We bid adieu to Uttarakhand today - to its natural beauty, the monkeys, and the food that was primarily focused on potatoes and Maggi. For those of you not from India - Maggi mostly refers to an instant Ramen noodle pack with a unique Indian twist. Almost every restaurant in Uttarakhand served Maggi even when other food wasn't available. Mama finally asked someone why that was the case yesterday. Turns out they do not get a lot of people in some of these areas so the restaurants rarely have prepared food. Tourists are often impatient and want quick food so they stock up on Maggi since it takes just a few minutes to prepare and serve. The drive to Delhi was long (took us about 10 hours) despite spending some time practicing duolingo spanish. Be warned that the rest of this post is going to be random emotional ramblings. As we crawled behind buffalo drawn carts and slow bicycles, we passed by Rampur. This brought a smile to my face. Here's the convoluted story of why. I used to be a Bollywood junkie. Every Hindi movie that came out, I used to watch. I'm a pro at antakshari and know a lot of songs you may have never heard of. I met my match in Harneet. So when we got married a few years ago, we told our DJ that we would like a combination of English and Hindi songs. We made the mistake of not picking a specific song for our reception entrance. So we almost burst out laughing when we heard the song "ABCD" from Hum Saath Saath Hain as we made our grand entrance. It isn't a great movie, trust me, and the song is real cheesy. A joint family travels through Rampur while singing this song. So the combination of a long drive made my distracted mind go Rampur -> Hum Saath Saath Hain -> ABCD -> laughing at our wedding, and so I smiled. By the way, congratulations on staying tuned through my weird story. We finally made it to Delhi and were greeted by my in-laws. I'm super lucky to not only have amazing parents but also really great in-laws. They were so excited to see me and had a giant spread laid out for us (pav bhaji, chhole, saag, chicken curry, kulche and shikanji). Sorry I didn't think to take a picture of the food. And then came the dreaded moment. The time to say a tearful goodbye to my parents. No matter how often I do it, it's always so hard. It's a little unfair that they gave up so much to get us to where we are and we are now doing well, but so far away from them. I'm going to miss them terribly 😭 and always feel their presence close to me even when they are far. I know that no matter how old I get, I will always be their little girl. Changing topics before I start crying in a blog post, tomorrow I head out on another trip with the in-laws 😀. Tune in to hear more in my next post.