Grateful

Well I'm back from Egypt! The past 8 days have been FULL, of great things and exhausting things and learning things. I had amazing experiences living in Africa for a week and will never forget it. We got home (the JC seriously feels like home now!) last night. This week and this morning as I've been back I've just been thinking about the things that I missed and how grateful I am for the conveniences I have in my life.
No particular order:
1. Brushing my teeth with water from the faucet.
2. Drinking COLD water.
3. Drinking cold water from something other than a water bottle I carry around as my literal constant companion.
4. Free public bathrooms. Yes, you have to pay to use most bathrooms in Egypt.
5. Free public bathrooms that have toilet paper provided.
6. Free public bathrooms that have toilet paper that look semi-sanitary.
7. Not hovering over the toilet seat.
8. Eating whatever I want, without the fear that I will get sick with diarrhea or throw up 5 hours later as a result of something I ate.
9. PERSONAL SPACE. I LOVE MY SPACE AND BEING BY MYSELF SOMETIMES. I NEED IT.
10. Going into a store and being politely asked if I need any help finding anything. The market vendors here are so aggressive and get in your face if you ever LOOK at their store merchandise.
11. Fruits and vegetables
12. Juice.
13. Milk and milk products
14. Not SWEATING every second of every day because it's so hot.
15. AIR CONDITIONING
16. Having the luxury of driving a car in a place where people are not insane drivers (most of the time)
17. Having a car so the bus is not my main mode of transportation besides walking.
18. Internet and communication with my family
19. My health
20. The fact that I live in America
21. Laundry and clean clothes, so I don't have to put dirty stinky clothes back on after a shower.

Ok, so looking back on that list I feel like it represents a negative experience in a  lot of ways. Quite the contrary, these things made Egypt one of the greatest learning experiences I will probably ever have. Here are some of my top things I loved on the trip, and some of my greatest learning chances:
1. Egyptian history is VAST and COMPLICATED and so interesting.
2. Our tour guide, Islam, who knew everything it seemed.
3. Group Toot. :) :) :)
4. Building closer friendships with some of the people here.
5. Seeing all these historical places that I've seen in pictures in history textbooks since elementary school.
6. Getting stamps in my passport from border crossings.
7. Waka Waka dance
8. Eating lots of dessert when I got the chance
9. Father Judd caring individually about everyone and making sure we all stayed hydrated and safe. A very difficult task.
10. Bus rides with ipod/music parties
11. No homework all week
12. Feeling the Spirit at unexpected places, and then expected locations as well.
13. Hiking Mt. Sinai at 3am. I loved it.
14. The fact that I didn't get sick really at all, except minor not feeling well a little bit the last couple days. But nothing serious that prevented me from doing anything or being happy.
15. Riding a camel and riding a boat on the Nile River!
16. Buying things.
17. Seeing beautiful churches and temples and are ancient.
18. Staying at a Cheraton hotel for my 1st time.
19. Getting back to Israel and eating ice cream and chocolate milk immediately.
20. The fact that my last name is awesome and now everyone in my group knows it. Oh, and taking a picture by a bus with my name on it. And seeing statues of the god. And just loving my last name.
21. Walking around a lot and getting good exercise.

I feel like the positive definitely outweighs the negative. I love Egypt! I doubt I will ever go back, but I'm so grateful that I was able to go now and see the things that I did. Now we are all back home and have a million things to do for school. And I'm pretty sure we're all still exhausted from these 8 days with little sleep and lots of hours in the sun. Free day today, hopefully I will get lots done.

Shout out to my Mom, who has mailed me a new power cord for my laptop which is currently out of commission due to a dead battery and broken cord. Hopefully it'll get here the end of the week and I'll post pictures of Egypt probably when it arrives. :) Thank you Mom!