And life goes on

Third update in my Egypt trip, taken from e-mails to my family, with pictures stolen from Hanna.

As you could hear, I wasn't in the best mood yesterday morning when I wrote you guys that e-mail about the bombings. But as the day went on, it improved more and more. After doing some morning shopping, Marianne and I (because Hanna was diving) went back to our hotel and the guys who run it told us about this snorkelling trip that they were planning in 30 minutes. I didn't particularly want to go, because I knew that I'd be scuba diving the next day, but Marianne did, so I reluctantly came along. Relunctance that dissapeared as soon as I got in the water. Because I had the most amazing time ever. I haven't seen fish very often. And when I did, they're usually cooked on a plate (but not dead, according to Boris!). Honestly, the only other times that I've seen them are in an aquarium or in "Finding Nemo". But with snorkelling, you'd be looking down and see hundreds of fish, in hundreds of different colours. Literally, the kinds you see in aquariums.T

hese aren't trout and salmon here--these are fish from semi-tropical seas! The coral was also beautiful. We couldn't touch any of it, because if it were fire coral then we'd have a severe allergic reaction, and any part that we touched would swell up instantly. But it was gorgeous, in so many different shapres and colours. My favourite part, though, was when we saw Lion Fish. Our guide pointed out this gorgeous fish wish long fins that look like they're feathers. I thought that he was just pointing them out because they were beautiful, but he told us not to ever touch them, that they're horrible dangerous, and if we touch one we'll die within half an hour. Sucks, eh? So we kept on snorkelling, and I fell a little behind the group. Suddenly, there were THREE Lion Fish, right beside me, about half a metre away. So I very quickly busted my ass out of there!! It was also cool, because there were schools of tiny fish that would swim right under me. So, so, so much fun.

After that, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go scuba diving, because snorkelling was so cheap ($5) and scuba diving is so expensive ($50), and I thought that they were basically the same thing. But I told everyone that I was going, and I knew that I probably would enjoy it...so I went. And absolutely loved it! It's a lot different from snorkelling, and a lot more difficult. At first it's hard to get used to breathing, and it's a bit disconcerting to realize that if something bad happens, you can't just float up to the top. You need to decompress, and take about 5 minutes to get to the top, or you get the "Bends" and have nitrogen stuff stuck in empty body cavities, which is very painful. So I was a bit worried. But it was still so amazing. I saw more coral, including Brain Coral, which looks like a brain, which was awesome for a former co-op student in Dr. Guha's Brain Tumor Research Centre lab. We also saw thousands of fish. Snorkelling is floating above fish, but scuba diving is actually swimming with the fish, with them above, below and to the side. Some move away, some just ignore you and keep on chilling, and some are attacted to the bubbles that you're breathing out and come actually closer. They were so multi-coloured, so diverse.

I'd love to study some marine biology that actually know what I was looking at. But...I saw an octopus!!! It was so cool. And yes, it had 8 tentacles. We also saw a scorpian fish, which are also lethal, but nothing bad happened. So I'm sure that I'm forgetting some stuff, but just wanted to tell you what a good time I had. I loved it so much. I don't usually adore the ocean, that's Ilana's favourite. I prefer being in the air. But this I loved, and I think I found out why. I'm a control freak. I like to see everything. The main reason why I feel uncomfortable in the water is that I can't see what I'm near, and I always get worried that I'll be stung. But with the googles, you can see everything. There's so much life and colour in the Red Sea, and I'm so happy that I went diving and snorkelling. This is probably the last e-mail for a while, because we'll be moving on to Cairo and Giza soon. But I'll be in touch as soon as I can.