egypt.

my dear friend tauna is moving back to the US in a few weeks. her “jourmany” started in 2008, so she’s had 4 years of amazing adventure and is heading back to portland with a VERY full passport and absolutely no regrets.

after she said “yes!” to moving back home, we decided to have one last adventure of our own – i told her to pick a place she’s wanted to go but hadn’t yet visited. important to note what a big leap of faith i was taking in giving her free reign to choose the destination. as much as TD and i are alike, our travel preferences don’t always align. case in point – her most recent holidays included gorilla tracking in rwanda and sleeping in a floating hut in india. considering my friends back home could never even get me to go camping …

anyway, no need to worry! tauna opted for the “beach, relaxing” travel category, so thankfully there was no need for me to fine tune my tracking skills. but of course, being the adventurous gal that she is, we couldn’t just go to any beach. the red sea called and we came running – and off we went to hurghada, egypt.

this wasn’t the egypt trip that people assumed we were taking – not a camel or a pyramid in sight. it was really just about rest, rejuvenation, relaxation. done, done and done. the schedule was something like this:

sleep in. breakfast. beach. fruity drink. lunch. beach. nap. massage. dinner. bed.

REPEAT.

needless to say, it was awesome.

the only downside was a small thing i like to call “i went into battle w the egyptian sun, and it kicked my a**.” by the end of the first day i was slightly pink, and when i woke the next morning i was literally glowing red and radiating heat. i skyped wen & the girls that afternoon and poor stella was scared of the beet-red-mommy-monster. stella to wen, “WHO IS THAT?! WHERE IS MOMMY?!” note to fellow travelers – USE SPF 100 + WHEN IN EGYPT. that sun does not mess around.

tauna and i were quite the hit at our resort. “american girls! american girls!” was the greeting we received every morning, and the staff took “attentive” to a whole new level (which was nice on day 1, and COMPLETELY ANNOYING by day 4). that being said, i think it’s probably important to mention that we were the youngest guests by about THIRTY years, which meant we were like heidi klum and cindy crawford by comparison. text to wen at breakfast on day 2: “babe, just got invited to one-night-stand-night at the local disco!” his reply, “nice! you still got it!” (no, we didn’t go).

the best part of the trip? besides the “4-hand massage” … ? just laughing and talking w TD on the beach (her in the sun and me hiding from the sun in a long skirt and cardigan, under an umbrella). our conversation always ranges from deep & full of wonder, “how crazy is it that we lived mere miles from each other for years, know a ton of the same people, but didn’t meet until we were thousands of miles away from home, living in germany? amazing!’ to the frivolous, “why do you think rachel zoe and her assistant stylist brad really broke up? totally team brad, right?” 

oh, i’m going to miss these talks.

when wen & i decided to dive into this whole germany adventure, we spent weeks daydreaming about all of the amazing places we would see. i honestly didn’t give much thought to the amazing people i would meet. i feel so blessed, SO beyond grateful to have such an incredible cast of characters playing a role in this journey. and in my list of the “reasons why moving to germany was such a good decision,” meeting miss tauna is at the top. i’m SO sad she’s leaving, but thankfully this isn’t really goodbye. we’ll see each other for work, and of course in portland. and certainly – we’ll always have egypt.

xo, td!