Dateline: Alexandria, Egypt. This is the main summer/beach resort in the Arab World. There are literally miles of resort developments strung out along the beaches west of this town, most of the way to the Libyan border. At this time of year, winter, they are deserted.
Whereas Alexandria looks old and run down, the resorts are new and not yet nasty looking. This is a part of the world which doesn’t much believe in maintenance. They build some nice looking buildings (as well as many ugly ones) and then never paint or maintain them. And cleaning up the environment isn’t a big value either, litter and trash are prevalent.
Our ship, the Norwegian Jade, is trying to fight off an attack of norovirus. Norovirus is what we called the “24 hour stomach flu” when we were kids. It is highly contagious, highly unpleasant, and passed by surface contact. It made its appearance in Izmir and will only be worse when the folks who overnighted in Cairo get back.
The extremes to which the ship goes to keep us from handling surfaces others will handle are interesting, and I suppose they work. No more “serve yourself” in the buffet, now it’s “they serve you” all the way. There are isopropyl alcohol dispensers in all the elevators as well as at every restaurant. Oh yes, the other DrC seems to have it as I write. I hope to dodge it, but who knows.
