January 18 - 21, 2010 - How many Camels ??

Salam alekom Everyone,

The staff have been very good in how they cleaned up in the aftermath of the storm. The pool bar still did not have power the day after the storm and the staff were very inventive in providing light. Candle sticks were passed around and as it was breezy they cut the plastic water bottles to put over the candles to keep them alight. We watched ours as they were a fire hazard. Finally proper candle holders were brought in. Beer was now bottled as was the pop and juice but at least the bar was up and running. The balance of the resort had power restored for the most part but we do not know if it was due to generators on site as many parts of Sharm El Sheikh were still without power.

January 19 - After a day around the pool we headed up to our room early as it was breezy and decided to check out the local town Naama Bay. We walked along the promenade that separates the hotels along the main drag into town and the beach. The beach area for our resort was small compared to that of some of the other hotels towards town. We have decided to investigate the other hotels when we return to the UK as we will return to Sharm to dive. Naama Bay was a very small town about 4 streets in all and had a major shopping centre, casino and some small hotels. There were many restaurants with sadly the usual MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried and Burger King. There were a number of very small shops with trinkets, silver, glass vials and perfumes. There were a number of men that seem to be loitering around. We soon found out they are shop owners or workers from the shops scoping out the tourists. We made the mistake of making eye contact with a man and he asks us where we are from. Canada I responded and we chatted a little. He then says he has a shop with some art as he is a artist. We say no thank you and he got really offended. Talk about sensitive. We walked further along and another man stopped me grabbed my hands and says to Fred How Many Camels??. I answer 36 camels going on 37. Fred say no Sandy no you don't get it, he wants to know how many camels I will take for you!! Oh the penny drops then he laughs and asks where we are from. Canada I responded and he wants us to write something in his book. OK I said and Fred says no. I say what can a message from Canada hurt. Fred again was right again it was a come on to get us in his cousins shop. Hospitality of tea or pop was offered which we declined. They again become insulted. I am then asked did I know what the bottles are and I said perfume. I am then asked what kind of scent I liked and I responded I am allergic. Well we were almost thrown out of the place. Lesson learned avoid eye contact. We had a nice walk back and are stopped once again on our way but now we know how to respond. Sorry we are on our way to a meeting and will return later.

Tonight we had our best meal of our stay. Seafood night, complete with entertainment.
Fred had the seafood and I had chicken. The portions are absolutely huge. We split the meals so we both had some seafood and chicken. I am not a lover of fish but the fish we had was delicious. It turns out it was sea bass, one of Fred's favorites. Dessert was fresh fruit a nice change from all the pastries that were usually offered. The four course meal and entertainment were well worth the extra that we paid.


January 20th - Up and at them early today. The previous day we had made a point of asking whether the excursions were still and were told yes. So with a 5:00 a.m. wake-up call we were down to the Lobby by 5:40 for our pick up to visit to Saint Catherine's Monastery and to visit a Bedouin Village. We wait and wait until 7:15 a.m. No pickup so we head back to our room and go for a proper breakfast and then headed poolside. Later in the morning we spoke with the Thomson Rep who said she would look into why we hadn't been picked up. She found out that the excursion had been canceled because of the continuing problems from the storm. Unfortunately they did not inform the local Thomson Reps nor ourselves. We were disappointed but nothing can be done so a extra day of relaxation and sun.

January 21st - Our last day was more sun and relaxation. So I thought I would give you some information on the culture of Egypt. Women are totally unseen anywhere on the resort. Housekeeping was all done by men. Any women on staff we did see where either English, Italian or Russian. The belly dancer when we went for our seafood night was an English girl. I asked our waiter Ibrahim Fathy if females have any rights at all. He said yes they get an education but after that they are expected to marry take care of the family and if they don't have children they take care of their fathers. We did not even see women shopping or working in the family stores. Certainly not a way of life we can understand let alone accept given our up bringing. I sure would have very difficult time being as outspoken as I am. Bedouins can have up to four wives if they have the funds. I wonder who would want more than one given how we can be sometimes :) ! The pay scale is also very low by our standards. Ibrahim who is what we would call a head waiter makes 450 Egyptian Pounds a month, which is about $130.00 Canadian. Prices of things though tourist stuff, were very high so tips are very important to them.

As I said not an exciting blog this time around but a relaxing time for us and a nice introduction to Egyptian travel as we will return to do a Nile Cruise to see the major historical sites and Sharm to Dive.

Hope you did enjoy this segment of our latest travels. Pictures will be posted on my Facebook and Flickr later this week.

