Egypt - Snorkel Paradise

Today, I woke up early to get another snorkeling trip under my belt. I saw a calamar the first time in the wild and found it to be quite fascinating, but not much else appeared under water that morning.
After showering and dressing up again, I went to the entrance once again, just to make sure that Mila didn't come back. I was quite happy to see that she wasn't there. Over night, I concluded my sadness was kinda selfish. Mila would be better off with her mother in the long run, at least I hoped so. It was still sad that I couldn't go and just sit cuddling with her in our corner. Well, gotta get over it.
I went back to my room to pack up my things as today I would be transfered to Marsa Alam. At 11am, I went to the reception, checked out and hugged my dog lover friend goodbye. I didn't even remember his name, but I was so grateful to him that he has cared for Mila as much as he did.
I hopped onto the little bus that was only for me today and got to know Mahmoud, my driver. He told me about half an hour about all the problems of his wife which taught me a lot about their health insurance (non-existent) and gender roles (extremely stereotypical). After that, I was just looking into the vastness of Egypt for 1,5hrs. I couldn't believe all this dirty sand was everything Egypt had to offer. But it still was like that. No more than brown, brown, brown. And the little glimpses of colour usually were some kind of plastics. It was tiring.
Suddenly, Mahmoud got a call which he took (although cells whilst driving aren't allowed here either), and started smiling in the rear mirror. "You forgot your jacket", he told me and I realized that that was actually true. Shit. But I didn't have to worry, he gave me the number of my dog lover receptionist back at the Coral Garden to text him about picking up the jacket. Either Mahmoud would get it with him when he brought me back to the airport, or we'd pick it up on our way there anyway. So, no worries.
After having to take a little detour as the road ahead to my hotel was suddenly blocked, we finally arrived at the Shoni Bay. I said "Thank you" to Mahmoud and entered the hotel.
I found myself in a huge lobby with nearly no people around. It was an eerie atmosphere and I decided to not like this place immediately. You know when you just look at a person, not knowing anything about them at all, never have spoken to them, etc and you decide you don't like this person? Well, I can do that with places, too.
I dragged my luggage to the reception desk and gave the man my passport and voucher. From the side emerged a welcome drink and I had to drink it, before the receptionist would continue, just staring weirdly around me, whilst I thought "What the fuck, do I have to bottom it up to get into this place?" After I drank my grape juice (luckily no wine), he told me about my room and that I could have a hotel tour when I'm down for it. Cool. My room was nothing spacial, but alright. However, I quickly found out that I didn't have any WiFi here. When finding a little pamphlet in one of the drawers, I saw that there is only free WiFi in the lobby area. What the hell?! I'm not a person who needs to have WiFi all the time and hangs onto their phones instead of enjoying some down time, but I just want to be able to watch some F1 related content before going to sleep. Or at least send out a WhatsApp. But I could forget that immediately. Well, shit.
As I literally couldn't do anything now, I went back to the lobby and asked about my hotel tour. He seemed to not have thought I'd go for it that quickly, so I went to have lunch first. There was one of these welcoming desks where you usually have to wait at to be seated. However, nobody was behind the desk, so I just swooped by and went straight to the buffet. There wasn't anything really interesting and mostly everything looked overcooked. The salads were as dry as the sand outside the hotel, though. When searching for a table to sit, I saw that there were no cutlery or anything on the tables. That's weird, isn't it? So, when I finally could get a hold onto a waiter, I asked how this all works. He looked at me, as if I was speaking in a foreign language (tbf, it is for him, but he should talk English) and didn't seem to quite get what I was asking about. Does no one else think it is weird arriving here, not knowing anything about the place? He finally got me some cutlery and brought me some water, asking me about what else I'd like to drink. Nothing at the moment. He left me alone with my sad looking plate of food and for the first time, I felt strange sitting on my own. I just felt so out of place at this hotel.
I ate through it and went back to the reception. Luckily, he found the time now and we started my little tour around the hotel. He showed my the different room categories that only really varied in their size and capacity. The hotel had 3 pools in total (but the relax and kids pool were under maintenance atm), a spa and a kids club. He told me that most of their guests were Italian. I figured as much as I saw the welcoming pamphlet at the reception being Italian instead of English. My private tour ended at the Dive Club where the Diving manager took over. He showed me everything around and sat me down to talk some more. Here was the first time I didn't feel to weird. Everywhere else in the hotel, it was weird. He told me that the hotel has been 10 years only opened for Italians and that these guests usually weren't up to do anything in their holidays. Only the last couple of years, the hotel tried to build another audience but this work was slow. I would have never guessed that I would feel so off being around Italians... But I did.
After an hour or so talking to him, I went back to the lobby to write an email to Ernie, the manager of the ORCA Dive Clubs in general. I wanted to go back to Coral Garden. I just couldn't put a finger on why I felt so eerie, I just did and I couldn't imagine me being stuck in that place for the next 4 days. I left the WiFi zone to walk around a bit before heading back to my room, the only place where I felt at least some kind of comfort, although it wasn't much. When time for dinner came, I went to the main restaurant (the other one was being under construction as well) and found more overcooked, not very tasty food. As I was looking for a seat again (because they don't seem to assume people would just come in and sit down...), I got a hold onto one waiter and asked where to sit. He looked around and pointed to a table with three wine sitting there. It was clear to me, that they were Italians, and friends... Why the heck should I sit with strangers who I clearly couldn't even really talk to? So I asked to sit alone and he gave me a weird look, but got me some cutlery and a glass of water. Before I could ask for something else to drink, he was gone. Great service... I ate my dinner, feeling out of place once again and not once did anyone come to me to ask whether I'd like to drink something else... The waiter even asked my neighbouring table after picking up an empty glass, but it apparently didn't occur to him to ask me. Or he couldn't, because he could only speak Italian. I'm sorry, but this isn't only bad service, this is a joke. I'm not expecting anyone to talk German, I'm expecting the universal language. Is that too much?
After dinner, I checked my emails in the lobby and found an answer from Ernie that she'd arrange a transfer the next day. Smiling, I went back to my room and passed the time with my few downloads that I had, before falling asleep.Read more