We have officially begun our Winter Break. School won’t resume until the 8th of January. Yesterday we had a half day of classes then the students in PreK through 4th grade put on a concert for all of the school. A few of the songs were written by our Music teacher who also composed the music for them He is a very talented musician. After the concert the students left and we had a staff get together at the headmaster’s apartment. Our staff gets along so well and these functions are always fun. It is also a very hectic time as most all of the staff (foreign hire and local) are making last minute travel plans for the break. Here are some of the locations that our staff is off to: Munich, Germany; Amsterdam; England; Ireland; Rome, Italy; Nile River Cruises; Sharm el Shek; Spain; Canada; the US; and other locations in Egypt. Pat and I will be headed to Jordan (more later).
Last evening, a group of us went out to eat at a “Greek” fish restaurant in a city adjacent to Alexandria (much like a “suburb”). The area of this city is very poor – the taxis are carts pulled by donkeys. The restaurant is right on the sea and has a fantastic view. The fish, of course, was probably caught that day. We had grilled sea bass, grilled shrimp, clams, calamari along with fresh vegetables, rice and breads. We had a group of 13 and it seemed like they brought enough food to feed twice that many. Two of the staff members have their son and a brother and sister-in-law here now. It is such an experience to have family come and stay to see what the school and workers are like and of course to experience the culture of Alexandria as well as Egypt. We are really looking forward to the arrival of our son tomorrow. It will be pretty quiet around here for the next few days.
When Aaron arrives we will tour the Bibliotech and Alex with our “buddy” Lobna and her daughters on Sunday. Either on Monday or Tuesday, Emad (from the finance office) plans to show us around Alex to some other sights. Both are very proud of their city. Then on Wednesday we are off to Cairo for two days. Here are our plans for those two days: Citadel, M. Ali Mosque, Khan El Khalil Bazaar, Egyptian Museum, Saqarra, Memphis, Giza Pyramids and Sphinx. It will be a busy two days – we arranged for a driver and guide as this time of year Cairo would chaos trying to get around without help.
