My loves, I have missed you!  Sure, it’s only been a few days since we talked last, but even a few days makes me realize how much I miss getting to talk to you on a daily basis!  I’ve been on a cruise ship (!) for the past few nights as part of our trip down the N*le River.  We docked just a little bit ago and spotted a McDonald’s with wi-fi across the street.  Anyone up for a tasty McTuna salad or a McArab*a burger?  As a bonus you get to listen to the sultry sounds of Kenny G. whilst enjoying your Coke without ice.  Totally like being at home.

I’m sitting here with Josh and John, two of the guys on our trip who were desperate to chat online with their girlfriends since we haven’t had internet for a few days (shout out to my friend Kelly for posting those guest blogs for me!).  The boys are sitting across from me now, totally engulfed in typing sweet nothings to their girlfriends so I need you to be understanding if I start typing sweet nothings to you in this very blog post.  I mean, it’s really ironic.  They’re all “I can’t wait to chat with my girlfriend!” and I’m all “I CAN’T WAIT TO WRITE TO MY IMAGINARY BLOG FRIENDS.”

But really, “blog friends” sounds a little like “boyfriends” if you say it real fast, no?

I have no idea how to even catch you up on the past few days, so I may ramble a bit.  Even though I haven’t had internet, I’ve still been taking pictures and writing posts for you that will be uploaded over the next few days.  As I mentioned, we’re currently cruising the N*le River, which is an experience in itself.  Cate and I were expecting this tiny little ship and instead walked into a room that is as big as my bedroom back home!  We immediately collapsed into our beds and slept for three hours without even moving before waking up to talk about what we had seen at the orphanage and how our hearts are responding.  I’ve got more to say about that part of the trip, but I need a bit more time to process it all, I think.  I will tell you that I’ve fallen asleep each night since then looking at my pictures from that day.  Even though I didn’t get to see your comments on that post until today, I got to hear a few of them when I called to check in a couple of days ago.  They were good medicine for a heart that was still broken over what I saw that day, but I’ve got to admit that I’m not so sure I want my heart to not be broken over what I saw there because a broken heart tends to bring change and that may be the very reason I saw what I saw that day.

Since we boarded the cruise ship all we’ve been doing is eating, swimming, listening to each other’s iPods, touring fantastic sites (guess who went to King Tut’s tomb this morning!) and just generally acting like a bunch of 20-somethings.  Don’t tell anyone, but there may have even been a group of us swimming (fully dressed in our dinner clothes, no less) at 2 a.m. this morning.  Who needs swimsuits when you’re in the middle of spontaneity?

We’ve also been having classes, of course (even if everyone is wearing swimsuit cover-ups for them).  This is my first chance getting to do something like this and it has been quite a humbling experience.  The person I’m co-teaching with has been teaching this course for about a decade and I’d much rather just sit and listen to him teach instead of speaking up myself.  I got up the courage to dive into yesterday’s lesson though and, afterwards, he came and found me on the ship and really encouraged me.  I’m learning a ton from him and the whole “teaching” experience in general. 

The trip has been good for me on so many different levels that I don’t even know where to begin.  At times it’s felt like a vacation (hello, 2 a.m. pool trip!) but it’s also been so personally challenging in a good way.  I’m not that much older than the students on the trip, but because I am older and in a different stage of life than them, we relate in a different way than just as friends.  They’ve told me bits and pieces of their struggles, really their lives in general, while we lay by the pool or stay up too late on the all-night train to Aswan.  I’ve been thinking about what I needed when I was at their place in life just a few short years ago and it’s made me listen to them.  That’s what I needed in my early twenties — just somebody older to listen and not immediately jump in with suggestions or even advice.  I’ve learned that really listening to them earns me the right to speak when I need to, when the timing is right.

On a lighter note, I’ve been proposed to once while on the trip (it was from one of our security guards and, whilst I immediately said no, I then saw the gun strapped to his side and changed my answer to “Let me think about it for a few days”).  Also: Cate spotted a crocodile in the river yesterday as well as a completely nude man bathing near our boat.  Don’t worry — I covered her eyes with my hands.

After all, she’s way too young to be looking at crocodiles, you know.

P.S. – I had a lovely email telling me that an interview I did with Exemplify magazine is now out, so I wanted to give y’all the link in case you want to check it out, especially since a lot of the questions are about how I feel about writing the blog, if I feel like I ever need to “perform” for you, etc.  Click here to read it; you’ll see a little grey box at the top that let’s you scroll from page to page (1-33) — the interview begins on page 16 and goes through page 19!