Let the adventures begin!

Hi everybody!

As Jihelah has already covered the important stuff (our incredibly vague itinerary), I'll just start off with a brief self-introduction.

I'm Megan! I'm 17, just graduated from high school, and am unbelievably excited to be spending my first year outside of the classroom since I can remember! (Post-travels I will be attending Midlebury College, which I am also incredibly excited about).

I was born in San Francisco, but did most of my growing up in Boise before  moving to Hood River for high school. I live with my two excellent parents (both of whom will be joining Jihelah and I for various segments of our travels, In the Himalayas and Burma respectively), and have two older sisters, Marie and Kathrin (both of whom just completed their own adventures in SE Asia. Actually, that is a lie: Kathrin is still mid-adventure. She is currently in Laos, and is heading to India shortly!) Marie just started medical school at UCSF, and Kathrin is pondering law school. Some people are appalling overachievers; both of my sisters fall into this category. They are also huge badasses.

I spent most of my childhood hanging out with my family, skiing a huge amount, hiking, rafting, kayaking, and just generally doing excellent things in the outdoors. I spent most of high school hanging out with my friends, skiing a huge amount, hiking, rafting, kayaking, and (occasionally) doing school work. And actually, growing up outside is a huge part of why I want to go to Nepal, and even why I wanted to take a gap year in the first place; there are a lot of really incredible adventures to be had, and only a few more years to freely adventure! (After that I'm hoping that I'll have a very well paying and comfortable job. With a lot of vacation time, of course, so the travels (of a tamer and more planned variety) can continue.) Also, spending a tremendous amount of money going to school without any idea of what I want to study seemed like a bad idea to me. Hopefully I'll figure that out sometime soon! A year of aimless and wild traveling will help, I'm sure..

In less than 4 hours I'll be at the Portland airport, waiting (with an UNBELIEVABLY huge pack and a very open/ incredibly excited mind) for the first of our adventures to begin! (Actually, Jihelah's adventures have already begun. She is living it up in Japan as we speak.. Well, as I type...)

Thanks a million to everybody who gave me traveling advice (this basically includes everybody that I've spoken to in the last 3 months), told me exciting and terrifying stories, and lent me their gear (especially Marie. Because of your mosquito net, I will most likely not get Malaria, which I am tremendously grateful for.) I will miss you all an enormous amount, and look forward to hearing about how all of your lives are going. (So e-mail me!)

I'll post again the next time I have internet connection (which should be pretty soon after I arrive in Kathmandu!)

Until then, I will say only what a very wise man (Jeff Wilhelm) once said to me (approximately 10 million times. Actually, he still says it to me. It is basically appropriate for all circumstances, so really his constant use of it is quite reasonable): WOO-HOO!!