Merry Christmas

Christmas Soiree

Wednesday 15th December me and baby bass spent the day in the theatre rehearsing for the show in the evening. Act after act trundled through to practise their performance for that evening.

The acts were of variable quality but all of them performed with gusto and the parents were equally enthusiastic so quality was not an issue. Maddy played her clarinet (it is now back in it’s case) and sang with her friends, I sat with the band and played bass.

Christmas Pageant

Friday 11th December 7:00 pm

The exciting part of going to an American Church is you never know when it’s going to be a bit over the top. This was one of those evenings!

The nativity story with singing, dancing (sort of), a donkey and 3 camels complete with 3 wise men. If you were looking for an accurate portrayal of the Christmas story, this was not the place to be. If you wanted a good night out at an amateur production then this was the place to be.

Oh and there was a real baby as well!

Joseph

Herod, Caesar and wife. The guy in the suit on the right is Mark Jaffrey, musical director for the church. I’m sure I recognise his name!

one camel

no Three camels complete with animal handlers. You got to sit on the camels outside afterwards if you wanted to. The paler the coat the better the quality of camel.

Shepherds and angels

Real baby!

72 hours in Dahab

Due to the school being close for the election we came to Dahab for the weekend. There were 6 of us on the ‘trip’, Hannah, who arranged everything for us – a mini bus from school and a cheap hotel in Dahab, and Amanda and her bloke. It takes 7 hours to get here by mini bus, for those of you with maps Dahab is on the right hand side of Sinai about halfway up the Gulf of Arabia coast line.We can see Saudi Arabia as we walk along the main tourist street by the sea.

There wasn’t a lot to see as we drove here, desert mainly and we drove under the Suez Canal. There are about 6 check points to drive through but we had no problems at any of them on the way here. The most memorable moment was the bathroom stop! See picture! I hadn’t taken my camera in with me so these are from my phone.

Dahab is a quiet resort by the sea aimed at divers. All the restaurants are open to the elements and some are even Bedouin in style in that you take your shoes off and sit on the floor round the tables. The tables are candle lit by placing sand in a cut down 2l water bottle and then sticking a candle in it!

We stayed bed and breakfast at the Dahab Plaza – the restaurant wasn’t at the hotel, we walked down to the sea front and ate at ‘Same Same’, which is owned by the same man (Emad). So we could watch the sea (and Saudi) while we ate. Maddy’s favourite meal of the weekend was a ‘thick shake’, basically a glass full of ice cream!

So what do you do here? There are a number of trips you can book onto, but haggle the price down with the locals. They will take you as far as Petra (Indiana Jones and the Holy Grail) or up Mount Sinai to see the sunrise and St Katherine’s Monastery (where the burning bush is). As it was our first trip we stuck to the simple tourist activities.Sitting in bars, snorkelling, a horse ride to the Blue Lagoon and some quad biking in the desert. Quite enough for 2 days! We spent our last morning chilling by the pool.