The Daily for Saturday Mar 06, 2021

[bennybear]

Good morning and thanks all!   
 

Egypt has always been so high on my list, but we haven’t been able to make it happen.  One day I hope.   My dear friend,  who had never travelled overseas visited Egypt a couple of years ago,  her stories were absolutely incredible!  What a first visit!  
 

The birds and animals seem to think it’s spring,  I truly hope they’re right!  Continuing the Canadian theme,  and with being a day to celebrate dentists and teeth, and frozen foods 🤷‍♀️

Edited March 6, 2021 by bennybear

[Cruising-along]

Good morning all!

Dentists' Day -- thanks for the reminder -- I was due for my 6-month cleaning and check just as everything shut down here.  I got a call from our dentist saying they would be cancelling my appointment as it was routine, and I could make another when I felt comfortable doing so and that they would not "bug me".  They held to their word and haven't called again.  DH and I planned to make new appointments after we'd gotten our 2nd vaccines, so we need to do that.  I just didn't feel safe enough to do it before that, even though I know they take all precautions.

 

My dresses are getting dusty in my closet since I only wear dresses on cruises. (boo hoo)

The dinner looks very good.  I would use my home-canned green beans instead of frozen, and leave out the fungi 😉  Also would use brown rice.  One hint was to cut up the chicken, I think I would do that too.

 

Today is a Big Day!  We will be having our grandsons (5 and 7) overnight tonight for the first time in over a year.  Our DD and DSIL will be dropping them off tonight after a full day of skiing, (I'm hoping they will be very tired lol!) and we'll take them home tomorrow night.  DD and DSIL are very deserving of some alone time, especially DD who has been with the boys 24/7 since Covid struck. And we love having them.

 

Cairo!  My life-long dream was always to visit Egypt and we did, on our 2nd cruise in 2006.  We opted to go inside a pyramid instead of the camel ride, what a thrill!!  DH is claustrophobic but he was a trooper, even when the lights along the sides of the interior went out for what seemed like several minutes (I'm sure it was less than a minute though).  I have to say, I'm not claustrophobic but I still remember the feeling of unease....We tried to get back again in 2011, but all the cruise lines were cancelling Egypt, so we had 4 days in Israel instead.  It was a 14-hour day, and dark when we got back to the ship in Alexandria.  The MDR held dinner for us.    Here are a few of the photos from our visit.  One is of the luxurious lunch we had in the Mena House Oberoi Hotel.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Cruising-along

[superoma]

3 hours ago, TiogaCruiser said:

Good Morning All,

 

Thanks to contributors on this thread I have dinner for tomorrow planned: Spaghetti with a robust meat sauce, salad and today’s wine. I love Malbec. So a trip to Total Wine is on the agenda.

 

With the weather warming and the days getting longer, our lettuce is bolting. So I’ve got some plants to pull and then will let the soil lay fallow for a while. DH is getting interested in trying hydroponics for summer lettuce.
 

This weekend’s project is to finish up the garage. After a month, am so close to being done and have run out of steam to finish.🤪

Don’t you just hate when that happens? I run into it when I do spring or fall cleaning.! 

[Sharon in AZ]

Thank you for the Daily Rich and thank you for your lists Roy. 
 

I have never been to Egypt and not sure it is someplace I want to in the future. I have too many other places on my list. But I have certainly enjoyed hearing about it from everyone who has been there and the pictures too. 
 

My father was a dentist and I have such fond memories of of my childhood of him in his white jacket at work. We lived above his dental practice, it was a large two story house that my parents remodeled, so I wandered around the office a lot. We weren’t allowed when there were patients though. My mother did the book work and he had an assistant who kept the schedule and assisted him with patients. He even made dentures!  It was creepy as a young child going into his lab area seeing all the  teeth. 
 

I have a few dresses and love wearing them but now only when on a trip. Frozen food is wonderful, we couldn’t have fish in our diet unless it’s frozen. 
 

The drink today sounds really refreshing and I have all the ingredients, I might ask DH to make me one. And I’ve never had one before. 
 

