Well, the last few weeks have been spent in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. We had one week of Peace Corps training at a hotel just outside of the city where we worked on some exercises with our Mongolian counterparts and reviewed some classes and topics relevant to our jobs and service. The training was relevant and useful for the most part and hopefully some good things will come out of it in the future working with our host country agencies.
UB has been expensive but it's a nice break from normal life. I was able to get a massage, pick up a few books, spend some quality time with other PCV's who I haven't seen since August, do a little partying and dancing, and eat some delicious, not so healthy food. Pizza, cheeseburgers, roast beef sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, chicken strips, french fries, etc. make for some great vacation meals..lol. Tomorrow for Christmas I will be getting together with some other volunteers who are still in town and also Darren and Laura Roth, a couple from Denver who are PCV's living in UB. We are going to have sort of a Christmas get together/dinner, should be good times.
Winter has arrived in Mongolia it seems. We've been having well below freezing temperatures the past few weeks. This weather combined with the smog of UB has been a great recipe for PCV's getting sick and hacking their lungs out. I have been in some pretty cold weather back in the U.S. but I think I can honestly say this is the coldest weather I've ever experienced. When you go outside you really gotta bundle up, especially when it's windy or there's even a slight breeze. January and February are supposed to bring even colder temperatures so we'll see how that goes. Photo credit for this entry goes to Leslie and Nathan Chamberlain, I stole it...haha! It's outside the hotel we stayed at for training. A little snow then but that's been the most I've seen.
Anyways, I just started reading a book called 'The Places In Between' by a Scottish writer named Rory Stewart. He walked across Afghanistan in 2002 and the book is all about his experiences during that adventure. After I started reading it I looked up a bit more information on Stewart and I have to say he is one of the more impressive and accomplished individuals I have read about.
Here's a link to an interesting article on him from 'National Geographic Adventure magazine'
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/photography/afghanistan/rory-stewart.html
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