For those of you who missed it, that line was taken directly from "Monsters, Inc." - you know the part where they visit the Abominable Snowman... Yeah. That. I know I've missed quite a chunk of life, two weeks or so, but it's mostly finals and Christmas parties, Angel-Mortal stuff, etc. No big, you're not missing out on much. OK, that's sort of a lie, :x but it wouldn't do any good for me to catch up. Anyways, we've been in Nepal since Thursday... so that's... 4 days. I think. And I have fallen in love. This is one of the most beautiful and most comfortable countries I've ever been to. Except for the fact that I can't speak Nepali, and I don't look Nepali, I feel amazingly at home here. In Mama and Maizji's house (Uncle and Auntie - those terms are too common, he says, everyone is "Uncle" or "Auntie," so we have to call them "Mama" and "Maizji" instead) our room is on the second floor with the office and the boys' kitchen. There are three beds, one big one and two small ones. To avoid a war we both sleep in the big one and fight smaller battles over the blankets. Anyways, "the Himalayas are right outside our window!!" They're all soft and snowy and glow pink in the morning and especially in the evening... And underneath their foothills (in our field of view) lies the city of Kathmandu, an array of simple but gorgeous three-story dollhouses blown up to our size, and then undeveloped fields that will probably someday become another mass of dollhouses. Next door is the house Mama built and it also has three stories I believe, and on top there is a platform like the ones at Bharatpur Fort and Anjali's house, with a ladder leading up to it and a railing around the edge. It looks out over the whole world, a stunning unobstructed view of everything and mountains on all sides. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and got unpacked and Mama made us tea made from fresh buffalo milk from next door or something crazy like that. Then we went to Maizji's father's 72nd birthday party, where we sat on the floor and listened to everyone speak Nepali and ate fabulous food Nepali-style. Jigme was right, Nepali food is like Indian food only better. And the polite way to eat is with our hands!! It's so much more fun and just better in general. They were pretty impressed with our skills, I must say. And also with our display of Nepali culture - the nose piercings. They said I looked like a teacher. Haha. And I got to talk to my parents and my sister. That was nice. On Friday we got up at 11:30 (*sigh of bliss*), showered, and spent the entire day reading. Both of us finished our books by the evening. Supercool Nepal fact: everyone in the city has solar-powered water heaters! Totally sweet muffins, man. And in the evening we played Monopoly with the boys. That was pretty fun. It was the shortest game I've ever played - this one guy got the whole green strip and wiped everybody out within the hour. Fantastic. Saturday is Nepal's national holiday thing - all the other days everybody has to get up and work or go to school, like Ashwin and Avinash, our cousins. Anyways, we put on our salwar camises and went to the church Grampa built. I really liked it, even though it was all in Nepali and I couldn't really understand it. The girl next to me shared her hymnbook and I actually kinda followed along. I was proud. Haha the power just went out - I love how it constantly does this - so we all lost our internet connection and got it back. Just standard everyday obstacles that mean nothing anymore. Haha. Anyways, it seems Grampa's quite the local celebrity at church - both pastors came over and talked to us and told us how great they all think Grampa is for building this church... Afterward we got a taxi and went to this internet cafe (ALL OVER this country man, seriously - Rs.15 or 20 per HOUR, madd cheap!!) and me and Nicole had CHEESEBURGERS. Yes, cheeseburgers. Woot. Now, those of you who live in the West and are in close proximity to any number of hamburger restaurants - even if you live in the middle of nowhere and to get to the nearest one you have to get in your car and drive for half an hour - may not understand my excitement in this matter. But when you've just lived 4 or 5 months in a country where cows are sacred and beef is virtually nonexistent, the nearest hamburger restaurant is in the communist state of Kolkata, or pretty much unattainable. You know, a plane ride away, or an insanely long train ride... Yeah. Now you get it. And man, was that ever nice! Maizji says she'll teach us to wrap sarees :) And Mama says we get to learn how to make momos. This is such an educational trip!! I even want to buy a "Teach Yourself Korean" book. Then I can do Hindi + Nepali, German, and Korean all at once. Teehee. Heading on my way to becoming super-multilingual. Mwahahaha. Saturday night the power went out so we went and sat in the living room with the boys and started figuring out various forms of communication... I guess they have this game they use to get to know people - we'd just kinda been eyeing each other with great interest for the past few days, they teased us about sleeping in for a bit - and this game involves taking turns singing songs. So I spent quite awhile convincing Nicole to sing and finally she consented; we sang some nice Avril, J.Lo... No Britney Spears, which disappointed the guys. She's disgustingly popular out here... And they, in turn, sang us some Nepali and Hindi songs. They are supercool, let me tell you. Sunday we went to Thamil, the "shopping strip" of Kathmandu. Mama says that's where the tourists and the teenagers hang out. We met Amit there and he quickly learned why we don't give to beggars very often. He was hounded. This one kid latched onto his arm and Amit tried to run but the kid still hung on, just dragging along up the strip. Crazy! Anyways, Thamil is the bomb diggity; lots of "crazy tourist" stores, which Mama likes to tease us about, because those are our favorites, with the brightly colored skirts and everything... We bought a bajillion DVDs :x and I got the world's coolest beanie, it's warm but not scratchy because it has silk woven into it :D And multicolored. We saw this pashmina shawl that had a sign on it reading, "Please feel me, human!" Odd, fo' sho'. Back to the house to watch a movie with Amit, and then after dinner and the news, to bed to rest up for Pokhara today :D Except even though we could barely stay awake all day we couldn't sleep, so we had a chick flick marathon until all hours, watching "Bring It On Again" (the CHEESIEST movie on the planet) and "Legally Blonde." Woot. Anyways, today we left for Pokhara in a little van... OK, so it was a big van, but it FELT little because Avinash, me, Nicole, and Ashwin were all squished into the same seat. It was packed full, let me tell you. The driver was cool, he wore a green hoodie and played all this Hindi rap, which was totally awesome... We slept a lot, stiffly... And about halfway there we had a pitstop in this riverside restaurant... With fresh fish caught right out of the river. You just rip off pieces with your hands and eat it with rice. Yummeh. And then we bought oranges and Ashwin was spitting the seeds out the window. Nicole and I didn't even try - he had the good seat and the practice, we knew we'd just get it all over everything. Oranges are fabulous. So now we're in Pokhara, and it's absolutely marverlous: the tourist town manifest of every place I've ever loved or called home. Driving in it's like the Amazon, with the tree-covered hillsides and snowcaps in the background... The river below, with white rocks banking it and little brightly-colored figures jumping around or doing laundry on them. Rope ladders and crates on strings stretch across the small gorge occasionally, and even a cable car at one point... Once we're in town it's like Vieques, hippies and interesting tourists strolling around up and down the stone walks in front of exotic little shops and swanky cafes, with an air of impending nightlife about it... We rent a boat and a rower and go out on the lake; there's a temple in the middle and the hills and snowcaps surround us on all sides, one of them capped by a peace temple. "It was built for peace in the country," Mama explains with a sad smile, "but obviously it didn't work." He was explaining to us about the situation with the guerillas and the Maoists and why the villages aren't safe... I still don't really know anything about it, but I'm more enlightened than I was. The lake reminds me of Canada, the lake on Cortes on Uncle David's farm. Anyways, it's completely fab, but we're heading off for supper soon so I'd better blow this popsicle stand soon, catch you later :-*