My Year in Review: 2023

First, I’d like to take a moment to apologize for my website temporarily crashing and sending random posts with nothing in it to my email list. Every once in a while, I need to do a major update, and this one didn’t go so well. So, thank you for bearing with me!

Every January I write an overview of my previous year. It’s something I like to look back on to see how far I’ve come or how much has changed. It’s also something fun for my family to read. Plus, it’s a little more personal than the usual guides and informative posts I tend to publish. I’m a bit delayed on this year’s recap because most of this year wasn’t travel related and maybe it’s a little strange to post this on a travel blog, but here we are.

“You can’t go home again”

The year started in the United States. Suraj and I visited at the end of 2022, and it was his first time to the U.S.! It was also my first time back in New York City since…2019? 2018 maybe? Wow, I don’t even know the last time I was back.

My family left New York and moved to South Carolina while I was living abroad, so going home doesn’t always feel like going home. Now going home means seeing my family rather than the house or area I grew up in. I don’t have childhood memories of South Carolina, and I’ve only lived there a few months at a time when visiting family.

So visiting New York was extremely exciting. Going back and showing Suraj all my favorite places from my memories was amazing. We visited FIT (my college), Rosa’s (my dad’s favorite pizzeria), and my favorite tourist attractions around the city, which we later found out were a bit abstract. When we returned to Nepal, everyone asked Suraj if he saw the standard list of tourist attractions and as they ran down the list he just kept saying no, no, no, to the point where I began to wonder what I had shown him. Don’t worry, he got an insider local tour of New York City that you can’t find in the guidebooks.

We also got to visit my uncles, which was another big childhood memory for me. We didn’t visit my hometown, but my uncles live just an hour from there, so we got to experience a similar vibe as where I grew up. Since we got married just before the airports closed in 2020, Suraj hadn’t met many of my family members, so this was exciting. Luckily, he got their approval, and I think they may even like him more than me.

“The dog days of summer”

This year had a lot of dogs. Like a lot. We started with a foster named Temple. Temple may have been one of the most difficult fosters we’ve ever had. He wasn’t difficult in the obvious ways. The poor little guy lost all his zeal for life and would barely move around the house. After many many visits to the vet, we realized he was suffering from something serious. He was lonely.

This is the first time we’ve ever had a dog who didn’t absolutely love us with every cell in its body. My ego was bruised, and I took this kind of personally. His loneliness developed into a terrible case of Destroy-The-House disease which meant he could never be left home alone. This meant that I could rarely leave the house which then made me depressed and lonely. So, we sat together looking like two Eeyore’s from Winnie the Pooh.

Eventually, we found another foster who had dogs. He went to their house and it was as if someone had given him a shot of adrenaline. The sad depressed dog who moped around the house and refused to get out of bed was running and jumping and playing to his heart’s content. It was hard not to take it personally, but Temple wasn’t man’s best friend; he was dogs best friend, and that’s ok.

After that experience, we thought we’d never foster again and decided to turn our efforts to helping at the local dog shelter, Community Dog Welfare Centre. Every Saturday we went and volunteered. We helped get a few dogs adopted. We helped raise some money. But mostly, we helped raise awareness through videos showcasing each dog’s story. It’s been a lot of fun and has become my weekly therapy.

Follow them on TIKTOK and INSTAGRAM.

“Feline frenzy”

Besides the dogs, we were adopted by another cat. Yes, I said we were adopted. Every once in a while, a cat shows up at our doorstep, and if they are smart they just don’t leave. And that is what happened with Scrappy. He showed up. And then he sat there. And he waited. And waited.

He was gross and sick and definitely contagious but he didn’t give in. He patiently waited and we took him to the vet. Sadly, we’d taken another cat to a rescue center earlier, but it didn’t survive because of a cat virus going around. We wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, so we took him straight to the vet.

After a lot of treatment and a month in quarantine in a kennel outside our front door, Scrappy was finally allowed to go free. But the smarty that he is, he realized he had food and someone who pet him, so he kept coming back. It turned out Scrappy is probably the sweetest most loving cat you can imagine and so we became very fond of him. After Temple left, Scrappy was allowed inside and he’s now a part of our family. We’ve now been adopted by two street cats in Nepal.