Roy’s meal suggestion sounds excellent, wish I had some in the freezer. I think we are having lamb chops today. I found some good thick ones at Trader Joe’s yesterday. 
 

Have a great day everyone!

[St Pete Cruiser]

I've not been to Alexandria, but we did a port stop in 2014 on the Rotterdam's Africa circumnavigation cruise at Port Said.  Port Said is Egypt's port at the entrance to the Suez Canal.  It was the first cruise ship that they had for some time and all the officials were dockside with a band to welcome us. I had booked an excursion to Cairo that included Giza and the Museum.  It was certainly an adventure to go by mini bus with armed escorts and the highway traffic scared us for sure.  Couldn't believe the tailgating and lane changing.  Cairo was very dirty then with junk along the highway and even some dead animals including a horse or donkey.  Seeing Giza with the pyramids, the Museum and the Nile itself, made the journey worth it!

[cruisemom42]

Good morning (well, I almost made it here while it was morning...)

 

I have to say that while I do not appreciate dentists in the plural (have a fear of them from childhood), I love MY dentist, who I found after much searching. She gives me a stuffed animal to cuddle when I come in for dental work, lol. That and wearing ear buds greatly helps the experience IMO...

 

I would love a filet mignon today, but I was never fond of the fruit soups. Give me a real tomato-based gazpacho and we have a deal.

 

Despite their popularity I've never tried a Moscow mule. One of these days...  The wine does sound good, however.

 

And now on to something I can really enthuse about -- Alexandria!  I've been to Egypt several times, all between 2006 and 2010, including two land trips (one long, one short) and three cruise stops. On my first visit, on a Princess cruise with my mom, we did the typical Cairo overnight. Very rushed. But I did see enough to realize Egypt was safe enough (in those years) to go back on a land tour, which I did, with my university travel group. It was a dream trip with only 12 people and a very knowledgeable guide. However, I didn't spend any time in Alexandria on either of those. It wasn't until I returned on HAL Westerdam in 2010 that I decided to spend my port time in Alexandria with a fantastic private guide (she and I are still in touch). After that I had one more trip with Voyages to Antiquity that included a few days each in Cairo and Luxor pre-cruise. We boarded in Luxor, then went up the Red Sea (with a couple of stops to see the desert monasteries in the Sinai) and through the Suez Canal. 

 

Anyway, I had to hunt down a few shots of Alexandria.  Parts of it are very pretty if a little dilapidated, like the Corniche, with its neo-Classical buildings. The Qait-Bey tower, built on the site of the Alexandria lighthouse of antiquity (and quite probably with some of the same blocks) and the old harbor is also very scenic (apologies for the photo quality, this was taken through the windows of a delicious fish restaurant on the harborfront, but it was the best view I got all day):

 

 

 

We also visited underground tombs/catacombs and the ancient Serapeum (where the books from the library of Alexandria was kept after the original building burned down in the time of Julius Caesar) with the iconic pillar of Pompey -- which is actually misnamed, it was built in honor of Diocletian!:

 

 

The pillar is huge, it's hard to visualize just how huge until you start to approach it. The guardian sphinxes are extremely enigmatic and regal, as always:

 

 

Since I am very interested in the Roman period in Alexandria, my guide took me to the area where the Roman forum is being excavated to view a pretty little odeon there.  And a surprise behind it, a Roman villa with mosaics, including this delightful one of various birds with easily identifiable parrot, peacock, and duck (bottom):

 

 

 

 

We also visited the (at that time) brand new Library of Alexandria -- I will try to post a couple of photos of that later, as it is a very modern building indeed compared to what I've posted here.  We also visited the Alexandria museum of archaeology, but photos were not allowed inside.

 

At the very end of the day, my guide wanted to take me to see this mosque, which had just been cleaned (the pollution in Alexandria from cars, etc. is pretty bad) and I can see why -- it practically glowed in the light from the setting sun:

 

 

Although the mosque itself is quite old (built originally in the 12th c.) it was heavily redone in the 1920's in the so-called "Cairo style". The domes are carved in such as way that they almost look like they are covered with lace.

