I’ve watched enough of those Jay Leno segments where he humiliates college students to know that it is one of my top goals in life to raise a child who understands geography. So as I was showing Kalina the route of our cruise on the map, her astute observation that “there was land in the way” was a great segue to a lesson on the Suez Canal. 

The passage was fascinating, with the intermittent cities and date palm oases on the western shore and the impossibly arid and mostly featureless Sinai Peninsula on the eastern shore. The ship carried the Egyptian flag as we passed and the canal was so narrow that we could see the expressions on people’s faces as they waved from their yards. But close as we were, we never set foot off the ship. Which is why Kalina’s next statement caused an existential crisis in the family that has yet to be fully resolved. 

“Yay! I’ve been to Egypt!”I say no. Radek says yes. Thoughts?