Namche

Today was really mellow. This morning I had a sherpa pancake and a masala omelet for breakfast and then left Tengboche with Min and Pemba. The weather wasn't that great for views, but I'm so happy with what I've seen already that I really don't even care. I hiked for four hours today along the familiar trail back to Namche Bazaar. As I walked I passed by several waterfalls on the other end of the canyon that are each hundreds of feet tall. Any one of those waterfalls could be an incredible natural wonder anywhere else in the world, but there are so many of them in the Khumbu region and so much else to see that it's as if nobody even notices that they're there.
I checked into the Hotel Everest in Namche, had a spaghetti lunch, and then spent about five hours talking to a Dutch traveler named Antoine. Antoine is about my age and is in Nepal as part of a year-long trip around the world. He already has spent six months in South America, and after Nepal he'll continue on to India and then to Africa. Whenever I meet people like Antoine I'm embarrassed to say that I'm only traveling for a few months. I'm happy with what I've got planned and I'm excited to see everything, but it will be really rushed compared to his schedule. It would be nice to have twelve months just to hang around in a few different countries and really get to know the places, but I don't think that's really in the cards for me. I guess I could make it a priority and make it happen if I really wanted to, but I'm not so sure that I would enjoy being away for an entire year.

Antoine and I talked a lot about professional sports in Europe and in America. Antoine played soccer in a small league in the Netherlands so he was naturally interested in learning everything about professional sports in the United States. It was interesting to talk with him and learn all the differences between sports leagues in Europe and in the US. In Europe, soccer, of course, is the major spectator sport. In each country there are several leagues, each of which is a level above the one below it. At the end of a season the worst team in each league can drop to the league below it, and the best team can rise one league higher. The very top leagues consist almost exclusively of big market teams that draw hundreds of thousands of fans, sponsors that will pay millions of dollars, and the best players looking for the most competitive clubs.

I told Antoine all about sports franchising in the United States, major and minor league baseball, the NBA draft, salary caps, and players unions. All of those concepts are completely different from the way professional sports operates in Europe. In both Europe and the United States sports is a business. The main difference seems to be that in Europe each club is an independent entity while in the US the clubs are collectively part of a larger enterprise. Also, in Europe players have more flexibility when it comes to deciding which club they will play for. In the US that is largely governed by regulations imposed by a player's respective league.

It felt good just to relax today. I really didn't see a whole lot besides the trail between Tengboche and Namche, but it still felt worthwhile just to unwind. I'm really happy with the way the whole Base Camp trek has worked out. I've had a really good time and I've seen a lot of awesome scenery. I feel like I can take the next few days just to relax and think it all over.