Starting Over

I'm going to make an effort to start blogging again about my travels and adventures. Currently, those exciting adventures have me in Elmira Heights, NY, in my mom's empty house, playing with my new iPad and wireless keyboard. I'm loving the technology!

Musing...

This is another summer with a few too many highs and lows. I should be posting more often. I was going to try to do a long, sleep-deprivation induced tirade here about relationships and friendships and traveling and compartmentalizing things in your life, but I'm in the Rome airport, and I just looked up to see the Polish folks all queuing up for the flight, and since this computer needs to get into its case and then into my backpack, this will have to suffice for now.

If you're my Facebook friend, be sure to check out my photo albums from Malaysian diving.

Summer Diving, Part One

I just got back last night from a weekend in Taba, on the Red Sea, where I did my Deep Diver and my Nitrox courses. I also had a chance to play around with my new digital camera with underwater housing. Here are a few highlights from the dives that were decent enough to post. To see more, go to the albums I posted on Facebook.

Two clownfish...always posing for the camera!

This is a juvenile angelfish. It's been here since I started diving last September. At that point, it was blue and white with a giant bulls-eye design on its side. Now, it's starting to change to look more like the adult version in color and pattern.

Lots of fish and corals.

More clownfish. These were two little ones, plus the really tiny guy on the right side.

More fish, plus Jason, who did the courses with me.

Next stop for summer diving: Malaysia! Watch for posts from that trip...five whole days of diving in store, who knows what I'll see! And hopefully by that point I'll be more competent with the camera!

Happy

I've been happy lately....very much so. That's all I can say due to a sprained hand, but happiness is lovely.

No Longer a Fear...

Here's how I spent my weekend:

If you look carefully here, you should see a puffer in the center of this picture.

Over the weekend I returned to Taba for my digital underwater photographer course. I learned how to take some mediocre pictures of the undersea world that I'm really starting to love. The dives were a bit shorter than other times, but that was fine with me because the water temps were around 21*C, which is cold in my opinion.

I borrowed my instructor's camera, which was an Olympus (I think), older model, with 3.2 megapixels and not a lot of options for playing with exposure and such. I'm looking forward to buying and underwater camera of my own and getting some housing for it.

The clam in the picture above is about the size of a football...just to give some perception.
I love these big clams. When you wave your fin over them, they open and close.

Here I found Nemo and his friend! Clownfish are great to photography because
they seem very interested in the camera. These two kept swimming right up to the lens.
This picture was also retouched using iPhoto.

Next on my diving agenda is Phuket during my spring break. I'll have two days to work with at the end of that trip, and I'm hoping to hit some new terrain outside of the Red Sea. Then, it's the Nitrox and Deep Diver courses back in Taba in June. And a ladies' weekend in the near future.

Diving is so much fun!

Musings...

I read a book last fall in which a character said she wasn't the kind of woman who did that kind of thing, and yet, in doing that act, really was that kind of woman. Anyhows, I've sometimes felt that was since arriving here in Cairo. I'm much more outgoing than I've ever been in my life, which is leading to some fun behavior that is not in line with my former self. However, I'm having a blast, which I figure means something must be going right.

Therefore, I will say that I am that kind of woman. Now, you can form your own conclusions as to what that means.

A Quick Gripe About Turkish Airways

I got my knitting needles taken away on a trip from NYC to Istanbul. I boarded, sat in my seat, buckled up, and got out my sock. After completing a round and a half, the male attendant came up and said, "I'm sorry, we'll need to take those away."

I was like, "Whatever do you mean? I used them the entire way from Cairo to Istanbul, then Istanbul to NY, on YOUR airline, and was not asked to give them to anyone. I knit in peace."

He said, "I'm sorry, you can't have them on the plane."
(Of course, I'm thinking, they've already been on a plane, they made it through security, and why are they now a problem?)

(There was more pleading on my part, more refusal on his, and a sympathetic look from the female attendant, but I could see that they knew I was really a ninja wielding deadly needles and waiting to complete my assassination assignment.)

I said, "Will I get them back?"

"Yes."

Ok, I could live with that, after hearing stories of needles being ripped from projects during security checks (for my non-knitting friends, this means hours of hard work unravels). So I said, "Let me finish this round." He walked away, and I swear he forgot about me and I was really tempted to keep knitting, but figured why push it...so when he came by again, I gave him my nicely knotted sock bag.

Needless to say, I was BORED on the flight. The movies were the same as my flight home, which means I already watched all the ones that I found interesting. So, I read a bit, began to get drowsy, watched a few not-so-good movies, and cursed the attendant under my breath and thought of ways to off him with my circular yarn cutter.

I've lived overseas for the last seven years, flown well over 250,000 miles in that time, and NEVER had I not been allowed to knit on a plane! Only once was I asked to put away some needles during takeoff, and they were 10mm metal ones, so that came as no surprise. But little sock needles? And they had NO problem with my knitting on the flights home. Bah to you, Turkish Airlines!