So my Christmas wasn't so blue after all. As you may be aware, my lovely girlfriend Kaede rode for two days on dismal buses halfway across the country to surprise me on Christmas Eve! She had told me she wouldn't make it out here until mid-January, but she had been LYING! Anyway, it was just about the best Christmas present of all time, especially seeing as she's going to be here until mid-January, and then I'm probably gonna go with her to UB and then Tsetserleg, where she lives until the end of the month. That's a hell of a lot of time together for star-crossed lovers like us. We'll have to find someone to take care of Jagaa while we're there. I think Kaede's gonna miss her more than I will. They're becoming fast friends. Above is a pic of my two girls having a doze. Ain't they the cutest?
Christmas itself was a lot of fun, especially if you like eating. Which I DO. We had a big potluck at Bob's. There was turkey and steak rolls and mac & cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry (actually lingonberry) sauce and pumpkin pie and apple pie and eggnog and Kenyan food from our friend Easterlina and a bunch of other stuff and even GUACAMOLE!!! That's right! Merrie had just returned from a brief check-up in Thailand, and she smuggled a bunch of avocados back with her. My god I'd forgotten how delicious they were. So we all stuffed ourselves and laid around under the Christmas lights and talked about a variety of things, and even though it felt nothing like Christmas, it was all very nice.
Over the last week Kaede and I have just been hanging out, doing crosswords and cooking good food and meeting and greeting the Choibalsan community. She's quite popular with all my counterparts and the like (just as I expected). Last night we went to my school's New Year's party (below is a picture of Zoloo dancing with Kaede, who is clearly pumped for me to be taking her picture... as usual). There was a lot of heavy drinking, which my counterparts told me was mandated by the administration... so much heavy drinking in fact that school was preemptively canceled for today. It was fun though. The highlight may have been when Kaede and I were forced to go up on stage and compete in a competition wherein each couple were given an animal and then made to impersonate two of said animal in love. And guess who won? Me and Kaede! Or should I say, Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel! We squeaked at each other lovingly and then Kaede pretended she was hungry, so I ran up to a pole which was clearly a tree in our little pantomime and I found her a nut. She ate it and we won! I think perhaps only because we were the sole couple whose performance wasn't totally perverted. You should've seen the bears.
Happy New Year!
ADDENDUM: I didn't manage to get this post out last night before we left to celebrate the holiday, so I may as well add in what we did. It was fellow volunteer Susanne's birthday, so we all went out to dinner and then back to her place to cook onion rings and french fries and generally be as ridiculous as possible in the last few hours of 2010. It was a good time. At midnight fireworks went off all over the city. Here's a pic I took of one from Susanne's chilly balcony. Hope you all had/are having a great time too!
Christmas itself was a lot of fun, especially if you like eating. Which I DO. We had a big potluck at Bob's. There was turkey and steak rolls and mac & cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry (actually lingonberry) sauce and pumpkin pie and apple pie and eggnog and Kenyan food from our friend Easterlina and a bunch of other stuff and even GUACAMOLE!!! That's right! Merrie had just returned from a brief check-up in Thailand, and she smuggled a bunch of avocados back with her. My god I'd forgotten how delicious they were. So we all stuffed ourselves and laid around under the Christmas lights and talked about a variety of things, and even though it felt nothing like Christmas, it was all very nice.
Over the last week Kaede and I have just been hanging out, doing crosswords and cooking good food and meeting and greeting the Choibalsan community. She's quite popular with all my counterparts and the like (just as I expected). Last night we went to my school's New Year's party (below is a picture of Zoloo dancing with Kaede, who is clearly pumped for me to be taking her picture... as usual). There was a lot of heavy drinking, which my counterparts told me was mandated by the administration... so much heavy drinking in fact that school was preemptively canceled for today. It was fun though. The highlight may have been when Kaede and I were forced to go up on stage and compete in a competition wherein each couple were given an animal and then made to impersonate two of said animal in love. And guess who won? Me and Kaede! Or should I say, Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel! We squeaked at each other lovingly and then Kaede pretended she was hungry, so I ran up to a pole which was clearly a tree in our little pantomime and I found her a nut. She ate it and we won! I think perhaps only because we were the sole couple whose performance wasn't totally perverted. You should've seen the bears.
Happy New Year!
ADDENDUM: I didn't manage to get this post out last night before we left to celebrate the holiday, so I may as well add in what we did. It was fellow volunteer Susanne's birthday, so we all went out to dinner and then back to her place to cook onion rings and french fries and generally be as ridiculous as possible in the last few hours of 2010. It was a good time. At midnight fireworks went off all over the city. Here's a pic I took of one from Susanne's chilly balcony. Hope you all had/are having a great time too!
So glad you had a wonderful holiday! Sounds like a fun month ahead! Hugs and happy new year. ~Renee
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