Life Lessons from Dinner in Nepal

When you are 20-years-old and a photojournalism intern living in Nepal for the summer you meet all sorts of crazy people. No really, I have stories; next time we're together don't forget to ask. The other night I had an amazing dinner with some friends at a place in Thamel called OR2K. It was by far the best meal I've ever had in Nepal.

The point is, sitting around this round dinner table at OR2K, was a 17-year-old from Spain, a 19-year-old from China, a 19-year-old from Nepal, a 23-year-old from Rhode Island, a 26-year-old from Germany, a 27-year-old from Brazil, and a 20-year-old from Michigan. One volunteering in an orphanage, one researching waste management, one studying photography, one volunteering in a different orphanage, one teaching english at a monastery, one a Buddhist Monk, and one an intern for a newspaper. We kept joking that if only we had an Australian or an Africa we'd really reach full circle.

We sat and ate and laughed and told stories and just enjoyed dinner together.

Traveling and throwing yourself into the deep end, (I consider a ten week trip to Nepal alone a form of a deep end), is the only way to meet these people, and to experience the world. It isn't about week long trips to resorts or even to visit national monuments, but trust me those can be fun too, but that is just different. Travel is to sit and listen and learn and understand and to laugh, to laugh and to breathe in a totally new place, a new culture, a new way of life, a new you.

The thing is when I got here, I felt very "under-travelled" with everyone around me seeming like experts. But, I've been here longer than most interns and not only do I think that says something, but, I'm also 20. I'm 20 and I wasn't born to parents who are foreign diplomats, or to rich european parents where world travel is just a part of life.

I'm a simple American girl with a very American family. We take pride in our roots and where our family lineage is from before the journey to The States, but I like to pick apples in an apple orchard, and carve pumpkins; I grew up on Applebees and Coney Island, I had a swing set in my back yard and played with Barbies past what I now realize was a "normal" age. I'm an American. Family vacations were to Up North, in Oscoda, and Mackinac, Petosky, and Traverse City. We would fly down to Florida for a week at the beach and stay with my grandparents. I went to Disney World and waited in lines for Princesses to sign my autograph book all day long, Ariel twice. My family, considered decently adventurous where we are from, took trips to Arizona, three times, and California, twice, and Oregon, and Washington, and New Mexico, and South Dakota, and Wyoming, and Maine, and Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, and so many other places. I honestly feel like I've seen more of the States than most Americans. And I haven't even started on all of the Caribbean Islands I've been to, because that is just a whole lot.

I've travelled. I've been places. I've picked up and left home enough times that my first two "real" jaunts out of the States have just inspired me to keep going. Because those short distance trips that people here might scoff at, have taught me to love plopping myself in some unknown location and just figuring it out. Because finding ostrich farms and rose gardens, and Wal-Drug, and the Kimberly-Clark house prepared me to take a six hour bus ride to Royal Chitwan National Park and get on an elephant in the middle of a river. Because I've sat in enough air ports to think nothing of a weekend trip to India and a day train ride trip to see the Taj Mahal. While I haven't come close to touching every continent I've been to Pow Wows in the woods of northern Michigan and taken a duck boat in Boston, I've stared at the Grand Canyon from every (god forsaken) angle, I've been whale watching in Maine, and eaten an entire freshly cooked lobster on the shore. I've been horseback riding in more states than I can remember, and one time my family stumbled in on a dress rehearsal of a local performance of the Sound of Music. While my family never took me to Asia or Africa or Europe or South America, they taught me how to travel, how to have adventures, to be brave and daring and risk it all for that little memory that you will cherish forever.

Between Mexico last summer and Nepal this summer, I'm reigning in with Morocco this winter, and most likely Spain next summer. I'm only 20 and I've just learned what it really means to travel and I'm coming, hold the plane, order me a second passport, because I'm coming.

If after reading this post you feel like you still don't know me that well, well, you're wrong. This is me and my life's dreams all wrapped up in a tiny little nut shell. I had a really great dinner with a bunch of amazing people and I'm so beyond thrilled to always have that stupid little memory. I'm freshly 20-years-old and I think this next decade of my life is off to the perfect start.