 

One last thing about Alexandra that is an odd coincidence: I saw a movie (in the theatre) a number of years ago about the turbulent period in Alexandria just after the Roman empire legalized Christianity, and the struggles that occurred between the Christians, pagans, and Jews in Alexandria during that period.  I hadn't thought of it in years but just last night I ran across it on a streaming service and re-watched it!  It is really an excellent movie that includes the talented Rachel Weisz in the role of the female philosopher Hypatia, whose mathematical skills made her a target in a world where both women and higher mathematics were considered highly suspect.  If you have a chance, especially if you are interested in Alexandria, watch it -- it is great. The title is Agora.

[Tbay]

ger_77  Do you ever make your own pizza?  Leftover pulled pork on pizza is very good.

[mamaofami]

I’m another one who has never been to Egypt, something I really regret, because I don’t think I ever will get there. The pictures are all wonderful.

 

We did go to the TUT exhibit years ago when it was in the museum in NYC and we lived nearby. 

[USN59-79]

Good morning to all of you.  Kind of a wet weekend here, but a few dry days coming up this week.  We have been to Alexandria, but I have mixed emotions about it.  We took the ship's tour to see the pyramids and a river cruise and lunch there.  Not only were there armed guards on our bus, but also police car escorts for it.  On the freeway to Giza we passed a burned out tourist bus similar to ours, so that didn't give us warm and fuzzy feelings.  In all my travels, eating local food everywhere, it was the only time I got food poisoning.  I made the mistake of eating some of the yoghurt at our lunch.  We really enjoyed the museum in Alexandria and went there on our own.  Hired a horse cart, agreed on a price to get to the museum and when we got there the driver wanted about 4 times the agreed price.  Said we had to pay twice as much as there were two of us and had to pay extra for the horse, etc.  He was very intimidating, yelling and drawing a crowd of onlookers.   After that we were not anxious to return to Alexandria.

Both the wine and drink are interesting.  I am a fan of red wines, but especially malbec.  When I order a wine package on board, I always specify malbec as I can expect it to be good while I never know about some of the other red wines offered.  I have the ingredients for a Moscow Mule mainly because when I want just a soft drink in the afternoon I choose a ginger beer because it is refreshing, but not sweet.  I have often wondered what is the purpose of a copper mug for a Moscow Mule.

[Vict0riann]

Good morning, all, this seems to have been a very busy morning, so far, already page 3, and I'm not that late!  Thanks to all for posting.  At last a port I've been to!

 

We had spent some time in Cairo when we lived in Nairobi, a long time ago, and we saw King Tut in the museum before he became famous - he was in an open-air display with just an armed guard nearby.  I think he is now in air-conditioned splendour!

 

In 2011, we visited Alexandria on the Prinsendam with our DD.   We opted for  a ship's tour of "Classical Alexandria" and had a very interesting day.  All the young men wanted to have their pictures taken with DD! (Something akin to Tunisia, where we were offered 600 camels for her!)

 

We visited the Qaitbay Citadel (fort), a Roman theatre in downtown Alexandria and the museum.  All very interesting but the drive itself through bustling neighbourhoods was great.  We had a guard on a motorcycle escort us.   (And I can see now I am following pretty much the same route as Cruisemom!)

 

Our guard

 

The old harbour

 

 

The fort

 

Alexandria streets

 

The Roman theatre in the middle of downtown Alexandria

 

Pat in the "Garden Room" of the Prinsendam with Alexandria in the background - it was before they closed in that area and it was a lovely airy spot!

 

 

 

 

[JazzyV]

Good afternoon. Thanks for the Daily.

In the midst of my usual Saturday morning feeding of the sourdough culture and making dough for bread to be baked tomorrow.

It's cold but sunny here.

I like the days (although I don't wear dresses often), meal and drinks.

I've never been to Egypt. One time I was considering a land trip, but there was political unrest at that time. I'll visit vicariously through people's pictures for now.

 

I got an email last night from the County Health Dept and was able to schedule shot #2 for March 10, only 1 day later than expected! I hope no significant side effects as I have an eye doctor appointment the next day. When I last saw the eye doctor she told me she had a 102°F fever the day after her 2nd shot and was glad she's taken the day off after; she's younger than me and us oldsters usually have less symptoms.

