Bright Lights Big City

I'm writing to you all from the Peace Corps office in Ulaanbaatar!!!! I will have 4 wonderful zawtai ("free") days until our In Service Training (IST) Conference at a nearby Ger Camp! I am staying with Shuree's brother's Mother-in-Law, so I save money because I don't have to pay for a room at the guest house, and I also get free delicious Mongolian food! (I offered to pay but she told me "You are like my daughter, now eat another piece of candy." ... I love Mongolians). Also, she has a real live photograph of her granddaughter with Steven Segal. It was so wierd looking through her album. "This is my son by the camel. This is our car in the desert. This is my classmates at the river. This is Steven Segal. This is from Naadam." Totally blew my mind!

My upper respiratory system is entirely healthy, hooray antibiotics! I have just gotten my very first flu shot ever O_o. I will be getting more booster shots next week. I also have Costalcondolitis which means that the cartilage connecting my ribs and my sternum is inflamed making things like moving and breathing very painful. Unfortunately nothing can really be done to "cure" it except wait, but I am taking a mild anti-inflammatory for the pain. Hopefully I will be all better by next week. This being sick/in pain thing is getting old ^_~.

I'm excited about IST and getting to see all my fellow M18s again! There is totally a heated, indoor pool in the place where we will be staying!!!!!! Maybe if I win enough money from Jacob, Fahd, and Chris in our 13 (a card game) tournament, I will be able to afford to go swimming (though I don't have a suit, oh well I can work it out some how).

UB is a real city. I miss little Cho, and my apartment, and my students, and my Mongolian friends. I'm glad to have a break, but it will be nice to go back when the time comes!