The Simple life: Paris Hilton aint got shit on me

HOLY CRAP

Lets start with plane #1 . . .. i love jet airways. Delicious Indian food and complimentary wine provided an incredible start to my trip. Then, i discovered all the free stuff on the monitors on the back of the seats. I was dubious at first and thought i was somehow going to be charged, but once i realized bollywood movies were free I immediately started watching "Love Aaj Kal" which was awesome since i pretty much knew all the music already. I sat next to a lovely Indian lady named Jan, and wed discussed religion and education in Jewish versus hindu families :). After Love Aaj Kal, one glass of wine, and delicious curry I then discovered all the free bollywood music at my disposal, and immediately put on "Duniya" even though i already have it on my ipod. The flight was extremely smooth and pain-free and i arrived at Brussels in blizzardy weather with a surprisingly graceful landing. Second flight was delayed three hours since the Brussels airport closed for a full huor due to the snow. This was a blessing in disguise as it shortened my stay at the New Delhi airport. Flight #2 was longer than the first and I sat next to a canadian woman on a free trip tp india with some rotary club. Stuck to water on this trip but decided to go vegetarian . . . good choice.

Here's where the shit starts flying. I was probably one of three people from my flight from Brussels to Delhi that was going on to Kathmandu . . . so they failed to tell me NOT to go through immigration . . . whoops. I thought this was the right thing since i was told at JFK that i would have to take my bags through customs at Delhi so it all made sense . . . until i saw an employee snatch my bag off the conveyor belt to learn that my bags would have been taken onto my next flight for me. Now that i was through customs however, the bags were mine until 6AM the next morning (it was 1AM). GREAT! So in the dingy lounge i sat for four hours twiddling my thumbs and attempting to build card castles (i learned my deck only has 51 cards so there goes solitaire). Finally morning came and i painlessly rechecked my bags and hopped on the flight to Kathmandu. the views of the Himalayan mountains were breathtaking and i was glued to the window most of the time.

However, i was TOTALLY unprepared for the car ride to the orphanage. Nepali streets are CHAOS. Many of the roads have no middle divider, and there are as many motorbikes on the road as there are cars. Somehow amidst the constant beeping, swerving, and near collisions no one was actually hitting anyone. It was pure magic. Lining the streets are little shops, tons of stray dogs, monkeys, ducks, cows, and garbage. Have to go meet the kids for the first time as they come home from school (yes on Sunday) so i will save descriptions of the orphanage for my next post . . . there is SO much to say.

Thanks for reading!

The Last Supper

Okay so i couldn't wait until early next week to write another post.

By this time tomorrow I will be sometime over the Atlantic Ocean headed for Brussels, Belgium. . . hopefully fully prepared for my stay in Nepal and travels in India. Today I completed my medicine cabinet (aka plastic bag) . . . that now includes Immodium, Pepto, Cipro, azithromycin, acidophilus pills, Malaria prophylaxis pills, and some cold medicine (please don't comment that I've forgotten something because it's too late and i don't want to hear it :)). My poor stomach is about to meet some friend's it never thought it would encounter, and hopefully it will fair well!

The owner of the orphanage, Rajendra, is supposedly picking me up at the airport in Kathmandu on Sunday morning (Saturday night for all of you, 11 hour time difference), although at this point I have no phone number for him to contact in case my flights are delayed . . . yay for trust in others!

Just checked the weather for the THREE destinations I will be flying into, and all seem clear and wonderful, so assuming all goes well I should have a relatively painless 28 hour travel experience. I am a bit worried about my overnight stay from 10PM to 8AM in India's New Delhi airport. What the hell am I going to do? Where am I going to pass out? Give yourself a mental picture of me sleeping in a corner of of the New Delhi airport on top of all of my bags so no one could loot anything out of them! Oh well, look forward to hearing what I ended up doing in the New Delhi airport, as it is bound to be a good story with 10 hours to spare.

Today I finished lesson three of unit one of Rosetta Stone for Hindi, which technically is NOT the language of Nepal, but the language of India . . . Oh well hopefully it will do me some good over there. I will probably royally embarrass myself because although I have a decent amount of verbs and nouns under my belt, I am still incredibly shaky with conjugating masculine and feminine tenses, as evidenced by my recent addressing of an Indian man as a woman when trying to ask "what's up"? Oh well.

I've got to be forgetting something . . . right?

Hello everyone and welcome to the blog of the century! If you care to read this over the coming semester you will be enlightened with the secrets of life, the fumbles of my travels, and hopefully hear about a lot of ridiculous and awesome things I will intentionally or unintentionally do.

Just in case you start wondering why I don't add another post until probably Monday morning, here's why:
Fri 6PM 8 hour plane ride to Brussels, Belgium
Saturday 10 AM (their time) 8 hour plane ride to New Delhi, India
Sunday 10 AM (their time) 1.5 hour plane ride to Kathmandu, Nepal
Yea . . . I know . . . Yay picking the cheapest way to get half way around the world

Kathmandu, the capital and pretty much only big city of Nepal, is where i will reside for two months, in an orphanage called Ramro Shati (http://www.oceannepal.org). If you pay attention to the address at the top right corner of their website, you will see that the address of my residence has neither a number or a street. Therefore, do not try to send me mail, because it will most probably not get there. Be sure to take a look at the page called "children" as they are adorable and they are the ones i will be caring for while I am there. More updates on that little mothering journey as it ensues.