Sep 09 2007
buzz buzz buzz
Greets to all out there. I am getting ready to go to Khovd on Tuesday. Well, technically I am “getting ready” as “getting ready” for me includes sitting in coffeeshops for as long as possible, similar to enduring very hot baths or saunas, and drinking coffee until I can barely stand still, as it will be tough goings in the realm of coffee after that inevitable Tuesday.
It is also very possible that my writing and generally consciousness is being affected by this coffee, as I am writing rather sillily already.
Yesterday I attended an appreciation dinner for a UNFPA staffmember who is moving on to other ventures, including most likely another campaign to become a parliamentarian. This is good stuffs as she is a lady with quite a presence and with great interest in health matters that will be welcome to the policies out here. We ate at the ridiculously named “Grand Khaan Irish Pub” - which also somehow manages to integrate a green cloverleaf into its logo with a rather fearsome Chinggis Khaan. I ordered what is one of the less expensive menu items to offset my special-event gin and tonic, namely, a Mongolian noodle dish called tsuivan. I felt like when my dish was set down that all sorts of Mongolian heads snapped to see what I was eating. It was kind of silly, as everyone else there got “special” food like fish and chips, steak, and other foreign food, while I got the opposite.
Today I went to the black market to pick up a few things for my new place. I was encouraged by other volunteers to get a decent pan and knife there as those can be hard to find elsewhere, so I milled around looking at those kinds of things for the better part of the morning. The day before I picked up some groceries for Khovd that were painfully expensive but should last a bit. For example, a shaker of off-brand parmesean cheese was 7500 tugriks - about $6 and the price of several decent meals here. A bottle of olive oil was more than that, but I figure I use it so much it’s all good.
Also through a conversation yesterday with Bonnie I have been the subject of my roommate Suzie’s photography skizills. I innocently mentioned to Suzie that Bonnie would like to see where I’ve been doing and now she is taken with the idea of taking pictures of me in random places. This has become “Charlene - Playground Scenes” as that is where we tended to stop. So eventually you may see pictures of me on concrete camels.
That’s about it here at the moment. I was impressed (read: envious) of another PCV’s beautiful blog-site, so I’m going to update a few things on here hopefully, including a better list of things I like so people don’t seem so confused and what-not. I also found out about a damn website called Goodreads that steals my thunder of a website idea, so I’m using it now to keep track of books I want to read and have already read and what-not.
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Now playing: Travis - Sing
via FoxyTunes
