11 Days to Egypt - 20 October

It’s the first day of our longest period of time at sea. Eleven days between India and Egypt. It’s been very quiet on the ship today. People are staying in their rooms and are either sleeping or decompressing from India. The general consensus about India is that it is an extreme country: extreme poverty, extreme beauty, and extreme emotions. I think everyone needs some time to come to terms with everything that they’ve seen and experienced – including me.

There wasn’t much activity in the library today as a result of the lack of students. It’s given Eileen and me a nice chance to get some projects done in there that our jam-packed schedule hasn’t allowed. We are also taking the opportunity to treat our student employees to a special dinner next week. The ship provides elegant private dinners for people who sign up ahead of time and are willing to pay $25/person. Eileen and I are going to treat our students to the dinner as a thank you for all of their hard work. It was fun to see their expressions when we told them about it.

I think we are all in need of a pick-me-up now. We are officially half-way through the voyage according to the calendar. I have to admit that there are some aspects to ship life that are starting to get to me with the food being the biggest issue! The prospect of facing the meals that are served in the dining hall is depressing. The food isn’t bad but it isn’t good either. A lot of students are living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches right now. Fortunately, we have a grill on the top deck that serves hamburgers and pizzas but that gets expensive after a while. The thought of eating this food for seven more weeks is horrible. Everybody talks about their favorite meals and what they are going to eat when they return home.

Other than that, not much has been happening today.