Love at First Sight

My alarm went off at 4:30am and I crawled out of bed to meet our group at 5:00am for our excursion departure. There wasn't a tired eye on our bus as we drove to our destination: one of the 7 wonders of the world. The sun was still tucked away on the edge of the earth as we walked down the pathway from our bus. One of the first times thus far I have been out in this country and have not sweated my body weight. The anticipation was building as we walked along the path and our tour guide Madan pointed out to our left the top of a beautiful structure. I gazed through the archway of the entrance and there before my eyes was the perfect, the beautiful, the one and only: the Taj Mahal. As we stood there and listed to Madan telling the story of how and why the Taj was built, the sun started rising and the color of the marble starting to change even in those few minutes.

21 years over 20,000 men. My ears perked up and I smiled as I heard him tell the story that the Taj was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. It was one of her last requests from him before she passed away. Talk about an incredible gift for a girl; raises the bar for men and gift giving. There was a great advertisement from the Incredible India campaign that summed the experience up perfectly with an aerial photograph of the Taj Mahal and the text, "And to think these days men get away with giving flowers and chocolates to their wives."

Taj Mahal literally translates to "crown building," and I could see that the word crown is the perfect word for this building as I walked around ever angle of this site. I walked around Taj for about an hour and a half and the only word I could mutter was, "Wow," over and over again. I was dumbfounded by how beautiful the Taj was. Situated on the Ganghes river and later that day seeing the building from another site, the Red Fort, made its beauty even more breathtaking. There was so much detail that went into making the structure: the detailed marble work, the Arab inscriptions on the walls, the four pillars that surround the building that are built at an angle to be a last minute structural protection from the Taj in case there is an earth quake. Beautiful architecture makes my heart flutter. It didn't stop fluttering the entire time I gazed at the white marble structure in front of me. Visiting the Taj Mahal was definitely one of the most incredible buildings I have even seen in this world and I will forever cherish the memory and beauty of today. I continue to be amazed and humbled by so many incredible things in this world.