Turning Twenty at the Taj Mahal

I should be working on Spanish homework but... this is also worthwhile, right? Here are a few more of the many photos, with short captions. (Short because if they were longer I'd feel a bit more guilty for neglecting my homework.)

India is definitely the best place to turn twenty - here's why: our tour guide greeted in the lobby of our hotel around 6 am with a beautiful Indian pashmina (aka super amazing scarf). Then we traveled about three minutes by air-conditioned bus to the Taj Mahal to watch the sunrise. This experience really can't be described in words; the beauty of the Taj Mahal is ethereal and graceful, changing in the different hues of the early morning light. My twentieth birthday continued in its amazingness, but here are a few images from my first few hours as a twenty-year-old.

The inner walls of the Taj Mahal complex - I can't see it, yet!
But aren't the gates beautiful?

The gates of the Taj Mahal aren't lauded as much as the
mausoleum itself, but they are stunning. And so HUGE.
Those walls are definitely a forceful yet
beautiful guard for India's lovely lady.

My first glimpse of the Taj Mahal... I may have shed
a few tearsof happiness and gratitude at this point -
I really could notbelieve I was actually there,
seeing such a magnificent structure.


One of the most beautiful sunrises I've ever seen.

Kimbo, my love, & me showing some early morning lovin'.


Fact: There are actually two main domes on the Taj
Mahal - the outer dome,which you see here with the classic
Indian "onion shape," and the inner dome,which forms
the soaring and unsuported ceiling above the mausoleum.
Our amazing tour guide, Nithan, told us that between the
two domes therewould be enough room to for twenty
elephants or something crazy like that.

Fact: All of the designs and decorations on the Taj Mahal
are madeof semi-precious stones inlaid in the white marble.
The marble used for the Tajis slightly translucent, giving the
building its soft glow as the light penetrates the surface.

Fact: The Taj Mahal has a beauty all her own. Go there. You'll see.