The Shwits

Rome, Italy !

(Ever noticed that all of our post titles end with an exclamation mark? Seems we are easily excited!)

So, as Whitney alluded to in the previous post, we also visited Rome during Sufrinko Fest 2015. I guess I should first apologize for posting this by, what is now, over a week since they left. Sorry for the delay! I know some of you have been anxiously waiting to see the pictures (aka, mom’s & dad’s). What can I say, she is much better at blogging than I am. Anyways, without further ado, I give you ROME!

Now before diving too deeply into the glory that is Rome, allow me to deviate for a moment to share a few lessons we learned during our short visit. I mention these only because they were key fixtures in our Roman experience and could potentially serve useful to anyone else planning a similar trip.

Lesson #1 – Rome is hot.

And by hot, I mean HOT. Now before I get too many “duh’s” and “way to go genius” remarks, allow me to elaborate. We were fully aware that we were traveling (in the middle of summer no less) to a climate that is famously hot – it is right on the Mediterranean Sea after all. We also knew that there would be large numbers of tourists and this would most likely mean a lot of waiting in line in said heat. For this we were prepared: sunscreen, light and comfy clothes, sunglasses, etc. However, what we failed to account for was the fact that we would walk an average of 13 miles a day in the 100+ degree (40+ Celsius) heat. Seriously, the Sufrinkos came complete with FitBits and tracked our daily mileage. Add to this the fact that Whitney and I live in a very mild location (I wore pants, long sleeves, and a jacket for my bike commute today) and it made for a rough experience. Nonetheless, we toughed it out, dehydration, sunburn, and all. You will see the effects of this in the majority of pictures – tired, sweaty, hot, etc.

Lesson #2 – Selfie sticks are single-handedly leading to the decay of society as we know it.

A bit of an exaggeration you say? Perhaps. But these things are terrible. Now as above, allow me to explain quickly: I completely understand why these things were invented (genius idea by the way) and why they are so popular. To reinforce this, I give you exhibit A below:

I will be the first to admit that this picture would be much better without my arm extending out. In fact, since Whitney and I often travel alone and want to get nice pictures, we even debated buying one. That, however, was before we went to Rome. Everywhere, and I mean everywhere you turn, all you see is these stupid sticks. People are literally walking down the street, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are in Rome, staring only through their phones at the end of a meter long pole (as if walking with your head glued to your phone wasn’t dangerous enough already). Want to get a nice picture of a cool Roman memorial? Too bad, there are 13 phones hovering above everyone’s head directly in the way. To make matters worse, there are hundreds of guys throughout the city selling these stupid things for a few bucks. The few moments of selfie stick peace one gets walking away from a famous site is quickly interrupted by a cheap knock-off shoved in your face only to be removed once you have successfully made it out of arms reach. These things are awful. For those of you that own and use them (to each their own), prepare to be disgusted: you will be seeing a lot of my outstretched arm.

Quiz: How many guys do you see selling selfie sticks? Answer: 5

Ok, enough messing around. Onto the fun stuff, Rome! For the remainder of the post, I’ll be light on the text and heavy on the pictures. We took hundreds of pictures and can’t possibly share them all. However, there are lots of good ones. I’ll do my best to give details of what things are.

Day 1

“Rome wasn’t built in a day”

Whereas we were originally scheduled to have a full first day, a flight delay resulted in us getting to Rome later than expected. Nonetheless, we made the most of it. Conveniently enough, the apartment we rented was only a 3-4 minute walk from the Pantheon. So, to the Pantheon we went, with a quick stop for some gelato of course.

Tomb of Raphael (artist/Ninja Turtle)

Following the Pantheon, some aimless city wandering found us in the Piazza Navona – a common stop on our walk to and from ‘home’, as well as an excellent place to by local art (we all came home with some). I’ve included some pictures from a later night visit for full effect.

Additional wanderings lead us all over the city (again we walked 13+ miles every day), with us ending the day having drinks next to the Tiber River. Not too shabby for day 1.

Day 2

“When in Rome…”

Whereas day 1 consisted mostly of wandering around and exploring the city with no real destination in mind, day 2 kicked off with goals in mind. Stop #1 of the day, the Colosseum!

I could easily spend the entire post talking about the Colosseum alone (we certainly have enough pictures to fill a whole post) but I’ll keep it short. Colosseum = amazing.

Stop #2 for the day, the Roman Forum.

