It Took 56 Years to Get Here

So technically it took 56 years and 28 hours to get here... kinda.

In Nepal the year is 2073, so you can see how it's fun to say how we went to the far future. But in reality it took about 28 hours, we had three flights, two layovers, and one destination.

The first flight was from Minneapolis to Chicago, about an hour. In Chicago we had a super long four and a half hour long layover that consisted of sitting in the airport and waiting and waiting. From Chicago we would fly to Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) which is a 14 hour flight.

My dad and I were originally going to have four seats to ourselves until the flight filled up very quickly and we ended up sitting across the aisle from each other, while two crying babies were right in front of me but it was okay because they were very cute.

During the flight I slept, watched a movie and had rice and chicken for dinner and breakfast.  

The flight went unbelievably slow but we made it.

     
We landed in Abu Dhabi and there is pretty much nothing visible near the airport but lots and lots of sand.


From there we would board our final flight to Kathmandu, Nepal, about 4 hours. This plane was smaller than the previous one but way better because we had gotten upgraded to business class! The seats were huge and reclined, I have three windows to myself, you have very comfortable pillows and blankets, and we got a pretty fancy lunch and ice cream after! The seats even had a built in massager! Very different from the previous flight.

When we landed in Nepal we got on a bus to get to the main airport, which is very small compared to other airports. It definitely is not the most high quality but nothing unbearable.

     As some may know we decided to collect books to give to an organization called the Book Bus. They give Nepali students English books because it is usually hard to find or too expensive to get English books to them. Thanks to all who donated! But as we were getting our bags, the books we had brought were packed in two cardboard boxes which were almost completely destroyed when we got them... whoops!

200+lbs of books and trekking stuff

    Afterwards was the kinda crazy part, we walked outside where many Nepali were standing who were wanting to give you a ride, which we already had one. Thankfully we saw our guide for the rest of the trip, Kewal. My dad had hiked with him in previous trips but this was my first time meeting him, he was very nice and helped us get what we needed right away. He gave us flower necklaces with orange and yellow flower on it and it smelled so good after all of the bad and musty airplane
smells.    

Kewal and I

 We drove through the pretty crazy Nepal streets. ( it was night so I have still not seen the mountains yet, but there was enough lights to see the streets)

I am American so the steering wheel was on the 'wrong' side and so were the direction of the cars. Lots of honking going on, lots of people walking in the streets, and no stop lights. People seems to know the way it works though. But lots of very small shops and lights.

I also saw many very cute stray dogs out just walking around or laying on the steps. I won't pet them though, I think they are just kinda like squirrels are to us, doing their own thing and don't really belong to anyone or place.

We arrived in a nice hotel and that leads up to where I am now!

~Callie