You can take the girl out of the city...

I will be the first to admit I am truly the definition of "city girl." My idea of an outdoor adventure is walking down 5th Avenue for a bit of shopping (it's outdoors!). In fact, the closest to nature I'm willing to get is the park down the street from my house, and I try to avoid sitting in the grass if I can. Most of you already know about my distaste for the outdoors, but only a few know my feelings about less-than-5-star accommodations. I haven't verbally complained about any of the places I've been staying, but a tiny voice in my head cries every time I take a cold shower or sleep on a hard mattress. I've been good, I don't even mind the uncleanliness anymore, but oh, how I miss those days of daddy and me vacations; staying in gorgeous hotels and perusing the city streets, peeking into shops and wandering around local sites.
It turns out that even halfway across the world, the daddy and me vacations live on. Dad has booked the Hyatt Regency Kathmandu for me until I leave for Thailand on Thursday. It was quite a shock for me when I arrived there yesterday. I was promptly greeted by a bellman who took my bags and paid for my taxi, the man behind the desk referred to me as Ms. Cantrell (it was rather strange to hear my last name, the kids call me Maya because it's easy for them to remember. Maya means love in Nepali.), I was offered a free drink, and my bags were brought up to my room for me. I had completely forgotten what it was like to be waited on. The hotel itself is palatial, in fact, I think it's the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in! It's definitely going to be hard to leave and go back to reality. But for now I'll enjoy every minute of the enormous pool and the hot showers.
My fellow volunteer, Cathy, left yesterday. It was so so sad to say goodbye to her since we've been living and working together for 3 weeks. I don't think we've ever been apart for more than an hour or two! The monks gave her some parting gifts, and she burst into tears, which of course made me cry too. I walked her down the road to the taxi and then walked back to the monastery for the last class of the day. Teaching alone has been challenging. Usually, when one of us can't think of something to do or can't figure out how to explain something, the other one jumps in, but now I have to do everything on my own. It hasn't been too bad, but I've only had two classes on my own, and both of them are fairly easy classes to teach. The junior class (the youngest boys) are quite difficult, and I'm not sure how that's going to go, but I'm sure they'll be fine.

This will probably be my last post from Nepal since I'm much further away from the internet cafe now. I'll try to update from Thailand!