Maasalaama,

Sandy & Fred

January 17, 2010 -Sharm El Sheikh Mother Natures Fury

Salam alekom everyone,

The blogs on this trip are not going to be very exciting due to mother natures fury.

We spent a full day around the pool enjoying the sun, relaxing and reading. In the evening we decided to check out the availability and cost of internet in the Lobby. On the way to the Lobby I commented on the lightening in the mountains. The cost for internet was 120 Egyptian Pounds which works out to about $30.00 Canadian for twenty four hours access. A bit pricey but we felt it was worth it. The lightening and thunder was awesome. The storm to watch was spectacular lighting up the sky and surrounding hills. The rain when it came was torrential and in no time the lobby was flooding and we lost power. The storm lasted for just over an hour and the hotel staff were all scrambling trying to contain the water which was pouring in everywhere. Once the rain stopped, we made our way slowly back to our room in the dark as we had our laptops and I was terrified of falling on the wet stone and tiles. The damage in our room was less than we had anticipated. Flooding at the front door, balcony door and bathroom had occurred but our bed was dry and the roof hadn't leaked. We hit the sack early as the lone candle we were supplied doesn't provide enough light to read by.

It turns out that Mother Nature is following us around on our travels and showing us all that she has to offer. This was the first rain and storm of this nature that this area has had in forty years. Some of the younger staff are in awe as they have never seen rain. Damage in the hotel was worked on very quickly with staff working around the clock to get things back in order. They had even managed to prepare breakfast though the power remains out. The pools were all out of order with the exception of one which is at the top of a hill. The rest of them were filthy with mud. The sea was also rough in the aftermath of the storm and the temperature had dropped enough that the Egyptians found it cold. To us, cool but it doesn't stop us from sunning.

We were safe but sadly there were deaths due to this act of nature, seven people have lost their lives and we have heard upon our return to the UK that people are still missing. This was all of course kept very quiet while we were in Egypt.

More Boukra(tomorrow)

The Jinx's

Sandy & Fred

January 16, 2010 - Egypt Sharm el Sheik

Salam alekom (Hello)

I must tell you that our bed is like lying on a piece of marble. Boy does this bring back memories. When Fred and I first married my Dad advised us that there was nothing better than a firm hard bed for a good nights rest and baby making. Well, we listened to him and bought such a bed and it is now at my Mom’s and it is still as hard as ever. We are well past the need to make babies and comfort for old bones is now more important. So a rather restless night for me and I certainly woke up very stiff compared to when I went to bed. Fred on the other hand slept well. We attended the welcome briefing by the Thomson Company Reps, as this area of the world is a whole new experience for us. All inclusive does not imply what the word say’s. There are exclusions and little quirks we have not previously experienced. A good example is fresh squeezed orange juice. If you take it when asked by the waiter who is a special waiter there is an extra charge and somewhat substantial from our understanding.

We checked out the beach and are rather disappointed. Sardines in a can have more space then what we saw today. Our rep told us if you want a place on the beach take your towel and tanning stuff down at 5:00 a.m. to get a good spot. I don’t think so, we will be pool bound where at least we can have some personal space. So the balance of our day was spent around the pool to near the bar/restaurant as we were rather late having attended the briefing.

Maasalaama (Good Bye)

Sandy & Fred

January 14, 2010 - Egypt Bound

Greetings all,

We headed off to the hotel at Manchester airport late Thursday afternoon and booked into the Crowne Plaza, our mystery hotel, which also gave us parking for a week. Fred of course has worked everything out and this works best for us pound wise plus we don’t have to get up at some ungodly hour to make our flight. We enjoyed a light supper and then headed to the room. As luck would have it we were awoken by the fire alarm, going off at 1:00 a.m. Friday morning. What to do, what to do?? I know some of you are saying get your ass out of there while others are saying what I said to Fred. “Is the door hot to the touch, do you smell smoke?”

The alarm went on for some time so we decided we had better get dressed and vacate the premises as the parking lot seemed to have quite a number of people in it. Well you know what happened. We are just at the staircase to head down, which by the way is right outside our room and the alarm is silenced. So back to the room and to bed we go. Of course now I am awake on the hour every hour waiting to get up to head out to the airport.

The flight itself is uneventful and as I have a window seat I am able to get some pictures of the Alps as we fly over them and Mount Sinai as we fly into Egypt. As we have no experience with this side of the world we are not sure what to expect of this adventure, which should prove very interesting.