 

@StLouisCruisers How nice to get to see your DS!

@cunnorl I'm glad your family is recovering and hopefully BIL will be out of the hospital soon.

@Cruising-along It sounds like a fun days with your grandsons. Enjoy!

 

Prayers for the care list and cheers for the celebration list.

Stay safe and wear your mask.

 

 

 

[Live4cruises]

A huge thank you to all who posted photos and memories of Egypt!  I’m among those who have not been, but who did see the amazing Treasures exhibit in New Orleans when it toured in the 70’s.  

I have a friend who is disinterested in travel, not at all adventurous, and stunned the socks off me when she announced she had always wanted to go to Egypt (!), and was going there with a group!  It was the summer of 2001, just in time before the world changed.  She had a great time, although that trip did not infect her with the travel bug, so she’s a homebody again.

[Quartzsite Cruiser]

I forgot to mention one thing about our mystery cruise in 2003.  We had a naval escort from India to the entrance to the Suez Canal.  The ship also took great precautions against pirates when we sailed close to the east coast of Africa.   
 

We were the first cruise ship since the invasion of Iraq to go through the canal with passengers.  The ones before us had disembarked their passengers in Safaga, flew them to Cairo, then picked them up in Port Said.  Port Said was one of the ports we missed for operational reasons, but since Alexandria was the substitute port, no one was unhappy.

 

I agree with @rafinmd that Safaga is a nothing port.  We had to cancel our overnight tour to Luxor due to repercussions from Delhi Belly caught in Agra.  Maybe someday things will settle down enough for us to go to Luxor.

 

Lenda

[XBGuy]

My dentist is originally from Egypt.

 

That is my best Egypt story--and that was the long version.

 

🤣🤣🤣

[cat shepard]

1 hour ago, Cruising-along said:

 

Today is a Big Day!  We will be having our grandsons (5 and 7) overnight tonight for the first time in over a year.  Our DD and DSIL will be dropping them off tonight after a full day of skiing, (I'm hoping they will be very tired lol!) and we'll take them home tomorrow night.  DD and DSIL are very deserving of some alone time, especially DD who has been with the boys 24/7 since Covid struck. And we love having them.

 

 

Have a wonderful visit with your Grandsons! Thank you for sharing your memories of Egypt. 

[garlictown]

☕ Happy Saturday morning and Thank You for the Daily.✏️

Oh, I have fond memories of Egypt in general when my husband worked there.... I was able to go over for 3 weeks touring (summer time when school was out) on my own with my cab driver, LOL !😎 Every day was an adventure and I loved it! Yes, Alexandria was special and staying in an Islamic Hotel for a weekend was quite an experience!🙂 Luckily, our concierge wrote everything down in Arabic to give drivers, etc. 

🙏Prayers for all in need and stay safe!😷

Edited March 6, 2021 by garlictown

[travelingbums]

Thank you Rich and Roy.

 

Thank you everyone for sharing and caring😀.

 

Love all the pictures.

 

Happy Saturday.

 

Please be safe.

[Suslor]

4 hours ago, lcand1923 said:

My Egypt story is linked to the pandemic. 

 

I was very fortunate to be able to take a Nile River cruise with some pre and post-cruise days in Cairo.  My flight brought me home to MD on March 5, 2020.  On March 6 the first confirmed COVID cases in MD were identified among passengers who had just returned from a Nile River Cruise.

 

Since I live in a retirement community, there naturally followed a flurry of telephone calls from Administration to me.  The net result, I was on self-isolation for fourteen days.

 

I cannot say how many times I had to repeat that I was NOT on the river vessel where the cases had been identified.

 

I still think of our Country Guide in Egypt.  I had questioned him about when he would have his next group.  He said his next group would start on March 23.  He told me that he was so very, very lucky.  We were his second group in 2020, the first time that had happened in over ten years.  He was looking forward to a busy year. 

 

I now suspect that he got a telephone call from his employer while we were at the Sphinx telling him that COVID had arrived in Egypt.  He never took telephone calls while our group was at any site.  When he saw the number on his cell phone, he walked away from our group.  He was then quite subdued for the rest of the day. 

