Dubai

2 days in Dubai for work, with most of it in the airport, hotel and mall, left me utterly overwhelmed by wealth. The contrast between Dubai and Kathmandu is so vast that it's safe to say they are quite opposite.  Tall shiny buildings, shopping complexes bigger and more extravagant than I've seen in a long time, huge multilane freeways and nice things everywhere put me in culture shock.  

The one similarity I found was that the people in both cities don't use sidewalks (Kathmandu because they aren't there or if they are people aren't used to using them, Dubai I assume because everyone prefers driving in air conditioning to walking?).

So while I appreciated the nice hotel, Starbucks and H&M, I was also ready to head out. 

(Terrible quality, but that is snow inside of the mall when it's 100 F outside!)

A cow comes to call

Cows in the road is nothing new at this point.  Yesterday, however, we heard a mooing that sounded like it was in our yard so Tegan and I went to scope things out.  Sure enough there was a calf just behind the wall of our yard.  We watched it eat for a bit, Tegan asked it to come over and was rudely ignored, then we walked back to the gate.  As I turned to close it we saw the calf had decided to visit after all and was trying to come in.

We politely said no and closed the gate.  (And Tegan you can see is still loving the Teej bangles!)

Teej

Last year I was gifted a number of red bangles for Teej, and this weekend I brought them out for Tegan to play with as it is again Teej season.  We went out for lunch today and saw plenty of women in beautiful red saris with lots of sparkles and rhinestones.  It's an amazing sight against the muddy colors of Kathmandu.

Blog Expat interview

Find us over at BlogExpat.com From Oregon to Kathmandu today.

Summer in numbers

We've been back in Kathmandu now for 2 weeks and have gotten ourselves settled back into routines, a new house and work.  Before we get too far away from summer, we'll review summer in numbers:

8 weeks in the states
2 conferences attended
6 states visited
900 miles driven in 1 week (thanks to grandma and the use of her car!)
2 nights we both were away from Tegan
60 hours in the air flying + a lot of layover time
2 expat families met up with
8 beds slept in
3 movies in the theater (first movies since Tegan was born!)
2 doctor visits + 1 ultrasound for Allison
1 concert
2am the time Tegan thought good to wake up our first day back
5 suitcases, 1 backpacking backpack, 2 strollers, 1 carseat, 1 pack 'n' play, 3 carry ons: our luggage coming back

New Hampshire

We finished our east coast trip in New Hampshire, and like our trip 2 years ago, visited Kate and Jeff's farm as well as Jeremiah's aunt and uncle's lake house.  In contrast to the first part of our trip this was considerably slower paced, a nice way to end our time there.  And to round out our modes of transportation for the trip (plane, train, bus, subway, car, taxi, and boat) Tegan added tractor (ok, it was stationary but that didn't seem to bother her).

Feeding chickens

Helping wash purple and red radishes for farmer's market

More veggie washing

Adult and toddler food

East coast tour

A conference in DC has brought us to the east coast this summer and while we're here we're hitting up family in DC, a quick detour through New Jersey, New York and New Hampshire.  We're in New York now and today Tegan ran from display to display at FAO Schwartz saying "wooow".

Cape May, New Jersey

Sidewalks good enough for a stroller!