out to dinner... cuties! - Kathmandu

I really enjoyed meeting Sarah's friends in Kathmandu. What a great group!

One couple has two young children... the older one is about 3 years old and she's a riot. I think she might grow up to be a famous comedian... she's already got the timing and creativity down!

Tegan, Michael, and Sarah playing 'restaurant' at a restaurant:

Tegan-scrunch-smile!

View of mountains and sunset (taken by holding my camera up, standing on my tiptoes, and blindly taking the photo over the wall...)

WE WENT OUT FOR PHO!

(And I got to say hen gap lai to the Vietnamese owner on the way out...

...although I doubt if I will really see her again...)

SARAH! So good to see this girl.   : )

at school with Sarah - Kathmandu

Sarah works at the Lincoln School in Kathmandu. It is a beautiful campus!!

I went in with her one morning, met her friends, spent time with the awesome librarian there - Jeremiah... gushing about books together! - It was a great time (including about 4 cups of coffee!)

The lovely Sarah Parker at her school in Kathmandu!!

From school, I walked down the street to the main road... and caught a taxi to take me to the nearby 'Monkey Temple'... along the walk, I was gifted with a great view of mountains in the distance (although it was a big foggy and doesn't show much in the photo below... as well as lovely flowers lining the brick wall along the road...)

Sarah's place! - Kathmandu

Sarah's house is goooorgeous! Yes, HOUSE! Three bedrooms, three bathrooms, an office, a patio with gardens, kitchen, dining room, living room, aaaaand avocado tree! WHOA. I love all of the glass wall-windows and the natural light in this modern house. She may only have electricity for a few hours a day... but the house is gorgeous and had a great feel.   : )   Her lovely dog, Ellie, helped with that feeling too!

traveling to KATHMANDU, NEPAL!

Wow. I had never really thought of traveling to Nepal before... until my closest friend in Vietnam my first year accepted a teaching position at the Lincoln School in Kathmandu.

Funny enough... the world of international teaching proved itself to be quite small... when Sarah accepted the position, she then became colleagues with Jenn Alevy - the librarian that was in the Adams 12 school district in Colorado with me during my first two years of teaching. Jenn is the person that tipped me off about the Librarian position in Ho Chi Minh City (which created two huge years in my life)... and SHE was the Librarian at the Lincoln School! Weird. Now Jenn is the Librarian at an international school in Chennai, India.

Sarah leaving Vietnam after my first year (she had lived in Saigon for three and a half years!) was really hard for me. I missed her a lot... especially since you have only so many friends (that are also like family) when living abroad. I told her that, no matter where I was in the world, during her second year in Kathmandu... I was going to go for a visit! --- SO... here I go!

I'll be staying for just under a week for my Spring Break. I'm really, really excited. I hope to take a day-hike or two... wander and shop through the markets... and walk, exploring the city/valley with my camera. AND I'm looking forward to spending time with Sarah - catching up and soaking up time with a good friend. Other than that - I don't even know what to expect!

Below are some Google Maps screenshots of the locations...

Milan is the 'B' green marker at the top left... and the 'A' red marker is KATHMANDU!

All of Nepal - a small but long country...

I fly through Doha, Qatar...

...from left to right: Milan --> Doha --> Kathmandu!

The 'Earth view' option in Google Maps is cool when looking at Kathmandu because the city is set in a valley, surrounded by mountains:

Very sad and very scary... yesterday there was the deadliest avalanche ever in Everest. At least 12 local guides died and they are searching for more.