America = craziness

Too much of everything. I almost don't know what to do. Pennysylvania and New York were a lot of fun, in Colorado now....pics from UB and the U.S. to come soon.

Surviving Ulaanbaatar/Erdenet Chaos

Long time since I wrote an update. I came to Ulaanbaatar last week and have been enjoying the big city life, spent a few days up north in Erdenet (Mongolia's 2nd or 3rd largest city depending on who you talk to), and now back in Ulaanbaatar. I fly out to the U.S. on Tuesday. Really looking forward to seeing my friends and family. Nothing new to report for now. New pics coming soon.

Last classes before my vacation

I put up all the pictures from this weekend in my new flickr photo album but the above pics are from the picnic.

Well this was my last week of work and classes before my vacation. I met with most of my students this week and we reviewed some of the lessons from the past few months and talked about what we'll be doing starting in August. I went over what I wanted my students to study and work on while I'm gone, talked about the planning and costs that the children's center needs to figure out while I'm gone, and spent time with friends.

On Saturday Laura and I took my sixth grade students on a picnic. We played soccer, football, threw a frisbee around, played a few other games and ate spaghetti and grilled cheese sandwiches. The weather was really nice and we all had a really fun time. That was the last time I will see my students and friends until late July. Tomorrow afternoon Laura and I are taking the bus to Ulaanbaatar, where we'll spend time with friends, discuss a few grant details with the Peace Corps, greet the new group of volunteers (M20's, Mongolia's 20th group of Peace Corps volunteers since the program started here) and get read to head to the United States for vacation. Laura is leaving on the 16th I believe for a couple weeks in Florida and I leave on the 23rd for my trip. I'm flying into NYC, going to my close friends Andy and Debbies' wedding in Pennyslvania, flying to Colorado for just under two weeks, flying back out to Penn to spend some time with the my mom's side of the family, and then flying back to Ulaanbaatar. I've been in Mongolia for just over a year now and I'm pretty excited about coming home to visit family and friends and of course enjoy some delicious, unhealthy American cuisine.

Flickr

I've created an account with Flickr and I will start uploading new pictures on there and have the link up on my blog, along with the occasional slide show for people who like to view pictures that way. Here's the first set of pics that I took on a hike this past week. There's not many pictures up so far but I'll start getting more pics up soon. Check it out.



Also, here's the link to my Flickr photo albums.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattbeckeradventures/

Mother's and Children's Day

In Mongolia, June 1st is 'Mother's and Children's Day', a day to celebrate and show appreciation for mothers and children all across the country. In Olgii they had a big ceremony in the main square which consisted of a bunch of speeches, award presentations, and musical and dance performances. The weather was perfect today, probably around 80 degrees, a light breeze and barely a cloud in the sky. There were some vendors set up all around the square selling food, snacks, and all sorts of other things. I took a lot of pictures of the dancing and the ceremony, which I just added to the last facebook album on the list.(2009 part 7) Later in the day, Laura, Rike and I went down and hung out by the river, just enjoyed the great weather and got some sun. This is our (Laura and I) last week in Olgii before we both head to Ulaanbaatar and then to the U.S. for our vacations.

Above are a few pictures from today but click the last link to look at the rest of the pictures. Sometime in the near future I am going to start uploading new pictures to another photo sharing website, make a few slideshows and add the links to the blog. I think this might be a little bit of an improvement over just adding all the pics to facebook and putting the links up on here.


Oh yeah, here's the music video of the week. :)