As a quick note, the Forum is massive. It would take a full day (and maybe more) to really go through it all. Being that we went following the Colosseum, we did not have the luxury of spending too much time there. As is the common theme to our Rome adventure, it was brutally hot. We saw as much as would could of the Forum.

Following a quick lunch, we were able to visit two more major Rome landmarks: Trevi Fountain & the Spanish Steps. Sadly, Trevi Fountain was under construction so there wasn’t much to see.

The Spanish Steps
Trevi Fountain

Now as great as day 2 had been thus far, the most exciting part of the day was Alicia’s birthday! How often do people get to celebrate their 30th birthday in Rome? Well, I guess if you really think about it, a lot. I assume everyone who lives in Rome turns 30 at some point…..but that’s not the point here. We were able to celebrate Alicia’s 30th birthday in Rome! Drinks at a swanky rooftop terrace overlooking the city followed by dinner at a real (non-tourist) Italian restaurant.

Day 3

“…do as the Romans do”

Day 3 started with only one real goal in mind: go see the Vatican. Lucky for us, tour guide Whitney (I say that not as a joke – she is really good at trip planning) had done some research and figured out that we needed to buy tickets ahead of time for the Vatican Museum. The result, we walked straight in without having to wait in line at all.

The Vatican Museum was both amazing and overwhelming. Aside from the heat (thousands of people packed into narrow halls without air conditioning when its 100+ outside), the sheer volume of art/statues/tapestries/murals is just too much to take in. Over three hours of such detailed work and it all starts to blend together. It’s a shame to say, but it’s really hard to appreciate what you are actually seeing. Nonetheless, we were all able to pull it together for the Sistine Chapel (no pictures were allowed in the Sistine Chapel so you’ll just have to take my word that we saw it).

Despite the fact that there is lots more to see of Vatican City, we called it quits after the museum. Turns out there was a very large worship service going on outside which meant thousands of people in addition to the normal tourist crowd. Too many people = time to leave.

The rest of the day consisted of getting some final tastes of Rome (wine, gelato, prosciutto, gnocchi) and staying out of the sun as much as possible. Great thing about Rome, great food/drinks are on every street corner.

And so that brings to a close our Roman adventure. The following morning (what would have been day 4), saw us leaving bright and early to fly back to Amsterdam. For that story, I refer you back to Whitney’s previous post.

Thanks again to the Sufrinkos for coming to visit! To everyone else saying they “should” or “would like to” visit, do it. We have lots more of Europe to see and would love company while doing it!

Until next time,

Shane

Look Who We Found !

The Sufrinkos! 😊

And they were here for 9 days of Shwitastic European fun!

The trip was split into three parts. We started in Groningen, jetted off to Rome for a few days in the middle, and ended in Amsterdam. I’m going to take The Netherlands portion of our adventure. Shane will continue with Rome in another post.

So, like I mentioned we started the trip in Groningen. They got to experience a particularly fun train ride up. First, they started some weekend construction on the route we usually take. Our 2h 15min non-stop train was discontinued for the weekend, and instead we had 2 trains with almost a three hour total travel time. To top it off, we were later than expected because someone cough:shane:cough left for the bathroom then came back on a different escalator. Naturally, he didn’t see us and assumed we were on the train. Do you see where this is going? He watched us standing on the platform through the window of the train as he left for Groningen.

It is beside the point that another someone forgets that they have a functioning phone here in The Netherlands and missed 4 calls and 2 texts.

So, he got off one stop later & caught the train back to us, all before our next train to Groningen arrived!

Here are a few things we did!

(Public Service Announcement: I’m attempting to get fancy with this post. Groups with 4 or more pictures you should be able to click on to view larger and scroll through all at once. Fingers crossed this actually works!)

Gave Brian a Welcome Package

All we’ve heard about for months is how we better have a large stock of Kinder eggs waiting. I think 30 was sufficient. And no, he didn’t make it through all 30.

Rented Bikes

Shane and I decided renting bikes here in Groningen was better than in Amsterdam. Here, people actually know how to bike as opposed to Amsterdam where (at least where we would have been biking) it would have been mostly tourists and a complete mess.

Ate Pannenkoekens on a Schip!

Obviously they needed a Dutch pancake, and where else better than on a ship! It did come as an unfortunate surprise to Alicia that the ‘Dutch Baby’ pancake she loves at home is absolutely nothing like actual Dutch pancakes.

