Winding Down

I'll be in Minnesota in two weeks. It's SO weird. As I sit here in Nepal with a gorgeous 360° panorama of mountains in sight, and try to motivate myself to do something, anything, I finally realized that when I'm on an extended trip and I actually purchase my flight home*, and home looms in the near distance, I just don't care anymore. I took a bike ride three days ago. Other than that, in this quaint mountain town of Pokhara, I have slept 15 hours each night, walked down the stairs for breakfast, shopped, gotten one massage and had five hot toddies every night by the fire trying to warm up. I could go on a trek in the mountains, I could go canoeing on the gorgeous lake, I could take photos. But I don't.

I did take this one while on my bike ride.

You see, sometimes when you're traveling, you need some recoup days. And to be fair, Summer and I just spent two weeks, that's fourteen days sleeping in a different place every night. Too many of those nights were spent [not] sleeping on buses or trains. The rest in horrible $3 guesthouses with no heat and no hot water. Freezing. Dirty. So if I need to spend three nights sleeping for 15 hours I can't be too hard on myself. But! I'm in Nepal! I only have two weeks left! I should be doing something!

Anyway, Dear Reader, if you're sitting in your office cubicle dreaming of faraway places and exotic lands and reading this, and I sound like a complete Jerk who's in just such a place sleeping all day: I get it. You're right. And just for you, I have the goal of going canoeing before I leave this town.

Speaking of home looming in the near distance, I'm getting really sick for it. I'm thinking of all the things I miss and haven't done and want to do. Here is an incomplete list of things I have not done (not really) in the last four-and-a-half months:

• Taken a hot shower.
• Blow-dried or flat-ironed my hair.
• Painted my toenails.
• Worn makeup.
• Slept in a comfortable bed.
• Stayed any one place more than nine nights (and that only happened one time. Usually it's just one or two.)
• Bought something without carefully calculating its value, weight and size.
• Gotten my haircut or updated my roots.

I plan to take care of most of the above immediately upon my return, and looking forward to my forever-long hot shower, my mom's cooking and the comforts of home has got me feeling a little 'meh' about my current surroundings. Looking back to a time when I used to look forward all year to a nine-day vacation, I am ashamed that I couldn't care less about the next two weeks of my life. In the dream locations of Nepal and Japan. Yep. Jerk.

 

 

*THAT was a nightmare decision to make. Such a nightmare in fact I postponed it to just 10 days before my scheduled flight out of Nepal. I wanted to go back through Greece but couldn't afford it. I tried Hawaii, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Vietnam, even San Diego, desperate to get a little warm-up before returning to freezing Minnesota. Flying through Japan was half the price of any of those other places. And they're smack dab in the middle of their winter. I don't even want to go. Boo freaking hoo. If only the starving children in Africa could see how hard my life is...I think they'd gladly keep their own problems.

 

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