What a Wonderful Life

Let's start way back. On November 25th, I was told to wear my Mongolian Dell (Mongolian traditional clothing)to school. This day was 'National Wear Your Dell Day', so I was told. I went to school and saw that everyone had participated! It was wonderful to see all the young students, older students, and even teachers flaunting their winter dells. I've only had the opportunity to wear my dell 3 times now. But I hear as the new years comes I will have many, many more chances.



Justin and I got back yesterday from a 10 day trip to Ulaanbaatar. It was amazing! We left Friday (Novemeber 26). Some friends and us splurged and booked a fancy hotel for 3 nights. I was so excited to see all of them! Justin and I got to the hotel first, so it was awesome hugging them all one by one when they traveled in. One of my friends trains didn't get to UB until 6am Saturday morning. I felt like a mother staying up until all of her little ones are safe under one roof. I was so happy to be there with all of them. We stayed on the 11th floor of the Narantuul Hotel. Here are some pics from the 11th floor view.



While we were in UB we did a lot of shopping. UB has almost (*almost*) anything you want. We were sure to buy some real Heinz 57 ketchup in a glass bottle (Justin's favorite), some brown sugar, some tinsel to decorate our ger with, some green beans-- GREEN BEANS!!, and we found Justin an awesome winter hat and coat. I loved Justin's hat so much that I went and bought one later. Both fur hats and Justin's coat cost a total of 55,000 Tugriks. That's only about $50. But it all actuality is a lot for our small earnings.



On Saturday we had a huge Thanksgiving dinner put on by Peace Corps. Everyone brought their favorite dished. They cooked 10 turkeys! I baked two banana chocolate cakes. I had to decorate it for Thanksgiving!



Also, we received a gift from our first blog fan! It was such a great surprise! Some of our PCV friends that live north of us passed on a present for me and Justin. The present was from a co-worker of theirs and a fan of our blog. Thank you very much for your gifts! We appreciate it very much!




Then Monday-Friday all Peace Corps teachers traveled to a resort in the mountains just outside of UB. We had a week long training there. The view was amazing. Here are some pictures of our resort and the view.



Then finally, we spent last weekend in UB again with our friends. We stayed in a Guesthouse (Narantuul Hotel drained us of money, but this guesthouse was homey and the bed was so comfortable.) I never wanted to get out of bed. It was the first time I had slept on a mattress since we got to Mongolia (Narantuul had mattresses, but they were as hard as rock!). It felt like I was sleeping on a cloud. Oh, I miss it already! Here's a pic of our tiny Guesthouse room. This guesthouse also had a laundry service. So Justin and I washed all of the clothes we brought with us. It was washed by a real washing machine!!! There wasn't a dryer, so we had to hang dry all of our clothes. But we were just thankful that there was a washing machine!!! We haven't had washing machine washed clothes in over half year. Oh, the little luxuries!



These last several days have been so great. I had forgotten what it was like to be around friends/americans. It will be a while until Justin and I make it back to Ulaanbaatar though. The winter makes traveling tough. There aren't any roads, so we're riding buses on dirt and sand. We're thinking it won't be until this next summer when we will be able to go back. Gives us something to look forward to!