Drank Fancy Coffee

Climbed the Martini Tower

Shane and I were pretty excited to take them to this since we had been saving it for their visit! The tower has been in the city center for more than 500 years, but the one we have today is actually the third version. We learned that the first collapsed, and the 2nd was struck by lightning. 311 steps later we made it to the top!

The view from the top!

Now, hop in your time machine and hold on tight. We’re traveling three days in the future….

…to Amsterdam!

We stayed in the same hotel that Shane and I stayed in during our trip in January, and so we were about a 15 min walk from everything. We…

Ate Delicious Brunch!

at Bakers and Roasters.

Alicia liked it so much she decided to advertise.

Saw Some Famous Paintings at the Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch”
Left:Willem 1, King of The Netherlands; Right: Louis Napoleon, King of Holland

Got the Full Heineken Experience

Kind of surprisingly, this was awesome! I guess we assumed that it was going to just be a brewery tour, which it kind of was, but there was a ton of things to do! You start out learning the history of the Heineken brand, then you see an example of the brewery, taste the various parts of the brewing process, and go on a 3D “Be the Brew” ride! Towards the end there were at least 3 different rooms full of ‘Heineken themed’ games or activities.

One of the original Heineken logos.

Alicia Wore Cloggs

Got Sherlocked!

This was seriously awesome. It’s an escape game called “Sherlocked“. It’s set in Amsterdam’s old stock exchange building. After you’re briefed on the history of the building & the story you’re locked in a room set up with a series of clues and puzzles. The goal? To escape in an hour! Which we did by the way. Well… sort of. We made it to the point where we had the exit key, but none of us thought to put that key in the door marked ‘Exit’. It still counted though.

Walked (a lot)

A trip to Amsterdam wouldn’t have been complete without a little canal walking. This was actually really enjoyable because the weather was fantastic after 5 days of non-stop greater than 100°F/40°C heat. I know, I know, if you’re in the U.S. reading this then you’re rolling your eyes at me right now. I can’t help it! I’ve adjusted to cooler temperatures!

Overall, this was a fantastic trip! We were excited to finally show off Groningen and get some quality friend time! We’ve been here by ourselves so long you forget nice it is to be with old friends.

Stay tuned for Rome!

Tot Ziens,

Whitney

Sooo… This happened last night

Yep! Shane and I went to Amsterdam to see Taylor Swift in all her 1989 World Tour Glory!!

I know what you’re probably thinking. “You went without your sister!?!” Ok maybe you weren’t thinking that at all, but I feel the need to explain because our sisterly love for each other and Taylor is a bond that can’t be broken. The first time we saw Taylor was during her Red Tour, in Nashville, on Sissy’s birthday, we had pit tickets, and LUKE BRYAN was her guest star (and he touched my hand!) . Basically, we know we will never top that combination so we’re allowed to go without each other if we have to. It’s not the same, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do I suppose…

I digress. What you were probably thinking is “You got Shane to go to Taylor Swift?!?”.

Short Answer?

Yes.

How you ask?

I bought the tickets while he was in Africa.

But for real. He was excited. While I can say for certain that he would have never purchased tickets for himself, he was curious to see what all the Taylor-mania (mostly coming from me) was all about. So Sunday night we trained down to the Ziggo Dome just outside of Amsterdam!

Observation #1. The Ziggo dome is horrible at getting people in the door!

Maybe this was a unique circumstance, but there were only 2 entrances. 3 doors for the south entrance & 3 for the north. If you happened to be so lucky as to get in the wrong line then your ticket wouldn’t scan and you were promptly sent to the back of the other line. Made no sense, but we did end up with some time to kill which brings me to ‘why do cool things never happen to us’ story number 1.

Oh, you know. That’s us. Just casually having a few pre-show time-killers. What you don’t see in this picture is that sitting directly behind us is TAYLOR SWIFT’S BASS PLAYER.

I know right?!?!

We’ve gotten pretty good at picking out North American accents, and I noticed this guy talking to a couple of girls by the door. I noticed him because his accent was clearly not Dutch, and because he kind of looked like Ben Stiller. So, a little time passes and Ben Stiller and co. move from the door to the seats next to us. Shane and I are debating at this point if we wanted to get another time-killer or if we should suck it up and brave the line when we both overhear this other guy say he’s not worried about getting in yet. Taylor’s bass player is still sitting there (nods in Ben Stiller’s direction). Huh. Interesting, but we didn’t really think too much of it since really, what would be the odds of that? Well they were pretty damn good because here’s our good friend Ben up on stage!

