Hi, and welcome to my double moving party. I used to have a column in Arts, but I obviously wore down someone enough to let me move, and here I am, in my new swankified space.

It’s a double moving party, because instead of sitting in Libe Café peering over your shoulder, I am sitting on a rooftop in pitch-black night in Kathmandu, praying for my uber-elusive internet connection to work and trying to drown out the mooing cow who is obviously not a fan of my playlist.

My trip began in the flight lounge in Bahrain, where I quickly realized that out of 400 passengers, I had the fortune of being one of three women. I’m not entirely sure how to share what it feels like to raise your head and see a literal sea of young male Nepali faces staring up at you. Needless to say, my gut reaction was to wrap my decorative scarf around my modestly-covered upper body and envy passing women wearing bhurkas, which is a type of envy I never, ever thought I would experience. Those 800-plus pairs of eyes stared at me for the entirety of the four hour flight, but if you were a Nepali migrant worker returning to his home country for the first time in years, you’d probably stare at the white giantess, too. Trust me: You don’t know what that kind of attention feels like, and you never want to.

That wasn’t the only uncomfortable moment I had so far, nor cultural faux paus I’ve made.

I have accidentally yet inevitably inhaled about three years worth of burning garbage and pollution, and exhaled three years of my life. Misconception number one: Kathmandu, as the capital city of a country on the almost tip-top of the world, would be a clean, garbage free paradise. That may have been true about 10 years ago, but these days, you probably take in more carcinogens here from the air than a three-pack-a-day smoker. It probably has something to do with largely conscious-free trekkers (environmentally and otherwise), a population that has doubled in size, the usual problems that a third world/developing/whatever-the-PC-kids-are-calling-it-nowadays country has with garbage, and something funky about the Himalayas blocking Kathmandu Valley, which has created a massive pollution dome. What the hazy state of Kathmandu says about American anti-smoking paternalism, I can’t quite say.

I’m paranoid that at some point I will potentially reveal a shoulder and impress upon all of Nepal that I am a wanton harlot (showing a woman’s shoulders, knees or too much skin is a cultural taboo here), but more on that later. At orientation, we learned that feet are also offensive — something I appreciate, given an intense, illogical foot phobia I’ve had since I was a kid. However, we learned that this extends to stepping over people’s stuff … at which point, one of my program-mates shared a look with me, as we remembered everything and everyone we unknowingly leapt across at the Kathmandu airport madhouse. It was great to learn after the fact that not only have I further established Americans as crude, couth and insensitive, but I offended people, their luggage and gods, besides. So far, I think I haven’t offended Buddha, but it’s only Friday.

But shoving aside sarcasm, pollution, near death experiences (because with no lanes, roads are basically a free-for-all for cars, buses, motorcycles, pedestrians and the occasional chicken), the pipe-dream that Internet and electricity have become, and the fact that I can’t remember what my offensive shoulders look like, Kathmandu has been terrific.

At this moment, for me to describe what I have seen, or who I’ve met or what I’ve heard will sound like pure hyperbole (not to mention over-romantic to the point of being overwrought). People are nice, nicer than foreigners ever are to Americans, and nicer than we are to foreigners. The streets and dirt roads are filled with people, animals, freaking pigeons, motorcycles, temples upon temples and little kids chasing after you asking for sweets. At about 4,000 feet above sea level, I am freakishly close to the stars … and to the passing planes. Along with that still-mooing cow, goats and dogs graze below my window, and what I think are the Himalayas stand a little beyond that in the foggy distance.

It’s breathtaking.

Details will come later, as well as opinions, because I am full of those, and because the line between cultural relativism and cultural chauvinism disguised as concern is a lot thinner than you might think.

Until then, namaste, sati.