Big Dream Come True

The Taj Mahal
I can remember watching Anne of Green Gables as a child, when the mean principal tells Anne, "I want to know, not just believe that the world is round. I want to see things like the Taj Mahal, things I've only seen in pictures."
I can remember seeing my own pictures of the Taj Mahal and thinking about how exotic and unreal this place was. Well, today I made it, and even up close it has an incredible surreal quality. The marble reflects the light is such a way that it seems like you could just wave your hand right through the blocks. We had to put on shoe covers made of white gauze to walk inside the mausoleum, and it felt like walking on clouds through a hologram. Like the whole picture could have been made of sugar, and one douse of water would cause it all to disolve.
We walked into the center of the building, and the wind was blowing through the sandstone screens, it was dark and in the center is the grave of Mumtaz, with just one lamp above it - Indescribable. I wanted to just soak in this long awaited experience, but my lovely Indian guide decided to start hollering, HOOO, just to show off the echo. He said, "look - no microphone!" Well of course not you idiot. Why would you need a microphone next to a grave!
I learned that the Taj was built for Mumtaz, the wife of Shah Jahan , who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. As she was dying, Shah Jahan asked her how he could prove to the world just how much he loved her. She said, the king will not marry again, he will love all my children equally, and he will build a beautiful monument in my honor - and thus we have the Taj Mahal. He went into hiding to mourn Mumtaz, and after a few months he sent letters all over the world requesting plans for this mosoleum that was to be built, and many options were sent. It was one from an Iranian architect that was selected. Twenty years and $70 million dollars later.
Dream come true.