So yeah, that happened.

And this happened!

Turns out I accidentally bought tickets in the section next to the catwalk!

Which brings me to ‘why do cool things never happen to us’ story number 2! In case you don’t know, after every show Taylor meets with a group of hand picked fans in a special meet and greet (called Loft ’89 this year). When I say hand picked, I mean usually by her mom. We (I… Shane had no idea what she looked like) saw Mama Swift walking around the floor and I knew what she was up to. Later during the show, as I’m dancing and singing my little heart out Mama Swift and 2 guys helping her stop right next to Shane. He turns, curious about what’s going on, and TALKS TO MAMA SWIFT! They have a brief little ‘Hey’-smile-and-nod interaction and then they leave to go find some other lucky fan. As they are walking away I happened to turn to Shane, see her walking off, and tell him who that is. His response? ‘Oh! We just said hey to each other’!

I know. What’s the big deal right? I get it. There really wasn’t much to that story, but it was the closest I’ve ever been to almost maybe getting picked! Therefore, it was cool.

Instead of going to Loft ’89 we took this incredibly creepy picture during the show. See that platform? She’s on top of it directly above us. This is a “OMG this is the closest I’m ever going to get to Taylor!” selfie. Shane’s going to be disappointed that I just used the word selfie.

Long story short, 1989 was just as impressive as the Red tour!

Taylor, if you ever happen to read this, your golden glitter catsuit was the best thing I’ve ever seen.

Speaking of Kitties. Couldn’t go a whole post without one.

Tot Ziens!

Whitney

We’ve been here a year !?

It’s hard to believe but we have officially been in the Netherlands for a year!

To say time has gone quickly would be an understatement. It seems like just the other day we were packing up to leave….

It’s crazy. You all always hear about this kind of thing on TV or in the movies, but we are actually doing it!

….now, a year later, here we are:

In honor of one year, I think it’s necessary to do the typical “reflection” post. However, instead of just simply re-posting a bunch of pictures, I thought I’d take a different approach. So allow me to present:

YEAR ONE: the numbers (in dutch!)

vierentwintig (24) – the number of hours we spent traveling here on our initial move. No, it does not take that long to get here. We decided to be cheap and have multiple long layovers. You always convince yourself it won’t be that bad…but it is.

nul (0) – the number of full-size kitchen appliances in our kitchen. In fact, our kitchen does not have an oven or dishwasher and the refrigerator is what we would typically refer to as “dorm-room” sized. While this was a huge shock in the beginning, it is oddly normal now. We have since upgraded to a toaster oven.

vier (4) – the number of bikes we have owned in a year. If you are keeping count, that’s 3 for Whitney and 1 for me. They all have names but I’ve lost track at this point.

tweeduizend (2,000) – since we are on the topic of bikes, the estimated number of kilometers I have biked in the past year. It is 4km to work, so that’s 8km a day, 5 days a week, for roughly 40 weeks, plus any additional biking we do on the weekends. Even though Whitney is able to walk to work, it is still safe to say we have both biked a lot in the past year.

acht (8) – the number of combined bike ‘incidents’ we have had. I have had 2 fairly rough encounters with fellow bikers and 1 small meeting with a car. Whitney has had incidents with bikes, cars, and scooters. It happens to everyone. You just dust yourself off and go on.

tien (10) – the number of times we have gone to Ikea and I have subsequently refused to ever go back. Think the crowds are the worst part? Try lugging all those over-sized boxes of furniture home on your bike. Somehow, Whitney always manages to get by with carrying only a pillow or picture frame.*

*she’ll read this, concede that it is true, and then somehow convince me to go again next week

vijf (5) – the number of ‘new’ countries I have visited in the past year – the Netherlands (duh), Germany, Switzerland, Egypt, Tanzania. Whitney hasn’t been to Switzerland or Tanzania yet but we are hoping to change that soon. Not too shabby for one year.

Germany
Egypt

twee (2) – a number strongly associated with Meatball. It is the number of weeks we had to wait to be able to ship her here, the number of weeks she lived comfortably in our new apartment, and the number of weeks she was lost outside after falling from our window. It is also the number of seconds we will currently leave an open window unattended.

drie (3) – the number of months it took Whitney to find a job. This is exceptional considering she spoke no Dutch at the time and everyone assured us it would take her at least 6 months. To make things even better, this is a job she still enjoys and we’re hopeful she can continue it for the duration of our living here.

zeven (7) – the number of cafe’s we’ve visited for Saturday morning coffee (“coffee shop” means something completely different in the Netherlands). This number is probably higher but you get the idea. Coffee is a huge part of Dutch culture and we are doing our best to experience as much of it as we can.

