Jenn A. asked the mailbag, “What did you guys do for Christmas?” We actually didn’t film anything (didn’t want to “work” on a holiday), but here’s what we were up to:

We decided to spend Christmas in Kathmandu because of its very touristy neighborhood, Thamel. So most restaurants, shops, and hotels were all decked out for Christmas, which helped us get into the seasonal spirit. Plus my very kind parents gave us a gift of a few nights in the 4 star Malla Hotel, where we planned to veg out in comfort.

For Christmas Eve, we reserved a table at a restaurant in town which had a buffet featuring turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies, banana bread, and pumpkin pie. It was delicious! We felt really bad for the place, though, because there was a reservation for 25 people that never showed up. We watched the big empty table and the increasingly-worried staff all night. It was pretty sad. We wondered what they would do with all of that extra food since there were less than half of the expected guests.

On Christmas morning, I awoke with a surprise! Not a good one, though. Turned out something in that delicious food the night before got me pretty badly. Kevin wasn’t feeling too great, but it hit me much more than him. It’s strange how sometimes one of us gets ill and the other one doesn’t when we eat the same stuff. Anyway, I guess those 25 no-shows at the restaurant lucked out. But we always said if we got sick the best place to recover would be in a nice hotel. We opened a thoughtful care package from Steve and Amie (thanks guys!), and watched some movies and Christmas-oriented TV as I tried to feel better by dinnertime. I thought I did feel better, but after walking to the restaurant I felt pretty rough. I told the restaurant I couldn’t eat the big set meal, but tried to hang out with Kev as he had his. It was too tough, so I caught a rickshaw back to the hotel to take it easy while Kev paid the bill and got in touch with our families to say Merry Christmas.

Luckily the next day I was OK and we lived it up in style before moving back to harder mattresses and no TV. Hope all those BTB fans out there had a fantastic holiday!