Nepal

I've been in Nepal for just over a week now, and besides a few (enormous) disasters, everything has been really nice.
For the first few days, 3 other volunteers and I had a Nepali language course in the morning followed by lunch and sightseeing. I'm nearly conversational in Nepali, and if I practice a bit more, I could probably have a full conversation with someone.
On the first day of sightseeing, we went to the monkey temple, which is a Buddhist temple just outside of Kathmandu. We had to climb up about a trillion stairs (not an exaggeration), but the climb was definitely worth it! Besides all the beautiful statues, we had a fantastic view of the Himalayas and all of Kathmandu valley. I'll post pictures as soon as I get to New Zealand. It's called monkey temple because there's 100s of monkeys wandering around the temple and the jungle that surrounds it. For the most part, they stay away from people, but one of the monkeys nearly attacked our guide while we were walking through the jungle!

The next day, we went to Pashupatinath and boudhanath (where I'm currently living, but more on that latter). Pashupatinath is a Hindu temple along a river (forgot the name, sorry!). It's probably the most famous temple, considering this is where Hindus are cremated after they die. Further downstream, the river is lined with cliffs and caves, where people actually live.
Boudhanath is another huge Buddhist temple. The building itself is a large, round stupa (like a steeple), and shops and restaurants circle it. The monastery I'm living in is just a few feet away from it, and I have a gorgeous view of the stupa from my room!

I moved in just a few days ago, and began teaching English to 3 classes of Buddhist monks. In the morning, we teach the middle class, which is about 15 boys ages 13-17. In the afternoon we teach the junior class who are 7-12, and then the senior class who are 17-19. They're all pretty fluent in English, especially the senior class, who really enjoy listening to Cathy and I talk about our home countries. None of them had met an American before, so they were all quite excited to hear about my life back home. So far, the classes have gone well and I'm really enjoying my time here. In the mornings, we wake up at about 5 to go to prayer with the boys at 5:30, but often the gates are locked and we can't get to the temple! I also eat every meal with them, but we tend to sleep through breakfast which is at 6:30. Breakfast is just a piece of bread with Tibetan tea (The worst thing I've ever tasted. It's tea with salt and butter.), lunch is usually daal baaht which is rice with lentil soup and curried vegetables, and dinner is usually a noodle soup. Everything is vegetarian, which I really like since I was a vegetarian at home.

I recently went out and bought postcards, but I'm having trouble finding a post office here. Hopefully I'll send them off soon!