De Kostery
Doppio
Black & Bloom

twee (2) – a repeat but non-Meatball related number. The number of fish that Whitney has named in my aquarium at work. I work with hundreds of fish and for whatever reason, she choose and named two of them. Seriously, she keeps close tabs on these fish (sadly, only Mrs. Buttersworth remains as Francis has moved on to a better place).

zes (6) – the number of new holidays we have experienced since moving. In no particular order: Liberation Day, King’s Day, Sinterklaas, Pentecost, Boxing Day, Ascension Day. There are probably many more that I am forgetting at the moment.

zesentachtig (86) – the number of times people have mistakenly assumed I speak Dutch while speaking only English to Whitney. Ok, obviously this is a completely made up number but it does happen all the time. It seems the harder she tries, the more they switch to English. Meanwhile, I say nothing and get only Dutch. On the plus, we are slowly but surely improving our language skills.

achttien (18) – the number of meters we are now able to dive under water (we’ll up this with advanced certifications soon). We are super excited about our new scuba hobby and future trips will certainly be centered around this activity.

één (1) – the number of visitors we have had in the last year (hint hint).

ok ok, I guess we have technically had two visitors…

And last by certainly not least…

tweehonderdtien (210) – the number of days before we are home to visit! That’s right, we are finally coming home in December! By that point, it will have been 18 months since we were last home. I speak for the both of us when I say we are VERY excited about it. In the meantime, stay tuned. We have a few more adventures planned in the coming months.

Until next time,

Shane

Look What We Found !

A carnival!

No idea why. Did a little googling and still couldn’t come up with a reason, but who cares right?!

So, before we did our weekly grocery shopping at the market this week we took a little ride on the ferris wheel! I was thrilled! Shane…. well. He was a good sport, but I wouldn’t used ‘thrilled’ to describe him.

Here are a few pictures from the top. It’s too bad it wasn’t sunny today.

Happy Saturday!

Tot ziens!

Whitney

Fijne Koningsdag !

or in english, Happy King’s Day!

Today is King Willem-Alexander’s birthday and the whole country celebrates! This is actually only the 2nd King’s Day. Until last year ‘Koninginnedag’, or Queen’s Day, was celebrated on April 30th to celebrate Queen Beatrix’s birthday. As you can see, I think Meatball is the most excited about it.

The celebration takes place throughout The Netherlands and consists of Koningsnacht (King’s night) and Koningsdag (King’s Day).Koningsnacht is essentially an all night party the night before. So, last night we resisted the urge to be lame and went to city center to see what it was all about. Starting about 7pm a string of bands and DJ’s play on 3 or 4 different stages spread throughout the Grote markt and the Vis markt. The music went until about 2am and then the party continues at the bars until the sun comes up. Let’s be real, we didn’t make it that long but we stayed until the music was over!

Needless to say, city center was packed! There was definitely no shortage of beer though. You were never more than a few steps away from a beer tent…

After Koningsnacht, comes Koningsdag!

Festivities start bright and early with the ‘Vrijmarkt’, or Free Market. This is essentially one giant yard sale. The true bargain hunters are out first thing in the morning for the best deals and to beat the crowds.

The Vrijmarkt continues all day and is set up along the main canals, and the concerts continue in city center. Today we stumbled upon a band called Dis Nie Okay who, despite the fact that their singing wasn’t exactly the best, were super entertaining! Their set included the Backstreet Boys, Hakuna Matata, and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. How could you not like them?!

We also figured out (not surprisingly) we’re more of a Koningsdag kind of people. There were people out today who knew how to do it right. They were out early enough to get a good spot for one of the main stages, brought a cooler with snacks and drinks, and made a day of it. Now we know for next year…

On a completely unrelated note. I felt the need to share my my mad biking skills. Look ma! No hands!

We don’t have much going on the next couple of months, so I’ll pre-apologize for the lack of posts. We’re saving up for our next big trip…

The Sufrinko’s are coming to visit!

(little #tbt action with this one…)

Tot ziens!