 

Egypt's economy like so many other countries in this world rely heavily upon tourism.  The economic impact of this pandemic is far-reaching and devastating.

Today’s Washington Post has an article about a woman who took a Nile cruise at the same time and became Maryland’s first case of the virus 🦠. So glad you were on a different ship. 

[TiogaCruiser]

So I am picking up my tale of my South America trip 3 years ago. The 6^th was the first of 2 sea days as we sailed from Montevideo toward The Falklands. And to catch up, I will focus on Iguazu Falls, Argentina side (February 27 and March 1) and save the Brazilian side (visited 2-28-18) for tomorrow. 🙂

 

My plane left BsAs early for Iguazu on the 27^th. This was planned to allow a half day for exploration on my own, and as it turned out, I was glad I had done so.  A thunderstorm had brewed, and the tower at Iguazu had sustained a strike, and shut down air traffic until early evening.

 

My reservation was at the Melia (nee Sheraton), and they offered me an inexpensive upsell to a Falls View room. 🙂 The room was spectacular, and I could hear the thunder from the falls all night with the door closed, and the porch provided a lovely location to just sit and gawk.

The first day I explored the upper trails until the park closed. We had a range of weather, running from light rain to blue skies and puffy clouds. I set off with my camera rig and had a blast, taking my time and no need to worry about staying with a group. 🙂

That night we had a torrential downpour and the electricity kept going off and on. The nights I was at the Falls coincided with the full moon, and I had the hope of doing a Full Moon Tour where they allow ticket visitors to go out to Devil’s Throat, and a dinner is included. As it turned out, we had heavy clouds each night, and the tour was not offered. (So I have unfinished business in Iguazu.😉)

 

On March 1 I took a tour of the Argentine side. This included Upper Devils Throat, and the Upper and Lower Circuits. Again, the sights were spectacular, and we had an equally beautiful day. While it isn’t really necessary to have a guided tour, I appreciated the comradery, the information on the geology of the area and talking with the Photographer, who was a Nikon lover- so we compared notes.  He also graciously offered to take pictures of me with my camera which allowed me to get some as I was traveling alone. 

 

Back at the hotel, there was a Tango demonstration in the lounge that evening. 

 

Edited March 6, 2021 by TiogaCruiser

[Suslor]

I had visited Cairo several times in my work for the State Department but my DH and I took a chance on a Gateway 1 tour to Cairo and Nile cruise in October 2017. Like others have mentioned we stayed at Mena House with views of the Pyramids from our balcony. Because we took and extra day in Cairo before starting the tour we were “off cycle” and so wound up having a private tour the entire trip. we couldn’t believe it when we saw these camels sitting nonchalantly in the back of a pickup truck!

[mamaofami]

1 hour ago, XBGuy said:

My dentist is originally from Egypt.

 

That is my best Egypt story--and that was the long version.

 

🤣🤣🤣

That made me remember that a cardiac surgeon who saved DH's life back in 2013 was from Egypt. DH had a disected aorta and most people don't make it to the hospital, let alone survive the surgery.

[smitty34877]

1 hour ago, TiogaCruiser said:

So I am picking up my tale of my South America trip 3 years ago. The 6^th was the first of 2 sea days as we sailed from Montevideo toward The Falklands. And to catch up, I will focus on Iguazu Falls, Argentina side (February 27 and March 1) and save the Brazilian side (visited 2-28-18) for tomorrow. 🙂

 

My plane left BsAs early for Iguazu on the 27^th. This was planned to allow a half day for exploration on my own, and as it turned out, I was glad I had done so.  A thunderstorm had brewed, and the tower at Iguazu had sustained a strike, and shut down air traffic until early evening.

 

My reservation was at the Melia (nee Sheraton), and they offered me an inexpensive upsell to a Falls View room. 🙂 The room was spectacular, and I could hear the thunder from the falls all night with the door closed, and the porch provided a lovely location to just sit and gawk.

