HI EVERYONE!
well, i am finally here.
after about 33 hours, i finally landed! it wouldn't have been so bad, i think, if i would have been able to spend some of the 9 hours i had in england outside of the airport... :( what ended up happening was that i had a ticket to london and then a ticket to nepal, so i had to pick up my bags and recheck them... and i couldn't recheck them for a really, really long time. sooooo i read... i wrote in my journal... i watched people... i watched people some more... i started wandering, pulled a brady/elise escapade and had to go through security again... yeah. on the plane trips i couldn't sleep and watched a lot of movies! woot... well anyways, i landed here and was picked up by some men from the hotel excelsior - the hotel where all the volunteers stay at before their placement, and on the weekends as well. the drive was crazy - apparantly there was a strike that ended that day - all the buses and taxis because they're raising prices and the price of fuel is really high too. so there we were, bumping over pot holes, swerving around the masses of people and motorbikes in the middle of the road... i think if i were driving, i would hit 5 people in the first ten minutes! they honk the horn and it doesn't even phase anyone. the weather here isn't too bad - it's quite sticky but since it's monsoon season the sun isn't very bright. i've only had a little taste of the monsoon, and it wasn't that bad, just rained for about 10 minutes. the sights are something else - all the buildings are as close as can be, and don't look like they are of very high quality. it's pretty dirty i would say - a lot of dust everywhere and garbage on the side of the streets, which are either paved or stone. so when i got to the hotel, melissa was there and so i had supper with her and rachel, from the uk. the food is going to take some getting used to! lots of curry... not my favorite... i wasn't feeling so hot afterwards! hopefully i just get used to it soon, otherwise it's going to be a long month! we went out to a pub afterward to hang out with some volunteers, but i was pretty tired and had a very good sleep in my hotel room :)
so that was yesterday... today i went to durbur square, which is a LOT of temples and religious stuff. i didn't catch everything our tour guide told us - but we did see the living goddess and got harassed by many men trying to sell us little trinkets. we were looking at one temple and realized that all the carvings were very erotic - i forget the name for it, but apparantly at one time the population of nepal was very low and not every man had a wife, so the king made this temple to popularize enjoying all the facts of life :) it's interesting also, that nepal is kind of where buddhism and hinduism collide, and it was very interesting to watch how these people worship, and why they do the things they do. the tour guide really stressed how people here are very willing to spend their money to honor their gods, and i thought about how tight fisted i can be sometimes when it comes to giving offerings back home. i think there's something to the devotion they show.
so on our walk back we did some shopping - i tried to barter and it did NOT work :S however, it will be hard to stop shopping - there are so many beautiful things here! also - exciting - i booked a trip to go bungee jumping on saturday with my new friend rachel! i'm very excited to do this :D i'll let you all know how it goes. i just found out that i can finally go through my orientation here.
please keep praying - and let me know how i can lift you up in prayer as well.