middle east road trip 2009

Sorry to have been a bit absentee in the last week, blog fans, but I was doing a bit of traveling that I have deemed my Middle East Road Trip. Last weekend I went to Dahab, on the Red Sea, to get my scuba certification. After an extremely tiring two days that included four open water and two confined water dives, I am now a certified scuba diver! Very exciting stuff. The thing is, with diving you can't just get certified and then forget about it. The more you dive, the better you'll become and the more advanced you get, which means you can go on more intense dives. Translation: if you want to do cool stuff like explore shipwrecks or dive at night or try underwater photography or get additional certification as a rescue diver, you have to keep diving as much as possible. So I have really enjoyed my start this week, and I look forward to diving all over the place now that I am certified.

Then in the beginning of this week I went back to Jerusalem one more time. Though in the past I was going to meet up with family or take a friend from Egypt, this time I went alone and figured I would meet up with some people there. I have really enjoyed being so close to Israel this year, and this time (my fourth this year) was a great final trip to Israel. I stayed at Heritage House in the Old City, saw some friends, drank lots of Aroma, and even made time for some tourist-y activities. For a while now I have been meaning to go to the Museum on the Seam, a socio-political contemporary art museum. I found it incredibly interesting, so I highly recommend it for anyone going to Jerusalem in the future.

I would also like to take a moment to point out that this is my 100th blog post, which is very exciting for me! I know it might not seem like a big deal, but lots of people start a blog and then abandon it, or aren't sure what to do with it, or any number of other things. But I feel like I have gotten out of this blog what I wanted: it has been a great way for family and friends to see what I am up to in Egypt and the Middle East, and a way for me to write about my experiences, thoughts which I am sure in the future I will be grateful to have recorded here (with photos in some cases!).

But don't worry, it's not goodbye yet! There are still a few things coming on this blog. There are some underwater scuba photos courtesy of my instructor, which I will post when I receieve. And of course, there will be an exciting farewell post from me in which I say goodbye and share some parting thoughts about Cairo and Egypt and my time here and all that good stuff. So check back for that later!