#anuujin

I woke up at 7:30 after setting about 8 alarms, starting at 5:50.  It was so hard to get up.  I didn't go to sleep until 1am last night, trying to clean up people's rooms [YES THEY WERE THAT BAD].   I also felt the need to salvage people's vodka and peanut butter.  This is what my room looked like before I went to sleep:

Anyways. I had wanted to get up early to finish packing.  Ulzii Akh called me and came to pick me up at 9:30. We went to the immigration office (by the airport). Ulzii Akh described it as "a prison."  It took a long time to get there and then it was a lot of lines and running around to different people.  At one point I got a ticket saying "there are 69 people in front of you"... But a lady from California let me cut her.  I can't remember why.  

The entire fiasco was the result of me asking for an exit visa for the wrong day? I said I'd be leaving on the 13th when we were asked sometime in May. But then I decided to stay in Mongolia until the 25th.  ...  I had to borrow Ulzii Akh's phone card to ask my parents to buy a ticket for me for that day?  So weird, I can't remember why it came to that. I had to pay him back 3000 tugrik later. 

It was super painful driving back to the hostel. We drove the same way we did on the day I arrived.  I was near tears comparing winter/summer, coming/going... 

Journal: 

9:39pm

I am sitting alone in the hostel room...  thinking about what Bethany/Bianca said about how amazing it is to always have someone to come home to.  I can't remember the last time I was this alone.  ... Will I miss people when I get back to America? Because I won't be in Mongolia so it won't be like that place is lacking them, you know?  We'll see. 

I kindof wish I was still in the Anuujin.  I guess there it felt like there were ghosts to comfort me. Here (at least right now) there is no one and nothing. :/ 

Thank god I'm living in the same area as Sam though.  He seems really cool, and I'm glad I am here with a potential friend. 

11pm

Esther just got back.  She's friendly enough, but I really really miss sharing a room with 8 other people that know me extremely well and who I don't have to be formal with.  :(  

I don't want to go back to America and have my memories of my time here be just a souvenir.  So much reentry stuff that we were given says to be prepared for people to not give a shit :/  

My arms look ridiculous, all the capillaries in my forearms burst from playing volleyball with Caroline at the farewell dinner. 

11:46pm

Sam just got back, he was out having a drink with a professor.  We had a nice chat.  Seriously, thank god he is here. 

farewell dinner. 

Nathan and I were kinda the only ones around at the hotel all afternoon... He came over to my room and asked when I was leaving for the farewell dinner and said to let him know, but then he came back to my room like two more times to show me the souvenirs he bought. when we started walking to SIT we ran into Bethany, who was already on the bus we were getting on.

we took this awkward picture at the war memorial thing:

It was me, Bethany, and Nathan for quite some time when we got to school. We talked to Ulzii Bagsch for a while, and met Sam, a former SIT student. 

Once mostly everyone arrived, we watched a slideshow,  prominently featuring Laura haha.  All the students ate at the table like we always used to. I sat between Nick and Kayla. Across from Bethany. In front of the tea. 

Khanda and Bolormaa came, an hour late. It was kinda awkward but whatevs.

The dinner was really fun. There was SO MUCH food.  It was sortof awkward to be around my UB host family after not having seen them for so long?  I ended up just talking to them about all the pictures on this board:

Other pics from that evening:

(favorite pic of Bethany/Nick):

When the dinner was basically over Caroline and I played volleyball in the driveway for a while. Then she went back inside to get her grades or something, and Nathan and I played soccer for a bit.  Then Laura came out and we played monkey-in-the-middle. 

Pictures of the last time walking away from school, by Sam? or Laura:

Afterward we went to Dubai with Sam.

When we were almost there Kayla called me and I had to give my sweatshirt to Laura and the volleyball to Bat and stop to dig my phone out of my bag. and people stopped with me and I remember being like "sorry! I can walk and talk" and Nathan was like "aww what the heck" because I literally said the other day when I was walking home with him and Jesse that I could not walk and talk...

I look completely deranged in this picture lol.

Nick and Tyler and I started talking about democracies and benevolent dictatorships but Nathan wanted to talk about something else haha. ...him Nick Laura Tyler and I (who got there first...) split a bottle of vodka. Yum. 

and then we stopped at the minii zakh near the Anuujin and then chilled in the hotel for a bit, and then went to Miracle Bar.  Baigal joined us!

Everyone was there except Elisabeth. And we were joined by two of Kayla's host sisters. 

Baigal kept trying to play "matchmaker" so to speak.  She put me and Sam together because we were talking earlier about how our birthdays are only a day apart haha. 

Jesse tried to teach me how to set my hand on fire. 

My first ever sip of whiskey:

Bethany wasn't drinking because she was taking medication for her injuries. 

Then we did karaoke. 

