Monday, January 25, 2010

My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.

I'm currently sitting in the "library" aboard the MS Prince Abbas, as we approach Aswan, Egypt from the South. The library consists of about thirty books scattered on shelves with room for five hundred books. Most of them are in English, some in German, some in Arabic. They tend to be about Egypt, and many look to be quite outdated. I guess not a lot of people are coming here to find a great book. As far as reading goes however, it's a nice place to come at night as it's as far away from the engines as possible, making it one of the quieter places on the ship. It's also the only place on the boat with an Internet connection, so here I am.

I have been able to get some reading in, albeit not as much as I had thought. Usually our mornings are spent visiting different temples, while our afternoons are spent cruising down Lake Nasser. While it isn't that warm, it's sunny, and it's nice to sit on the sun deck and get a little reading in. There's a certain romanticism in reading on the top deck of a boat that is sailing down what is essentially the Nile river. It seems so 19th century to me for some reason. Or something an ex-pat writer from the early 20's might have been doing so many years ago.

Progress on Light in August is still slow, but I vow to finish it before I return to Canada.

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