“If at first you don’t succeed”

A year ago, we attempted to do the Panchase Trek which is a short three-day trek around Phewa Lake in Pokhara. Unfortunately, we were bombarded by leeches. We each had at least 50 on our clothing, and they were even inching their way up our trekking poles trying to get to our exposed hands. It was a nightmare. Like a literal nightmare. We quit after one day and everyone else attempting the trek turned around with us.

So here we were a year later trying again. What a difference a month after monsoon can make! The trek was absolutely stunning. It was by far my favorite low altitude trek in Nepal, and it was surprisingly off-the-beaten-path considering how close it was to a major city. It was also extremely nice to take a vacation in Pokhara. We normally pop in and out in between long treks or while I’m doing blog research, but this time we just relaxed. It was exactly what we needed.

This year was a year of incredible friendship. In the past, I’ve had one or two good friends in Kathmandu, but a lot of times our schedules didn’t align and we wouldn’t be here at the same time. That made some months lonely. This year, I joked that the world might have delivered too much when I asked for more friends.

I’m so happy to say that I’ve formed some incredible bonds with amazing people this year. Living in a foreign country can be difficult because locals don’t always understand your random struggles and foreigners usually don’t stay for very long which makes it hard to form lasting bonds.

I have a joke with my friends here that you have your “friends who you would be friends with back home.” Meaning that even if you were in your home country, you’d still be friends with these people. They aren’t just your friends because they are the only ones nearby. Sounds silly, but people living abroad know what I mean. This is the first time I feel like I have friends like I did back in New York City. A circle of people I love and admire, whom I can laugh really hard with and just be unapologetically myself. It’s been such a gift and I’m so grateful.

I’m realizing now that I have literally no photos with half of my friends. My 2024 New Year’s resolution is to take more photos with friends!

“No excuses, play like a champion.”

Over the last three years, I’ve attended more Nepali weddings than I could possibly count. But this year was unique because for the first time since our wedding, we got to help plan a wedding. Our Nepali cousin who lives in the United States was coming to Nepal to get married. Not only was it our first time significantly helping with a wedding, but it also felt like the first time I knew what to do. That might sound silly, but I grew up in a Catholic family. I’m more of a Buddhist these days, but I can assure you a few years ago I had no idea how to perform a Hindu ritual.

There is something extremely satisfying about pretending to understand something for three years and one day actually understanding it. Now, I’m no expert. Don’t get me wrong. Hindu weddings are extremely tedious with a million little steps that even Hindus don’t always understand. But, I understand enough to be helpful now.

Being able to attend a wedding with my husband, make small talk to all the people attending, know when to step in and help and when to stand out of the way, and having multiple people compliment you on “adapting to their culture so well” felt like accomplishing a long-term goal I didn’t even know I was working towards. I usually feel awkward and out of place. I never know what’s going on or where I should be. But mostly, I always feel like an outsider looking in.

This might be the first time since marriage that I felt like I not only belonged, but I might have even blended in. And for the first time I didn’t stand out because I didn’t fit it. I stood out because I felt like I could be myself, and let me tell you, Suraj and I were the life of the party. I’ve never danced so much at a wedding reception as I did at this one. And it felt great!

“At Christmas, all roads lead home.”

Speaking of fitting in enough to stand out… This was also our first Christmas in Nepal. Wait, that’s not true. We were here for covid and we planned a party and then we both got sick and had to spend Christmas in quarantine. But this was our first real Christmas where we celebrated in Nepal.

I was so excited to share a little bit of my culture with my Nepali family and friends. We hosted a proper Christmas dinner. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m going to because to this day I am still super impressed with myself. I made a Christmas dinner for 24 people (TWENTY FOUR!) with a two burner stove top and a toaster oven. And it came out damn good! When I told my sister, who went to culinary school, she said “It sounds like a Food Network challenge.” I can assure you, it felt like one too.

I made our home look like a winter wonderland with snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. We listened to Christmas music and ate tons of food. We even played white elephant as a gift exchange. It was so fun to share a little bit of my customs with everyone after years of everyone teaching me about theirs. It’s also been fun to have family over and cook western food for everyone. Being able to embrace who I am, share my own culture, and have everyone else embrace it was wonderful for me and brought me so much joy.

Michelle Della Giovanna

Writer at Full Time Explorer

I’m just your average New Yorker who quit her job in the fashion industry to explore the world. Come find out what it’s like to trade in five-inch heels for squat toilets.