Whitney

The Shwits Go to Egypt: Part 2

That’s right! As Whitney alluded to in Part 1, we are officially scuba certified! This is basically the whole reason we went to Egypt in the first place. And to make it even better, this was technically for the sake of my work and future career. A slight deviation to explain: As I have mentioned in a number of previous posts, I study fish. In fact, I have now worked in fish-related research for about 6 years. For those of you not so familiar with fish – they live in water. We as humans are not so good in water, especially when trying to stay under it for long periods of time. Therefore, not being scuba certified has always been a bit of a hold up in my research (especially when working on Lake Victoria). So, following my field work last year, I decided that it was time for me to certify. Of course when I informed Whitney, she decided that she would not be left out and would join in the fun. Thus, we went to Egypt! Now I know what most of you are probably thinking: why go all the way to Egypt to do the open water certification course? Isn’t it much easier/safer/cheaper to do it locally? To this I simply say: Yes, you are right. But where is the fun in that? Practicing diving in a swimming pool is useful, but it’s nothing like this:

Or this:

So I think it’s safe to see why we went all the way to Egypt.

For those of you not so familiar with the PADI Open Water course, allow me to briefly explain. The course consists of both knowledge and skill based instruction that takes you from (in our case) having never dove before to competent and able to dive freely without the aid of an instructor. This comes in the way of video and text study, combined with quizzes and a final written exam, while also completing a series of confined and open water dives with your instructor. We completed this over the course of 4 days (would have been 3 had Whitney not gotten a little too carried away with the “all-you-can-eat” portion of the stay). Day one was pretty laid back with some videos, text study, and swim tests. Day two, however, had us literally in over our heads: we quickly went from trying out breathing with the regulator underwater to diving at depths of 8-10m (sorry, we are officially on the metric system. I’ll try to convert for those of you not as versed in metric: ~30 feet). While in hindsight, it makes sense that the course should move this quickly, it was definitely a surprise for us at the time. Nonetheless, we survived!

From here, things progressed in both complexity and duration. I had heard about all the various skills and tests of the open water course before the trip, but I don’t think it ever really occurred to me that I would actually be doing them. The idea of removing my mask (I wear contact lens and am blind without them) or taking off my entire scuba kit at depth seems ridiculous, but there we were doing them. While there were certainly some moments of hilarity for both of us, we passed all them with relative ease. So, that was it. We had officially passed. And with that, we were set free to dive alone. Before moving on to our diving adventures, I have to first mention our instructor: Mahdi. He was fantastic! We couldn’t have asked for a better instructor. Not only was he extremely patient in letting us figure things out, but his overall excitement and enthusiasm was unbelievable. And he was extremely smart. From talking with him, we learned that he is actually a lawyer and spent time as a professor of law at an Egyptian university (in his early 20’s!). He had been diving since he was a teenager and worked as an instructor for the past eight years. You could tell he just really loved what he did. I’m sure a majority of the instructors are just a good but Mahdi definitely made it an enjoyable experience. Thanks again Mahdi! So that was it, we were free to dive. And dive we did! Aside from the guided dives that we did as part of the course, we were able to do 3 dives on our last day (we had to stop diving on Monday since we flew on Tuesday – pressure differences between diving and flying are not kind to the body, you have to give it time).

The resort that we were at was not like your typical tropical vacation spots. It wasn’t a place you go to lounge on the beach with a drink in your hand or party the night away at a local club or bar. It was a diving resort and that is what everyone was there to do. Of course you were free to drink as much as you would like or sleep the day away in the sun, but no one did that. Everyone was there for the diving and the desert sun is really hot….

The picture above is from the ‘diving shade’ – essentially the staging area for all diving activity. From this point, everyone prepared for their upcoming dives. Diving options consisted of the North or South Reef and you could choose whether you entered/returned from shore or by boat (as can be see below). You would simply write your name on a whiteboard, check where you wanted to go, and then go. If you chose to go by boat, there was always one available at anytime of day. It was an extremely simple, yet extremely efficient system.

Being that Whitney and I were very new to diving, we stuck to shore entry and exit. To give you a bit of an idea of what this looked like, the following series of pictures tracks one of our dives from beginning to end. You will see that we began at a rope that leads out past the dock for boat loading. From here, you chose either the North or South side of the reef (this dive is the North), swam out until you hit your desired time/air usage, and then swam back to same rope leading back to shore. The scenery along the way requires no explanation, the pictures speak for themselves.

