Another Birthday with Strangers and looking ahead a bit… (28/08/08)

No, really, it’s cool. I don’t mind spending another birthday with strangers (last year the day fell in the middle of orientation at Heller, so a bunch of new friends went out to dinner with me). I’m not really into birthdays anyway. Sure, I like presents (who doesn’t?), but I don’t need everyone and their mother to know it’s my birthday. I’d much rather spend it quietly. So I’m not telling people here that I’m 27 now. It’s probably better that way… I’m not sure yet how Nepalis like to celebrate birthdays. In Uzbekistan, it was a lot of food I didn’t want to eat and talking to people I didn’t know.

I almost forgot that it was my birthday. With all the traveling, jetlag and time changes, I really thought it was next week. But no, it’s today. Well today, here, tomorrow for you back in the states. I think. I’m still a little fuzzy on the details of how many hours and minutes I am ahead. Yeah, that’s right. Minutes. For some reason, Nepal is however many hours and like 20 minutes (maybe?) ahead. Not sure where the extra 20 minutes comes in, but there you have it. So it’s 9:57am here and where you are, my little east coasters, it is 12:12am. I guess I could count how many hours that is, but if you know me – you know I don’t like to do math of any sort. Time zones and changes are the worst, so I’ve added a gadget on my sidebar (the only cool thing about Vista) that gives me the US Eastern Time.

The weird part of living all the way over here (and there’s many, this is just one) is that while all of you are sleeping back in states, I’ve just gotten to work and will still be here once the sun rises where you are. Crazy. More crazy? It’s raining again. Gotta love monsoon season. I’ve been promised that after the rainy season it’s nothing but beautiful. I’ll keep you posted. 

I’m supposed to go trekking in October (festival month here in Nepal) with my roommate and her friends, so it should be pretty freakin’ beautiful then. Not sure where we’re going yet, but I’m pretty excited to get out there and hike. I don’t even mind if it’s from tea shop to tea shop. While I was pretty over tea since being forced to drink the stuff nonstop in Uzbekistan, I really like the tea here in Nepal. They take it with milk… so that means they give it to you with milk whether you want it or not. So it’s like a chai tea minus a little bit of the spicy thanksgiving flavor. Plus a little a bit of the milk skin which I try to avoid. Developing country or not, I don’t do milk skin. I haven’t yet figured out what type of milk it is, but I like it.

Food-wise, I haven’t really gone out on a limb and eaten anything super crazy. I actually haven’t been eating much of anything. My stomach’s not sure when to be hungry (stupid jetlag) so I’m hungry at odd times (3am!). All I’ve had so far are momos, but that’s nothing new. I’d eat a million of them if I could. No really, I would! Don’t know momos? Think dumplings from any Asian restaurant and add a little Indian spice to it and there you have it. Because of Ujwal and his momo parties, I was a huge fan of these little food wonders before I even arrived. Yum.

Oh… since I haven’t had internet access at home or at work (yeah, I don’t want to talk about it), I’ve got more to add. My roommates were super nice and made me ice cream sandwiches for my b-day! With a candle, too! And I met one of their neighbor friends.