the Red Sea are ideal for snorkeling and scuba diving.

   Sham el-nessiem is an Egyptian national holiday and is a uniquely Egyptian way to welcome spring. It translates literally into "smelling the breeze"  and dates back to Pharaonic times. These days it falls on (Coptic) Easter Monday and is celebrated by all Egyptians irrespective of religion. It is celebrated, as most festivals in Egypt are, with food; in this case, coloured boiled eggs, green onions and salted fish (ringa and fessekh). These are usually eaten as part of a picnic as most families head off somewhere green. I remember when my cousins and I were young, we would all head off to the family orange grove and the smell of orange blossom still brings those memories back.

  This year a friend and I headed off to Sharm El-Sheikh for the long weekend and I have to say, it was one of the best ideas we'd had for a while! She was able to get us a good deal via her workplace so we were staying in a lovely 5 star resort at a fraction of the cost. The hotel was nice, the room large enough for the 2 of us not to constantly be in each other's hair and the view from the balcony was lovely

View from our room.

The other advantage this hotel had to the one I stayed at two years ago was that the beach was right within the resort. A three minute walk (through the pool area and garden) lead you to a walkway from which you had a glorious view of the red sea.

First view of the Red Sea

   While I would have been perfectly happy to spend all 4 days on the beach, snorkeling, reading and soaking up the sun, my friend had other ideas. She insisted that she wanted to climb Mount Sinai and visit St. Catherine's monastery. I was slightly less than enthusiastic as I had done this on my last visit and it was exhausting, freezing and took up a whole day. However, remembering just how tiring it was I felt I couldn't leave her to do it alone so we booked 2 places on a trip leaving the night we arrived. Unfortunately, the trip was poorly organized and our guide was rude, badly spoken and aggressive, but enough of that story now! On the bus journey to the mountain the air-con was on full blast and that was just enough to bring the cold I'd been keeping at bay all week to full strength. By the time we started the hike, my nose was completely stuffed and breathing and hiking at the same time was becoming problematic (I've discovered I like breathing...it helps keep me alive), so in the end I only made it as far as the first rest-stop on foot and then carried on on a camel!

Me on the camel watching the sunrise over Mount Sinai

    My camel pilot Saleh (a Bedouin native to Sinai) and I had a good chat as we made the trek up, he's been doing the job for about 3 years and that on a good day he can hire his camel about 4 times in either direction. The best tourists in his opinion are Indonesians as they nearly always opt for a camel ride up , while Russians are far less likely. I asked him how the revolution had affected business and he told me that they've definitely had fewer people this year but the numbers were starting to pick up again. 

  The view of the sunrise was as stunning as I remember and I'll let the pictures do the talking.

  In the end we weren't able to go around the monastery as the monks had decided to close to visitors in preparation for Easter services, but we did manage to use the facilities there and I snapped a picture of the door to the main church decked out for the occasion.

    Back at the hotel I took some paracetamol and slept for 12 hours straight! Luckily I got my wish and was able to spend the next 2 days on the beach.

The Rat Pack in Cairo

    Last night some friends and I went to see a Las Vegas Rat Pack tribute band at the Cairo Opera House. It was opening night, which was fun as we got to dress up and be glam for the evening! We had great fun in the intermission spotting and commenting on fashion faux-pas in the audience.

  The band was The Rat Pack Tribute Show a band of impersonators from fabulous Las Vegas and they were pretty good in my opinion. 'Dean' and 'Sammy' bore the greatest physical resemblance to their real-life counterparts but 'Frank' just reminded of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, which isn't really a good thing!

   They sang all the classics, inviting the audience to join in several times. Highlights for me included: Everybody Loves Somebody, Mr. Bojangles, You Make Me Feel So Young, Leroy Brown, Mack the Knife, Me & My Shadow, That's Amore and of course, My Way and New York, New York. My friends and I were swaying and clapping our way through the whole show, although a quick look at the audience seemed to show that we were the only ones! Something that really annoyed me though was the fact that they changed the lyrics to Lady is a Tramp to the lady is a champ! No she isn't!! She's a tramp! The song doesn't make sense otherwise!

   Overall though it was a lovely night and we all had a great time.
  
 

School's Out For Summer!

  Books and artwork have been sent home. Displays have been taken down and supplies have been packed away for the summer. Rooms that have been noisy for 10 months are now silent till August when it all starts again. Yep, the school year's over and done with for another year! Summer's here and it would be difficult to say who enjoys it more, students or teachers.

So, to all my fellow teachers I wish you a summer free of planning, grading, meetings and other people's children and plenty of lie-ins, we've earned them!

Enjoy!

Korba Festival!

   The first Korba Festival was held to celebrate the centenary of Heliopolis in 2005. Heliopolis was established in 1905 by Belgium Baron Empain, Édouard Louis Joseph an amateur Egyptologist. When building on the new suburb began it was a stretch of desert 10 km away from the centre of Cairo (now known as Old Cairo or Masr El- Kadima), nowadays it is slap-bang in the centre of the city. 


  Since 2005 one street (Baghdad St.) in the Korba area of Heliopolis has been closed to traffic on a Friday to become a place where people can enjoy a stroll around through the street with shops and coffee shops spreading out onto the pavement to display their wares and entice you to spend. There's the chance to leave your mark by drawing on the roads and pavements in chalk and for several days afterwards it makes driving down that street a little bit more colourful. 


   This year the theme of the festival was Music the Language of Peace and featured various artists from around the world (don't ask who, I arrived late and missed the line-up!) the star attraction of the evening though was Egyptian jazz musician Yehia Khalil. The atmosphere was loud (this is Egypt after all) and electric with plenty to see and do and other music styles available further down the street if the music at the main street wasn't to your taste. 


  So if you're ever in Cairo and the Korba festival is on, I highly recommend you hop in a taxi and go have fun at the Heliopolis street party.


Myself.

Lazy days (or evenings)

Don't you hate feeling that you really should be doing something, anything, but that you just don't have the energy? One day away from the weekend- a blissful three day one at that- and I'm ready to crash. The only thing making me feel a bit better about my current state of lethargy is the fact that everyone around me seems to be feeling the same way. One look around the staff-room at work and you'd be forgiven for thinking we've all just finished running a marathon! The combination of heat, dust, reports and kids who I swear must be sneaking drinks of red bull in the bathrooms has us all at the end of our tethers.

The weekend can't come soon enough, a good night's sleep is what I really need and if the horrible turkeys (I hate and fear turkeys!) that turned up in my dream last night stay away I think I might just manage it. So I am off to bed because the sooner I go to sleep the closer the weekend will be. Lets just hope the B.F.G blows some good dreams my way tonight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_BFG

Night night.

Myself.