The count down begins....

This is Jenna on the troubled space bar computer.
I can not believe wefly out in 4 days!

i just met a little Nepali boy on the street who spoke perfect English and told me all about the US-- why our flag has 13 stripes and 50 stars, about the capital of the US and the # of states,and so on. Next I was stopped by a woman holding a limp sleeping child and an empty bottle, she asked me to buy milk for her little girl, next I saw the same nine year old boy who begged for food this morning smoking a cigarette in the middle of a crowd of boys. In between the rickshaws, mopeds, cars, pedistrians, and street vendors a large cow moseyed by. There is a man who sitson a square plank with skateboard wheels and uses his handsto make his way thru traffic,he has not askedfor money or food, but he looks at us with wonder and sadness in his eyes. We have friends here now, Mia,a woman who sells little silk bags chases me down to ask how I am doing,people on the street call us by name and tell us that we will be going back to America in 4 days and that they will miss us, Mr Bhatt, the Tibetan stone seller, was concerned about our trek and the floods and wanted to know all about the festival when we returned, Rahju,the gem seller offers us tea when we walk back into his shop and we just sit and chat.Iwillmissall these people.

Right now it is 1O:30 pm and the streets are still rocking, carhorns, five different songs from 4 different shops and one live band, and French, Sweedish, Nepali, Tibetan, English,German, Russian and a million other languages being spoken, also there is a man just beside me trying to make a call he has yelled "Hello?? Hello?? Hello?" about a million times.

With in view of the kathmandu Guest house we can by sweets from a German bakery,booksfrom Pilgrimsbook store, knivesfrom a Gurkha knife stall, Tibetan Stones, carved masks, Kashmiri carptes, Thang-Ka's, Raw Silk, Roasted peanuts, Tailored clothes,Buddha statues....

Our currency is the Rupee it looks like monopoly money only the 5 rupee note is smaller than the rest and the 1000 is larger. One US dollar equals about 62 rupees, so dinner is usually 200 rs per person, a tailored outfit is about 600 rs, a snickers bar is very expensive - 60 rs, and a one rupee coin can not buy anything. ONe problem is that no one EVER has change,so if you buy something for 85rupees,and you pay with a 100, you have to have exact rupees or forefit the 15 rupees. So, sometimes we bargan and bargan to get the price down and we end up paying more because no one has change.

gotta go,it is 11pm and I amtired.
Jenna