Christmas Eve (Or Friends for a Day)

For the past 28 Christmas Eves (this being my 29th) I have gone over to my Grandparents (Mom's side). I'm sure there have been a few years we were not there, but as far as I can remember we've been there. This year, however, I will not be there. My family will still get together, have dinner, and then open presents. My grandma and grandpa give all of us cousins gifts and then we do a White Elephant gift, or something of the sort.
For me, this year was something entirely different. And I can honestly say, it was the most nontraditional Christmas Eve I have ever had and probably will ever have. I spent my Christmas Eve visiting Hindu and Buddhist temples with a brother and sister from Czech Republic (Kristina and Michael) and Subina, a member of the family I am staying with.



We visited Durbar Square (Royal Square) in Patan (the actual city where I live). I wasn't able to thoroughly see everything here, and I definitely plan to visit again and get some more pictures. Some of the temples and stupas are centuries old. Before Nepal was unified, Patan was the original city in the Kathmandu valley. The Newari were the original people in the valley, and all of the temples and stupas here were built by them.





After our visit I said goodbye to the siblings and headed to church for the Christmas Eve service. Its amazing I can spend the day with two complete strangers and then most likely will never see again. Sure, we exchanged email addresses, and I hope to keep in touch, but I will probably never actually see them again. Yet I spent my entire day with them, learned about them, who they are, and what they do (and what are they chances that they were landscape architects in Czech Republic???). And tomorrow at 630 am they will be on a bus on their way out of Kathmandu and out of my life. Just something to think about.
So off to church for the service. Up until this point it had not felt like Christmas. Its hard to get in the Holiday spirit when you live in a Hindu country. But as I was walking to the service, the sidewalk leading to the door was lined with candles. Suddenly a little boy with an English accent ran by and excitedly said, "Follow the candles, everyone! Follow the candles!" If that doesn't throw you into a Dickens Christmas, I don't know what will.
After the service, I went back to Stan and Rhonda's (who I spent Thanksgiving with) for some cookies and hot chocolate! I haven't had hot chocolate since I've been here and it has never tasted so good. And to top it off...Stan said, "We should teach Paul how to play Nerts." Teach me? No, no my friends. Let me school you in Nerts.