Happy New Year

I've been home for a week now, but haven't had a chance to post yet. I've been busy getting the business book and our Kindling submission together. I'll post them in some form once they're done. I had another full house this weekend and I'll have a few more guests this week too. Tsaagan Tsar should be even crazier this year, but that's not until after I get back from Vietnam. I'm heading to the city on Thursday in a Mercy Corps Land Cruiser. That makes the trip so much better. We leave for Vietnam on the 20th and will be gone for three weeks. There are nine of us going on the same flight and we'll be at the same hostel that night. Should be a good time. I'll do a post once I get there. Other news from this weekend is that we went sledding down the big hill in the middle of town. We used these big plastic sheets another volunteer had left behind. My camera wasn't working, but I'll get some more pictures if we go again. My whole face froze. Should be quite an image.

My New Year's in UB was really fun. After being in Arkhangai last year, I wanted to see what the city was like. I also wanted to be there with Nasaa since it's the one year anniversary of when we met and we'd never been in the city together. We didn't actually meet up until the 31st which is fine because the city is expensive enough on my own. That night we went to a UB volunteer's party. It wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be, but I did have to translate UB volunteer Mongolian into regular Mongolian for Nasaa. Most UB people have English speaking counterparts and hardly ever have to use the language. After the party, we went to Dave's for a drink before going to Sukhbaatar square. There were people setting of giant bottle rockets and general craziness. We headed right for the new addition to the Government House to see a concert on the steps. I haven't mentioned it before, but they just finished the addition. It's this giant pavilion with two Mongol horseman statues and a big statue of Chingiss Khan oddly reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial. The concert was all Mongolian hip-hop. It's good to see parts of American culture catching on here.

That's all for now. I probably won't post before we're in Vietnam, but check back for updates.