I went out last night looking for the GEMINID showers. What a bust! Didn’t see any meteor debris lighting up the heavens, but then again, at 4AM, maybe I missed the big show. It was cold and blustery, and I didn’t spend too much time staring at the night sky.
Today is when I pack my bags. I am having someone come by my apartment rental tomorrow at noon, and help me take my stuff (which isn’t that much, although I intend to buy some additional household supplies to bring in the car with me) to my next rental, a gorgeous villa.
This means I only have to endure two more nights at Abu Tig marina, which appears pleasant enough to people who typically come here by day, and thus are unaware of the party animal circus it turns into at night over the weekends, which in Egypt begins on Thursday.
Putting up with this has been very stressful, and I have slept really badly for 3 months. Between the nightclubs blasting music till 3AM most nights, the constant traffic noise in the street, the loud voices of pedestrians walking by, and the endless rental merry go round that takes place in this building, I am certainly looking forward to moving.
This weekend, I will set things up in the new villa — food supplies, internet, TV, phone, identifying the nearest bus stop location, in what is a quiet and thus remote part of El Gouna.
Perhaps I shall finally be able to lose those bags under my eyes from lack of normal sleep. I will also have to see if I need to buy additional battaniyas, or blankets, as it is getting very chilly here at night.
A recurring troubling aspect of things for me has been my left knee, which acted up again today. I had planned to go to Element beach in the north part of El Gouna yesterday, but woke up with a bad limp, and thus had to spend much of the day in the apartment,
I followed the Alabama special election results on CNN International, and other cable news channels, but also enjoyed a break from politics by watching Real Madrid beat some UAE club I never heard of called Jazeera FC,. I hope the TV setup will be in order so I can watch the Grêmio match on Saturday.
As has been the norm since certain unfortunate things happened last November, the news from the US is increasingly that of a disturbed country seemingly doing well economically (if you are a 1 per center), but falling apart otherwise. The TV service here also broadcasts FOX. Five minutes of Hannity is enough to convince me what a good idea it was to leave the poisonous atmosphere of America, where I have lived for more years than is good for one’s mental health and well being. The amount of hate and venom spewing from that country is beyond belief, and it is quite obvious that Macron and others are playing a much smarter game on the world stage.
None of this concerns me directly any more: I want personal serenity at this stage of my life, and am betting that for now, El Gouna is the place to find it.
Thus I am looking forward to this villa move, but I have to find some way, short of starving myself, of getting rid of the stomach gut that is as toxic to my health as living in America would be. But with two bum knees, and a lousy lower back, the opportunity for turning into some shredded He Man are limited. Still, I plan to learn more about Qigong, after I am settled in the new place, to see if it can help increase the positive flow of energy in my mind and body, as well as firm things up without hurting my joints.
Now that I am in my 60s, I need to do things like stretch exercises to restore flexibility to my aging and stiffening body, go for long walks, and meditate often, perhaps as I gaze out, from what I hope will be a calm and peaceful retreat, without unpleasant surprises, at the unspoiled Eastern Desert mountains of Egypt, which are visible from the terrace of my new villa.
Lastly, I’ve been toying for some time with the idea of setting up a book clud in the El Gouna library. I don’t know if there would be interest in this, but I shall go to the Rotary Club meeting there next Tuesday, check out the place, see what the room rental setup is like. I think it might be fun to read and discuss Egyptian novels in translation, such as Beer at the Snooker club, in a group setting, but there would have to be interest in this, and I am not sure if there would be a literary appetite for this sort of thing here.
Plus, I have to think if I really want to go to all the trouble of setting this up, as opposed just to just doing the hermit thing, and (my apologies for using this vacuous term) “chilling” in my new villa, and learning all about Chinese meditation, and thanking my lucky stars every day I was able to become a semi recluse, living far, far away from the dangerous cesspool otherwise known as Trumplandia.
Leaving Amerika 