Day 41...Back at Sea

Day 41/C12, July 25th:

Another boring yet busy day onboard the MV Explorer!  Classes are pushing forward yet again and I have a test tomorrow in my Art History class.  I now remember why I am a Math major!!!  I was at the field office looking at the FDP book when a girl came up and wanted to sell her Egypt Service Visit to the Alexandria Orphanage.  I bought it from her within the hour.  I can’t wait!  Those are the trips that make this voyage so unique.  You can go to Egypt on your own and see the Pyramids, but you can’t go to the Orphanage. 

I also am trying to get on the Camel ride and Jeep Safari trip, which takes us from the ship to see the Great Pyramids.  Once we explore the pyramids and take millions of pictures of the Sphinx, we get to jump in 4x4 Jeeps for a drive into the desert.  We then take a camel ride through the Sahara Desert and eat lunch at the Sakkara Country Club.  We also stop at the oldest ancient cemetery along with the world’s first monumental stone building, the step Pyramid of King Zoser, which was built 5,000 years ago.  It sounds like a pretty cool FDP!  Danielle and Heather already purchased the trip and we all want to spend the night after that in Cairo.   I really want to take a hot air balloon ride over the Pyramids and the Valley of the Kings that next morning before returning to Alexandria for our service visit the next day. 

I also attended an Explorer Seminar on travel photography with the ship’s photographer tonight.  It was absolutely amazing!  She showed us things to look for in our pictures and how to better create a collection of images.  She also showed us a lot of her work for magazines and marketing schemes for various organizations, as well as several pictures from our voyage.  We watched the Italy slideshow from the Blog and it was so amazing!  It is very cool to see how pictures can truly capture how we feel compared to the pictures of just what we have seen.  Watch the slideshows on the SAS website for our voyage if you haven’t already!  They seem amazing! We can watch them on the ship because they are too large.  :(  
Today also was a great catch up day for my blog!  I spent countless hours writing so all of you can have the joy of reading about my adventures.  I hope you have enjoyed them so far!!!  Back to studying for my test tomorrow…

Noon Report for July 25th:

191 NM since Istanbul with an average speed of 12.16 knots, 549 NM to Alexandria, we are 14 NM NW from Nisos Lesvos (Greece), sea depth is 1680 ft, sea swells are 3.3 ft, water temperature is 73.4 degrees, air temperature is 75.2 degrees, sunset 20:32, sunrise 06:12, currently +7 hrs from EST.