The first day I explored the upper trails until the park closed. We had a range of weather, running from light rain to blue skies and puffy clouds. I set off with my camera rig and had a blast, taking my time and no need to worry about staying with a group. 🙂

That night we had a torrential downpour and the electricity kept going off and on. The nights I was at the Falls coincided with the full moon, and I had the hope of doing a Full Moon Tour where they allow ticket visitors to go out to Devil’s Throat, and a dinner is included. As it turned out, we had heavy clouds each night, and the tour was not offered. (So I have unfinished business in Iguazu.😉)

 

On March 1 I took a tour of the Argentine side. This included Upper Devils Throat, and the Upper and Lower Circuits. Again, the sights were spectacular, and we had an equally beautiful day. While it isn’t really necessary to have a guided tour, I appreciated the comradery, the information on the geology of the area and talking with the Photographer, who was a Nikon lover- so we compared notes.  He also graciously offered to take pictures of me with my camera which allowed me to get some as I was traveling alone. 

 

Back at the hotel, there was a Tango demonstration in the lounge that evening. 

 

absolutely  breathtaking!

[Cruisepucks]

Although we have not been to Alexandria, we have been to Cairo as part of our Nile River cruise in Feb 2020. The river cruise company did offer an additional one day extension with a tour to Alexandria at the end of the trip. As we'd done a precruise 6 day tour of Jordan prior to the 12 day Egypt tour, we decided that we'd be "templed" out by the end of the trip, so declined the extra day in Alexandria. It turned out to be a good decision as word came out the day before our flight home March 4, 2020 that Egypt had their first Covid 19 cases and we all know what happened after that.

 

We loved our time in Egypt and saw some amazing sites. DH may post photos later as it is beyond my tech skills. During our first few days in Cairo, we were very fortunate to join a friend who became our personal tour guide when we weren't busy with our cruise tour group. He was born in Egypt and spends a couple of months in Cairo each year. He took us to some out of the way sites that are not part of the usual tourist stops. Some of the sites were a real eye opener!

 

I'm really enjoying the new port of the day feature. After reading and seeing the photos from yesterday, I think a cruise to Japan might be in our future when the world rights itself.

[ger_77]

Good afternoon, it's great checking in a couple of times a day to see what people have written here.  @StLouisCruisers, I had to go through my files to see if we weren't on the same cruise, because I have many photos that are almost identical to yours!  It turns our we were there a number of years before you, in 2006 and 2009, both times on the lovely Rotterdam VI.

 

@USN59-79 like you, I've wondered about serving a Moscow Mule in the copper mug - is it tradition?  Does it have something to do with enhancing the flavour of ginger beer (which I really don't care for)?

 

@Tbay I haven't made homemade pizza for quite a while, but if we get frozen ones, we jazz them up with extra veggies, salami, ham, cheese, etc.  I'll have to remember the pulled pork for next time; I think we'd really like that.  Tonight it's placing a phone call and having them do curbside delivery for us - there will be enough for DH for breakfast tomorrow.  Yuck!  LOL

 

@Cruising-alongI'm excited for you to be able to have your darling grandchildren for an overnight.  My arms are practically aching, wanting to hug our sweet little boys.  Sadly, it'll be a while yet, as our vaccine roll-out is ludicrously slow.  I'm usually not one to complain, but I'm getting downright cranky about not being able to get vaccinated so we can at least see our family.  I'm pretty sure it's now wine-thirty, so I'll have to go, as the Cardboardeaux is calling me.  LOL

 

Smooth Sailing!  🙂🙂🙂

Gerry

Edited March 6, 2021 by ger_77

[Cruising-along]

4 minutes ago, ger_77 said:

@Cruising-alongI'm excited for you to be able to have your darling grandchildren for an overnight.  My arms are practically aching, wanting to hug our sweet little boys.  Sadly, it'll be a while yet, as our vaccine roll-out is ludicrously slow.  I'm usually not one to complain, but I'm getting downright cranky about not being able to get vaccinated so we can at least see our family.

And I ache for you, because I know how I would feel.  

I'm wondering if we were on the same cruise, because I was on the Rotterdam May 2006.  I hadn't discovered Cruise Critic yet, not until our next cruise in 2007.