So i finally got some time to write this. How, you ask? well i'm in Virginia for a training for work and suddenly instead of having my evenings full of half chewed hot dogs, a toddler screaming "somewhere over the rainbow!!!!!", and the seething mass of laundry that is slowly taking over the house and out pacing the growing pile of dishes I get a big empty hotel room with a big empty bed and complementary internet access.
I owe you guys quite a post I realize. I ought to have pictures to include here but i left them all at home... sorry.
So first things first:
1) you're probably all wondering how sri lanka was.
It was phenomenal! or as Richard puts it "Tha best 'oliday eva'" (he's australian) (Hi Steven!). Rache and Richard planned the trip perfectly. The booked the best hotels, mapped out the perfect routes, and above all made relaxation, visiting with each other, and low maintenance the priorities of the trip. Although we did a fair bit of sight seeing, I never felt pressured to leave the hotel room, brave the horrid humidity, and sweat my way around the Buddha infested countryside (although we did do it once or twice).
Here is a brief synopsis:
We left BWI at around 6:45am and flew on a VERY tiny puddle jumper up to JFK. We flew on Emirates Air (which i highly recommend by the way. We have decided that all our international flights will from now on be with them) from JFK to Dubai. This was, by far, the longest flight (14 hrs). Esther did very well for the most part but missed a nap toward the end of the flight and had a bit of a melt down on the decent. We arrived in Dubai haggard and completely unprepared for the chaos that is the Dubai Airport. It is basically a duty free shopping mall. So in order to spare all of our nerves and my increasing nausea we splurged on a very expensive but extremely worth-it hotel. For 6 hours Esther slept, Ben and I showered, stretched, relaxed, watched Esther sleep and finally slept ourselves. Fully renewed we hoped on our final flight from Dubai to Colombo.
Rache and Richard picked us up at the airport in Colombo at around 11pm. We made the short trip north to Negumbo and stayed two nights in a hotel on the beach. Palm trees right outside of our patio. The sandy beach and raving Indian Ocean greeted us the next morning. We regrouped, waited for our lost luggage, and did a bit of shopping for entertainment.
We then drove to Kandalama. We stayed in a beautiful hotel/resort. The Kandalama Heritage Hotel was designed by a guy named Bawa with the unique intention of making you feel as much a part of the landscape as the jungle itself. One wall of the hotel room was completely glass. Vines entangled themselves into a curtain before the glorious landscape of jungle, mountains, and Kandalama lake (a man-made tank). Monkeys cavorted everywhere. The hung around on the patio being lewd and sometimes cute. A team of them stole Esther juice from the pool patio while our backs were turned. From Kandalama we explored Sigiriya, a rock butte covered in ancient ruins, and Polonnaruwa, once a great city. We spent three more nights in this paradise stuffing ourselves stupid at all three of their splendid daily buffets, lounging around in one of their three pools, and soaking in the in-room Jacuzzi.
From here Richard drove us up to the Knuckles mountain range where we stayed in a beautiful bed and breakfast style bungalow nestled among the tea plantations.
I would like to pause here to draw attention to Richard’s magnificent skills as a motorist. The traffic in Sri Lanka makes the Chaos of the Dubai Airport (or for those of you who haven’t experienced the Dubai Airport, the chaos of Christmas shopping at FAO Schwartz) look like just another walk in the park. He yawned in the face of the constantly swerving tuk-tuks, the giant marauding buses, the rampaging elephants, and the potholes that could only be made by science fiction-sized meteor showers. Richard, we owe you our lives.
In the mountains we enjoyed a nice reprieve from the craziness of sight seeing. We swam in the beautiful pool, walked amongst the fields of tea bushes, allowed ourselves to be catered to by the in-house cook and lazed around enjoying the cooler weather. We made one day trip into Kandy where we shopped, ate, and interacted with the culture (which really just made me feel whiter than I’ve ever felt before, and this from a girl who grew up thinking her name was “gringa” until she was three).
By way of the Elephant Orphanage we left the Knuckles mountain range and came full circle to Colombo. The Elephant Orphanage was wonderful. We met the elephants down by the river and watched them frolic. Esther and I attempted to commune with a mama and baby and then the rest of the time we all spent turns attempting to keep Esther from diving head first into the heard of elephants and trying to ride them around town.
Back in Colombo we enjoyed the hospitality of a friend of Rache and Richard’s. We also did a bit more shopping and a lot more eating. After two nights there we found ourselves back on the various flights bound for the U.S. The flights home were relatively uneventful. We had a menacing 11 hour lay over in Dubai which we attempted to wait out in a lounge but found hard to do and were a bit insane by the end (especially Esther).
All this said, this doesn’t even begin to describe the experience itself. The people there are so kind and friendly (minus the touts whom I found to be extremely annoying, persistent and in one particular case murderously irritating). The landscape is so unique as to be exquisite. I still cannot fully believe that just a week and a half ago we were there. Surrounded by Buddhas, saris, temples, crowded streets, insane traffic, jungles, elephants.
And here we are back again… hardly believing our own memories and trying hard to re-assimilate to our own culture unsure of just how much we really want to be home.
Second things Second:
We're pregnant again. We are due January 4th-ish. We're excited and nervous and have begun the Oh-SO-necessary addition onto the back of the house. I'm looking forward to and day dreaming about how this will make our lives easier. I am kinda hoping for another girl but everyone is telling that it's going to be a boy. So far i've been extremely nauseas. But it's slowly subsiding. I have gained a little over 5 lbs so far which is fair bit more than i had gained with Esther this far along... I'm also beginning to look pregnant to myself, though not really to others. I have a buddha belly which i suppose is appropriate considering where we just were. Esther doesn't understand the baby in momma's belly concept yet. But we're introducing it to her slowly.
And Thirdly:
The Esther update. She is amazing. She weathered international traveling like she was born to it. She was pleasant and curious and sociable almost the whole time. We took her everywhere with us and aside from her nap times being screwy she loved it all and took it in more than i think any of us adults did.
She speaks in full sentences and to my surprise is thinking critically. She sings constantly and her three favorite things are digging holes in the yard with soup spoons, looking at bugs (and then coming running and yelling when it lands on her), and watching the Wizard of Oz (which she is totally obsessed with and can practically quote from start to finish). She will turn two just a few months before #2 is born and it will be interesting to see how she grows and changes from now until then...
So i hope that you find your way through all this text. I know that walls of solid text are boring for some and it's a little time consuming and tiring to read so much on a computer screen but hopefully you at least browsed and go the jist. All in all: we're well, we're busy, we're expecting, and we're loving and missing all of you!