I wish I could say that this was one of our better dives, that it wasn’t always this breathtakingly beautiful but I can’t. Whether we went North or South on the reef, this is what we got. As Whitney says: “it was real-life National Geographic; real life Finding Nemo”. As she’s right. It was truly amazing. I think it’s safe to say that we have found ourselves a new hobby. Future trips and adventures will most certainly be planned as diving excursions. Why did we wait so long to try this?! By the way, for those of you interested: all of these pictures, both above and below water, were taken with a Nikon Coolpix AW120. I highly recommended this camera if you are in the market for an easy to use, durable camera. We took this camera down to 18m (60ft) and it worked perfectly!

Until next time,

Shane

The Shwits Go to Egypt: Part 1

I know… its a shock. It’s been months since we’ve posted anything, but for good reason! We’ve been laying low and patiently waiting.

…for this

We went on our first vacation! To Marsa Shagra, Egypt to learn how dive to be exact. It’s beautiful right? It’s still kind of hard to believe we just spent a week there.

Marsa Shagra is a small village in the south of Egypt. It’s about four hours south of Luxor, and sits right on the coast of the Red Sea. We flew into Marsa Alam airport, and then it was about a 30 min car ride to the resort. Egypt is literally a desert. Hah, I know that sounds so ridiculous because of course its a desert, but it’s really made apparent when you’re driving on the only road through a sea of dirt and sand.

We stayed in the Marsa Shagra Village which is one of three owned by Red Sea Diving Safari. They aren’t your typical resort as they advertise themselves as “The Eco-diving Adventure”, and this ended up being exactly what we were looking for. For starters, most people stay in “tents”.

There are two types, regular and royal. We opted for the royal tent, and completely lucked out because ours was front row on the Red Sea! They did have electricity so we had 2 small lamps and a mini-fridge. Most importantly, the royal tent came with bean bag chairs.

The view through our tent door.

You could also opt to stay in a one room hut, or a two room chalet. The tents and huts used communal bathrooms around the property, but the chalets had their own. The communal bathrooms really weren’t an issue. Each one had 3 toilets and 3 showers, and were cleaned multiple times per day. The only downfall is having to pee in the middle of the night…

We spent a lot of our down time sitting on our “porch” reading and watching. The great part about this place was if you were at your tent then you really felt like you were away from it all. And at night (when the moon wasn’t too bright) you could just stare at the stars. I was pretty excited by this since we don’t see many stars in the city. In my opinion, it was beach camping at it’s finest.

If you compare the two pictures below, the one on the right is the view of our resort, and the one on the left is the neighboring. We walked down the beach and through it one day. Everything becomes artificially green, and the music is going, and people are drinking and dancing. None of this is a bad thing, it just wasn’t the experience we wanted.

If we wanted to have a little social interaction then we spent time either hanging out at the Cafeteria, or at the Bawadi Bedouin Lounge. The cafeteria made for some excellent people watching. This was situated right by the diving area so and was scattered with chairs, tables, and beanbags. It was great, because you could get a little sun, sip on your beer (or all inclusive coffee/Fanta/Sprite/Coke), and watch divers come and go.

The Bawadi Bedouin Lounge was on the property but not run by the resort itself. It was run by people from the local Bedouin tribe in the area. They had beer, coffee, hookas and you could have dinner there on request. Mostly we just stopped by for a beer on our way ‘home’ for the night after a day in the sun.

As I mentioned before, your basic drinks were all inclusive as were meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were included and served in the Restaurant which had an outdoor seating area overlooking the sea and the diving area. The panoramic picture in the beginning was our view from breakfast. I think one of my favorite parts of the whole trip was waking up with the sun, going to breakfast, and having coffee with that view!

The food was incredible! Breakfast was usually the same, but lunch and dinner were always changing. Each night supposedly had a nation theme, but we were never entirely sure what nation. Hah. The only one we were ever sure of was Egyptian night because they labeled the traditional Egyptian dishes as such. And the dessert table! Oh sweet glorious dessert table. So much cake! and little cookies! and one night these chocolate cookie dough type balls! We were living the desert dessert dream!

Note to self with all inclusive… you can, and I did, eat myself sick. Literally. Not sure if it was dehydration, food I wasn’t used to, or the diving, but we lost half a day about mid-week to stomach issues. You know you’ve found a keeper when he cleans up your puke in the middle of the desert. #truelove

Other than the one incident, the trip was absolutely fantastic! Shane’s boss recommended this place to us, and it certainly did not disappoint! Everyone should go to the Red Sea!