further up and further in

Tomorrow morning we leave for the countryside, where we'll be teaching at a camp for the next couple weeks.  It's fifty miles away, and it'll take us three hours to get there by bus.  (Oh, and there'll likely be no Internet, like I mentioned before.)

Today I learned that I'll have about thirteen students in my classroom.  We begin teaching on Saturday.

In the meantime, here's the Blue Sky (on the left), one of the landmark buildings in the capital, with a Buddhist monastery in the foreground:

The money here is fun.  The currency is in tugriks.  One tugrik is rather small.  All of the bills here in the photo are worth less than $5.00 total.  I exchanged $20.00 and received about 28,000 tugriks in return (which made me feel quite rich).  Also, they apparently have no coins but only use bills.

stepping on toes

Some do's and don't's when in Mongolia:

• If you bump someone's foot, you must be sure to shake their hand and apologize.  If you don't, it means you want to fight them.
• Don't point at people with your index finger (it's a little like flipping someone off).
• Don't whistle inside a ger (yurt) or house - it's seen as a summoning of spirits.
• When handling money, use your right hand, and don't hold it between your fingers - use your whole hand.

Some interesting customs and beliefs:

• Tuesday is considered a day of bad luck - to travel, have events, do anything major.  (Examples:  An area school rescheduled its graduation date recently to avoid having it on a Tuesday.  The flea market in Ulaanbaatar is always closed on Tuesdays.)
• If you stumble over the threshold when you enter a ger (yurt), it's considered good luck.  But if you stumble when leaving, it's bad luck.
• Children don't have their hair cut until they're about three years old, and the first hair-cutting is a big ceremony and family event.
• One of Mongolia's distinctive beverages is fermented mare's milk.  I've heard a lot of colorful adjectives used to describe it.  We'll most likely try it at Naadam in a couple weeks.

like Omaha?

When the plane wheels hit the runway on Saturday, all the Mongolian passengers cheered and clapped.  I looked out the window and thought, "This looks like the Omaha airport."  Uncut prairie grass lined the runway, and beyond were treeless hills (taller and more impressive than Omaha's to be sure).

Bumpy - this is really the best word to describe the city.  It all feels like the backstreets of a bigger city, and I kept waiting to get to the city center.

This is the view from my room, which is what the city looks like all over.

But it is incredibly beautiful because in every direction you see the rugged hills close in the distance.

in the city

I'm here in the capital city, Ulan Bator.  I'll be here for a few days of training before heading out to our campsite to begin teaching.

This is from a very Soviet sort of monument place, at the top of the city:

The view from here:

The thing I like about here is pretty much every direction you look in the city, you see the mountains (hills) in the background.

things Russian (Moscow layover)

Having a layover in Moscow doesn't really count as being in Moscow, but it still feels Russian.  Even on the plane, everything was Russian - signs, announcements, attendants.  Everything seemed to be bright orange too - the attendants' uniforms and high heels, the plane seats, the sun shining on the water, the raw fish in the salad.  My flight attendant's name was Evginya and she had dark swooping bangs.

The plane was big - 10 seats across.  I was in the fortieth row, smack in the middle.  I listened to Andre Rieu on the violin and dozed.  The sun shone almost the whole night.

I've been camping out in the airport for the last few hours:

The airport has multiple TGIF's.  The waiters and waitresses are all dressed up in Uncle-Sam style uniforms of red-white-and-blue stripes.  This is the Russian depiction of American?

Lounge.  There's another across from this one entitled "Jazz business class lounge."

Winsome chocolate wrapper:

A few matryoshka dolls:

...firsts

Thursday, June 20, 7:10 p.m.:  Depart from New York to Moscow.  Layover in Moscow, arrive in Ulan Bator (the capital of Mongolia) sometime on Friday.

I'll meet my team at the airport in New York and we'll all fly over together.

Forecast for Ulan Bator:

Time in Mongolia:  13 hours later than Central.  (It's 3:21 p.m. here at the moment; it's 4:21 a.m. in Ulan Bator.)

A few things I've been told to expect:

• We'll be in a camp setting most of the time.
• The camp most likely will have electricity (yay!)
• The camp most likely will not have Internet.
• Laundry may or may not all be done by handwashing.

A few of the teaching items I've got in my suitcase:

• favorite kids' books
• construction paper
• marshmallows
• Twister

Some friends who've been to rural Mongolia before told me that it felt a little like landing on the moon.  (Cool!)

...I'm getting excited.  (understatement)

lasts...

On my last day in England I went back to Oxford to get my luggage.

I took one last walk down my favorite running path, Cuckoo Lane (where C. S. Lewis regularly walked):

The very short bridge, which I always had to duck under:

I'd never seen Oxford so springlike:

I'm glad I got to go back one last time before I flew home.  The city seemed empty and strange without all the people there that I had spent the last three months with.  It made me ready to go home.  It showed me that even though places are important, the people you are with are more important.

Being in Oxford was incredible.  I'm grateful - that I could be there, and even more that I can continue the friendships I made - even though I'm not there anymore.

Goodbye, England!