Last Day

Today was our last day of "classes" at school. Essentially, we just had three periods this morning (where most of the teachers showed movies) and then we went off to our class parties. We took our advisor group out to the bazaar for lunch at a local Tibetan/Chinese/Thai restaurant. The first stop, though, was Baskin-Robbins where all the kids got an ice cream cone.

We were debating whether to eat the ice cream there, or risk the monkeys and walk to the local Ferris wheel. We decided to take the risk, and were rewarded with a monkey-free walk. The Ferris wheel in Mussoorie is a little bit scary. First of all, it is human-powered. Below, you can see one of the workers walking up the wheel to get it going.


We all made it safely off the Ferris wheel and started walking over the Kalsang's for lunch. On the way we stopped for a nice group picture across the valley overlooking Dehradun.

We took another group shot at the table. This was before the momos, shaptak, tingmo, etc. arrived. Everyone had a great time.

On the walk back to school, we saw another great opportunity for a group photo. This time, we were looking the other way off into the Himalayas.

It is hard to believe that the first semester is over. Tomorrow morning, we have a quick assembly and then the students will all be off to their Delhi. This is something we call "going down day" because most of the students are heading down the hill towards the capital where they will catch their planes to their final destination. The teachers have a few days of meetings left, but we will be "going down" on Saturday so that we can catch our flight to O'Hare on Sunday morning. We are looking forward to seeing friends and family again...and to having a break from things here for a few weeks.

Dave and Beth