Holy. Cow.

Didn't see one yet.

My entirely overwhelmed, inundated, boggled senses wouldn't have been able to process seeing one anyway. Less than an hour ago, riding from the Kathmandu airport to our palace...er, hotel, a blessed heifer could have been staring me down right in front of my quarter-sized, rickety white van-cab and I wouldn't have seen it, because I was too busy looking at

my Monopoly money, trying to decide on an appropriate tip, using my mini-calculator and Sharpie-written rupee cheat sheet on the back to figure it out (rupees? really? I've used those in many a merchant shop in the land of Zelda, but never in real life).

the people. Loads and loads of people doing...what? Stuff. Running, standing, selling, yelling, nearly being run down by cars, including my cab, buying, carrying, sitting, gabbing, scowling, laughing. Wearing face masks for the fumes. Going to school. I saw cutie teenagers in all their cutie blue school uniforms and I thought, how nice! they're all on their way home from school! and then I thought, damn, it's 9 in the morning, they're just now GOING to school! And all this bustle and madness and action, before you've even gone to your first class? And how sweaty are all those men in their business attire? I mean, I smell like an exhaust pipe and I wasn't even outdoors. And I plan to shower, not do geometry or go to a meeting.

the motorcycles! Or scooters, half-broken rickshaw-lookin' 3-wheeled thingys, mopeds, crotch rockets, whatever they were, they were all over the place, with every manner of passenger on the back. Riders in helmets, passengers in no helmets, women riding sidesaddle, a dad in his work shirt and tie with his infant son sleeping on his shoulder in rush-hour traffic. And my cab driver bearing down and laying on the horn all the way.

the trash. The filth, the mess, the rubbish, all along the streets, in the gutters, on the sidewalks, in shop entryways. I actually thought, hmmm, if that were MY business, I would totally tidy up the walk and people would frequent my shop because it looks so neat and nice. And in the same moment I thought, no, then people would think I was crazy and wonder why in the world I was touching what is supposed to stay on the ground.

Please do not misunderstand. It sounds like I didn't LIKE my taxi ride through downtown Kathmandu. The OPPOSITE is true. I LOVED it. It was absolutely exhilarating and I was smiling the whole time like some dumb blonde white chick smiles when she's in a taxi looking at you in wonder and is fully confident her driver will not plow into the bus full of little Nepali schoolchildren or that lady crossing the street in her lovely blouse and sari.

So, here I sit in the sixth floor club lounge waiting for Joel, on free internet, having just finished my complimentary champagne (it literally IS 5 o'clock somewhere) and breakfast of yogurt with pomegranate seeds (love how they pop in your mouth) and a roll with yak cheese (!), gaze of the sacred Boudhanath Stupa out the window fixed upon me. The Buddha and the mountains and the prayer flags are asking me, how do you feel there, Miss Fortunate (ha ha), all safe in sound in your fancy Hyatt while the poverty-stricken scratch around in the street just beyond that gated, grassy courtyard? And my answer is, I don't know, I'm not sure, but I don't feel bad. Not gonna lie, Lindsay likes having her bags bellhopped to her room. But...hmmm.

I'm going to the pool!