Ninth Day: Fruit of the Holy Spirit
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
On Wednesday, Carrie and Rose were to transfer to their hotel in Aswan, now 426 miles south of Cairo. This was after they would be transported via a traditional Egyptian sailing vessel (the felucca) around Aswan’s Botanical Gardens. In the evening, they would be served high tea on the terrace of the hotel, just in time to watch the sun set.
When Collette read in their itinerary that they would be circling the Botanical Gardens, her thoughts danced back to the great Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Likely Aswan’s gardens were nothing like, but gardens located in ancient places seemed to have more an air of mystery than gardens in Canada or the United States.
And they assumed that they were still doing well in their travels, though no additional calls had been made. Naturally, placing calls from a small cruise boat on the Nile was likely not an easy thing to accomplish.
“They must be doing OK, I guess,” Dad said, looking at his bank statement. “They made a withdrawal back on the 30th.”
Collette wondered, however, how they possibly could have needed to make a withdrawal so early in the trip, taking into considering the bundle of cash they had insisted on carrying in the first place. Perhaps they had been pick pocketed after all…
Meanwhile, there were plans being made for Jashub to visit the Snicketts the following Saturday to talk and for dinner. They hoped that he would bring with him all of his pictures from Australia and New Zealand. Even Diana and Eve would come over for the evening to hear about his experience abroad, and because Carrie and Eve had plans of their own to travel there themselves.
Wednesday morning at eight o’clock, OLeif and Collette met with the first loan officer. He was a friendly guy and talked with them for about an hour. There was a good deal to learn about housing, loans, costs, etc., and they were pleased with their visit. And there would be two more officers to meet before the week was out.
Meanwhile, back on the ranch, Joe was at work and preparing to submit an application to work during the summer as staff at Philmont – the great Boy Scout camp in New Mexico. Curly had also just been hired at The Green Lantern and had begun his first day of work learning the art of cleaning cars.
And OLeif was delayed late at work that night because of a rather significant technical mistake on the part of an electrician. So while Collette waited to be picked up, Frances and Linnea experimented with the blender, working on making the perfect chocolate shake.
“Linnea!” Frances had called from the kitchen, “Where are your chocolate seashells?”
Collette stopped him from tossing in several of Linnea’s special boxed Belgian chocolate hazelnut seashells, and told him to use chocolate syrup instead. Frances and Linnea snacked on the results while Joe washed the dinner dishes and talked about the car he was looking into purchasing.