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Published: August 8th 2007
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Stella Di Mare Resort
In Ain Soukhna, 120 km outside Cairo. I loved this pool. It was built like a beach. No steps or ladders to get into the water...you just walk in. Meli: All That for Nine Minutes I wake up in my lovely bed and realize I have to practice giving my Powerpoint presentation. That’s enough to make you want to stay in and draw the curtains. But instead, I spend my morning trying to shave my presentation down to the ten minute timeline, aiming for eight minutes in order to leave room for questions. Gosh, I hope they don’t ask any questions. Three practice sessions later, I’m at 11 minutes. I go down to the speaker ready room at least three times to upload shorter and shorter versions of the presentation. Finally, the time has come, and I meet with the radiology fellow (post-residency) who has been working with me on the project. A bit of a pep talk and off to the room I go. I’m first up. I’m the only medical student. Of the 12 people presenting in our session, I’m one of three women. No worries. I give my presentation in nine minutes, and I get one question (an easy one, they must not have been that interested). And it’s done. Months of planning. Weeks of getting data ready. Days of working on the presentation. Fifteen hours of
Stella Di Mare Resort
This pool, with a waterfall attached, is SICK! flying with almost ten hours of flying-related time (waiting at airports, transport to the airport), and an anticipated two-day journey to return. Well, it is a well-earned nine minutes, I guess. It is good practice, and it is a good thing to do for our project. But I am exhausted. I stay for the rest of the session then run upstairs to eat lunch and try to take a nap before Leroy’s family comes to hang out with me. Lunch is successful (Kobe hamburger) but naps are not. By 6pm, Leroy’s mom calls my cell phone and I go down to meet her, Leroy’s dad, Cedrick, Kenny, and B.B. I wish I had a working camera, but I have to make do with my disposable one. We drive around a bit being indecisive about where to eat (I am still full from lunch), but the kids weigh in and we go to Burger King and Popeye’s. Leroy had texted me earlier to say he was turning in, but he was too excited. At 2am Cairo time, I begin receiving a barrage of texts to my cell phone asking about the family. It is all I could do to keep up
the responses (Leroy was using AOL IM and could type, while I was using my cell phone, and we all know how fast that goes). After eating, we walk up and down the major boulevard (International) in Orlando, looking at shops and talking. Then, they are kind enough to go to Walmart for DVD-R discs for the videocamera. Imagine, a 5-pack for $7.20 at Walmart whilst prices in London were close to $20 a disc! Soon, it is time for them to drive back to Lakeland and they drop me off at my hotel. I am so happy to have seen them, even for just a couple of hours, and I think graduation will be exciting. Things to remember about the kids - Kenny and B.B. get really psyched when something has their names on it (i.e. a license plate or keychain that says Beatrice), and Cedrick is really enamored with his iPod (like most teens would be). It’s too bad Wendy is working and could not be with us. After being on the road, it is good to see family, and it hasme looking forward to seeing Bettina, my mom, and Bob in Paris.
Leroy: Today, I swim in the Red Sea!
Despite staying up late chatting with Meli and my family via cyberspace, I am up early. There is no way I’m going to delay us from getting to the Red Sea. Khaled gets another driving lesson from Tito Armando as we cover the 120 km to Ain Soukna. Thing is, Egyptians love to drive as they do in Manila, essentially ignoring the lines painted on the road. They drive next to them, on them, around them, but never in between them. When Khaled explains that “this is the way we do in Egypt,” he quickly gets checked. The principle is simple: he is the driver for a U.N. diplomat and he needs to set the example, or at the very least, drive the way Tito Armando and Tita Marie want him to if he wants to keep his job. And, quiet as it’s kept, Tito Armando is easy to please and not the person Khaled should be aiming to please for the sake of his job—that’s my opinion, on the outside looking in. Too bad for him, he hasn’t been racking up the brownie points with either of his bosses. He’s a nice guy too.
Stella Di Mare Resort
The medical pool. We had it all to ourselves. You can swim from inside to outside if you want to enjoy the sun while you swim. Egpyt’s #1 Resort: Stella Di Mare For the best account of this breathtaking resort, fast forward to the pictures or check out their website:
www.stelladimare.com . The feeling that I have conjures up memories of Boracay. The pool. Oh the pool. It’s designed like a beach, where you just walk into the water (no steps or ladders). And it has a waterfall and a mini-island in the center. I will stay here for a vacation before I die, God willing. Tito Armando and Tita Marie treat me to a day filled with a private beach area, a medical pool that we have all to ourselves (different from the pool I just mentioned), and access to the gym, steam room and sauna. Presented with our robes, slippers, and towels, we kick off the afternoon with a half-hour splash in the medical pool. The pool has an indoor and outdoor component, accessible through an open glass pane on the eastern wall. There are powerful, massaging shower-heads on either side of the pool and a lounge area, designed like a series of beach chairs, in the pool equipped with spa jets that run from your neck to your heels. My words fall way short…just
look at the pictures.
Thank you Franz Mesmer Sufficiently worn out, we hit up the private beach. Before I can recline in my comfy beach chair, I just gotta swim in the Red Sea. To be as cliché as I can be, the experience is spiritual. I am so caught up in the moment that I make two unsuccessful attempts to part the Red Sea. I settle for a refreshing dip. Not much later, Tito Armando takes a dive too. Tita Marie never left the shade. We spend the next couple of hours reading and napping. We all spend 10 minutes in the steam room cleansing the pores of the salt from the pool and Red Sea. And then…and then…a room with three cushioned chairs, soft melodies and instrumentals, and a semi-circular smoked window letting in the slightest bit of sunlight into the corner relax us beyond comprehension. We all enter and for 15 minutes, no one speaks. It’s hypnotizing. I may have slipped into a trance.
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