We sang the Boxer and idk, some other stuff. Basket Case. Aavaa Zorino (HAHAHA). Piano Man probably.  We attempted to sing "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" but the version that came on was WRONG and everyone got upset. 

Jesse left mid-session because he had to leave for his flight to Korea at like 4am.  It was very emotional, he said bye to everyone individually... yeah.  We sang "Here Comes the Sun" and then "Hey Jude" and then he left. 

I remember having my arm around Nick most of the time? and he gave me a kiss on the forehead and called me "the virgin Mary of the group"  hahahahahahahahahahaha. 

Sam took this picture when the rest of us decided to go back to the hotel:

I love this picture. It reminds me of this one from the beginning of the semester:

Except Nick's hand is in my hand instead of on my head, and Caroline's arms are around all of me instead of just my arm. ♥

Baigal left and was crying, she said she had been closer to our group than any group previously, just because her language skills had improved so much. 

...

I remember this night ended with me being so upset at Bethany and Nathan. For different reasons.  But just drunkenly upset.  I forgot everything by the next morning, I'm never upset at anyone for long, it's never worth it. Especially not on the last last day. 

Moved out of the apartment in the morning. 

We moved all our bags to the Anuujin storage room.  I took a cab there with Emily, Laura, and Jesse. 

We left for a retreat at around 9.  I was in Ulzii Akh's car with Kayla, Nathan, and Elisabeth.  Bat taught me a...hand game? ha. 

We stopped at the Chinggis statue again.  This time we went inside. And watched a hilarious video about how it was built. Everyone (everyone) is "mad" that it is owned by a private citizen, that this guy is making money off of what should be a public national historical site.  The video was so hilarious but I can't remember why. 

I don't remember who took this picture for us^^^

I remember standing outside the entrance when we were about to leave and Nick and Elisabeth were having a heated discussion about what alcohol does to blood.

....

We got to the camp and it was so so so beautiful.  We had a little pow wow under a tent.  And then we set up a ger all by ourselves.  We elected to not have any help (at first). We were told that the average Mongolian family could set one up in 45 minutes or less. 

Jesse freestylin': 

I don't know what Jesse is doing or where he is going with that

(Tyler.)

favorite picture of me/Nick.

So I have zero idea what happened this week.  I don’t have an itinerary from this week and apparently I didn’t write in my journal even once. … I’m pretty sure this was the time we spent holed up in the Anuujin writing final papers, studying for the language exam, and getting our ISP shit in order.  The only things we had at school were 4 hours of language a day and maybe an individual ISP meeting. Because I don’t know which day is which right now, I’ll just write down all the memories I have of this week and hope they fall into place sometime. 

Laura, Emily, and Nathan planned their trip to Khovsgol

Bethany and I made macaroni and cheese in our water boiler thing and discussed our lack of money to travel anywhere while watching coverage of the royal wedding/bin Laden’s death on the BBC

Nathan taught me how to play Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” on guitar, Bethany taught me how to play a few chords

Walter and I checked out some apartments for ISP time.  I also checked one out with Bethany later. 

Bethany took a video of Nathan, Laura, and Jesse not slapping each other in the hallway of the Anuujin. 

Nathan and I walked home from Dubai and he told me a story from his adolescence 

Morning:  Bethany, Nick, and I just chilled watching coverage of the royal wedding on the BBC. 

Afternoon: Bethany and I took a three-hour nap. 

Later Afternoon: Bethany and I made macaroni and cheese in our water boiler thingy. We spilled some water and the noodles were kinda hard to get out, but otherwise it was successful. We used milk/cream that we stole from breakfast and some tarag from the store. forks from the hotel. and cheese slices. and Mrs.Dash. and the box of mac and cheese was only 1200 tugrik. good deal. 

group assembly at Anuujin

Thursday morning. I get to the hotel at 8am and chill in the restaurant writing on my iPad waiting for my group to show up.  I had left early to search for some internets, but couldn't find any. (Papas Cafe wasn't open that early. Also I didn't even know about its existence yet.)  One of the hotel guys brought me some tea, it was nice. 

Ulzii Akh drove us back to the hotel, but told us not to get used to it. When we got back I don’t know what I did. Just sat and thought probably. Looked through the satchel. [Might post the exact contents of it later.] Took some pictures of the room and the view from the window, but those exact pictures don’t exist anymore. But then Laura arrived!   I was so excited to meet a new person. I think I was more talkative then than I have ever been in my life. I think I was glad I could be somewhat knowledgeable having been in the country a full 7 more hours than she had? meh.  ... She had been driven to the hotel by Tugso, not Ulzii Akh.  Will that be relevant later? I don't know, probably not.

...Kayla and I went to TDB, about a block down Peace Avenue, to try to get some money exchanged. We both had traveler's checks...  It ended up being a huge fail though, Kayla had already dated her checks so they wouldn't accept them, and they wouldn't accept mine because my signatures weren't similar enough.  So we ended up going to another TDB branch I think. ...