The bus ride to the resort takes about 40 minutes as we are the last hotel on the drop off run and when we arrive we are not really impressed. The first resort where passengers were dropped off looked amazing and Fred comments we need to check out pricing upon our return. Turns out the entrance to our resort was very deceiving the place is huge. Exploration in daylight will tell the tale.

Good night all and more news tomorrow.

Sandy & Fred

January 2, 2010 - The Last 8 Months

Happy New Year Everyone!!

I thought I would take this time to reflect on our time since our arrival in the UK on May 5,2009. We know many of our friends, aquaintances and even family thought we were a bit crazy and brave to make such a big move at this stage of our lives. My mom, however, always told us that you need to live your life to the fullest as you only get one shot at it. As many of you know we had visited the UK and stayed in London to dog sit for my brother-in-law John and his wife Adrienne. It was at their place that the idea of moving here was spawned. Fred and I had taken early retirement to travel and see the world and were in the process of downsizing as it seemed we were away from home more than being at home. Coupled with winter starting to become hateful, especially the snow shoveling. Our idea of a retirement home had changed a number of times from getting a place in the country somewhere in southwest Ontario to a condo somewhere in the west end of Toronto near the airport. We have always wanted to travel Europe as we had seen enough of the Carribean and what we wanted to see of Western Canada thanks to the kids moving out there and some of the US. The UK newspapers had many great deals and flights were relatively cheap so the UK became our retirement destination.

So with the sale of our home in Ajax as well as most of our possessions we prepared to make our move over. No small feat I might add as you collect a lot of stuff with living in the same house for twenty-two years, and I had to decide what to keep, give to the kids and sell. After lot of soul searching and packing and repacking I finally got it down to what was really important for to me to keep. Thankfully my best friend Colleen offered us a spot in her basement to store what we were not bringing over to the UK. My niece Amanda arranged for our stuff to be shipped to Liverpool at a fantastic price as this was to be our home base.

Our first month here did not go as smoothly as I thought it should have. One does not think of culture shock when you are moving the a English speaking country like England. But believe me expectations and reality hit home big time. It was the simple things that we took for granted in Canada. Opening a bank account was the hardest as we did not have a bill to prove residency and we could not get a residence without an account. Once this was all sorted out I began to relax and set up our home, a flat located on the River Mersey. We were only in the flat for a week when we then headed off on our first big trip to Europe.

We went with John, Adrienne and Portia to France to visit the Normandy coast then to Italy for a week of relaxing at the Villa . Fred and I then went on To Switzerland .
Upon our return we have some explored England. Visiting Wales, the Cotswolds, Leeds Castle in Kent and Liverpool itself. We have entertained our friends Derek and Carol from Mississauga and Fred's cousin Bryan and Alison. Fred has enjoyed many Liverpool Football matches with me tagging along for a couple and we have settled into our new home.

We did return to Canada for a month that also included a trip to Mexico for our son Jonathan's wedding to Amy and gave us three weeks to visit family and friends. Many thanks to the Hosier/Pagazani clan and Liz, Carol's mom for putting us up and putting up with us.

Christmas was spent in London and a quiet New Year's Eve in Liverpool. We now look forward to a New Year with new adventures in store. So stay tuned for future blogs.

Ta Ra for now,

Sandy & Fred

December 29, 2009 - Liverpool Philharmonic Hall

Greetings All,

Tonight we went to The Glenn Miller Orchestra concert. I am sure you know that Glenn Miller was a American who made the big band music very popular in North America and the United Kingdom when he was stationed over here during WWII. So if you are wondering how Big Band is carrying on in the UK now, it is because of a Brit named Ray McVay. Ray is one of the maestros for the UK popular music scene and has been in the business for 50 years plus.

From his early days as a rocking sax player, he became a musical director for the big names in the 50's Rock n Roll era...Billy Fury, Eddie Cochran and Freddie Cannon to name a few. Ray became a household name in the UK when he appeared on TV's Come Dancing for 12 years. He always had a love for big band music and wanted to do more than a occasional tribute to Glenn Miller his favorite so he went to The Glenn Miller Estate in the USA and got permission to to use all Glenn Miller's original scores and perform under the Glenn Miller banner.

Fred got us box seats for this concert and we sat with four other people. They were obviously mom ,dad and son with his wife. The one couple was around our age and the parents in their 80's. It was sweet to hear the parents reminisce about the times when they first heard Glenn's music. The hall was filled with the majority being seniors but there were interestingly enough quite a few young people. Good music has no age boundaries and we had a great time.

Ta Ra,

Sandy & Fred