Sinterklaas, Spaghetti Carbonara, and a Girl Named Arielle

I need to give this its own entry because it deserves it.

First thing in the morning, before anything else happened: Jo and Arielle. There they were. I was, let’s say, quite pleased about this development.

Pat went off to get a haircut (priorities) and I sat down with the girls over tea and we just talked. Made a dinner plan for that evening. The day now had a point.

In the meantime: shopping. I needed better trekking pants (bargained them down to 600 rupees, which felt like a personal victory of moderate significance). I needed a shirt for my friend John, which in a country where the average build is considerably smaller than John’s proved to be a genuine archaeological dig. I eventually found one. I don’t know how. I’m choosing to believe the universe wanted John to have a shirt.

Dinner: the girls picked a place called Fewa Park, an outdoor cultural spot by the lake. I ordered the spaghetti carbonara on Jo’s recommendation. Jo’s recommendation was wrong. I say this with love — Jo is a wonderful human being who cannot be trusted to recommend carbonara in Nepal. Arielle wasn’t very hungry, so she gave me half her sweet and sour chicken, which was the best thing on the table. We ordered every apple dessert they had. They all failed us.

The food was a disaster. The company was not.

We got kicked out at 10:30 (apparently Fewa Park has opinions about this) and moved on to the Hard Rock. I twisted my ankle on the way back from the bathroom. The beer helped. There was a man on the dance floor doing things I cannot describe in print but which Arielle and I found endlessly funny. The band quit and we moved downstairs.

This is where things shifted gears.

Arielle and I ended up off in a corner, just talking. Really talking. She told me about her father dying and what her family means to her. I told her about my mom and my grandma and my brother. Pat was somewhere nearby getting cockblocked by a grey-haired Australian, which — honestly, in that moment — I cannot say I was focused on.

Eventually we walked back. Outside her hotel, the Hotel Glacier, we stood there and talked until 2AM. Pat left. And then — yeah.

Here’s the thing. She watches Monty Python. She likes to hike. She traveled to Nepal on her own terms. She’s from Holland, she’s heading to Burma and New Zealand, and she laughed at the same things I laughed at all night. I’m aware that I’m a grown man who has known this person for a total of — let’s be generous — four days across two countries. I’m also aware that I am, embarrassingly, completely falling for her. I own this. I report it without editing.

I jumped the fence to get back into my guesthouse at 4AM (the gate was locked, I made choices) and lay in bed thinking about Dutch holidays.

Because: Sinterklaas. December 5th. The Dutch Santa Claus — lives in Spain, rides a white horse across the rooftops, kids leave shoes by the door instead of stockings by the fireplace. Arielle had told me all about it.

So the next morning I woke up, bought Snickers bars and Mars bars, and dropped them off at her hotel before she woke up. Because apparently I am twelve years old and also possibly in a movie.

We had breakfast. Things were a little awkward the way things are when something real happened the night before and now it’s daylight. She held my hand for a bit. That counted for something.

The goodbye was hard. She’s got six months of world left to cover. I’m going home to Michigan. Amsterdam is a long weekend away — not impossible. Burma is very impossible. When I asked if I’d ever see her again, I got: perhaps.

Noncommittal. And what can I expect? She’s being honest. It’s the right answer and I hate it.

Kazi was standing right there at the actual goodbye, which — Kazi, I love you man, but you screwed the pooch.